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Chapter Text

Jack was hungry and so had gotten out of bed and headed to the kitchen.

He thought he would get some of the good cereal while Sam slept, and tidy the evidence away before he woke up so he’d never know what he’d done. Jack knew his lectures on sugary treats and the risks to dental hygiene came from a good place, but Jack really liked Krunch Kookie Crunch, and he would make sure he brushed twice after. Flossing too would probably be a good idea. Sam’s warnings had been pretty dire.

Maybe Castiel would be awake, too, so they could talk. He liked the times they spent in the night, discussing Jack’s mother and Castiel’s life before and with the Winchesters, but they didn’t do it so much when Sam and Dean were around. There were always other things to do and say.

He turned a corner and stopped as he heard a low moan. It seemed to be coming from Sam’s room, and he approached slowly, wondering what was happening. The moan came again, and words began to form within it, “No, please no. Not her.”

Jack stopped outside Sam’s door, not sure what to do. He guessed Sam was having a nightmare. He understood how horrible they could be as he had his own, but he’d never overheard one of Sam’s.

From what Castiel had told him about the life Sam and Dean had before he’d been born, he guessed there were lots of things Sam dreamed about that made him sound like that.

Jack didn’t know what to do. If it was Dean, he would have kept walking, leaving him to break out of it on his own, because Dean was so much more guarded about things like that. Sam was different, though. He shared more of what he was feeling and encouraged Jack to do the same.

“Jess! No, Jess!”

The cry ripped through the quiet hall, and Jack reacted automatically. Sam sounded like he was in awful pain, and Jack couldn’t leave him with that alone. He opened the door and went into the bedroom. Sam was lying on his back, his legs tangled in the sheets that covered him and his hands raised in front of him as if he was reaching for something. His face was tight with pain, his head thrown back and the cords on his neck standing out.

“Jess!”

It was a howl of pain now, and Jack felt an overpowering need to make it stop. He went to the side of the bed and shook Sam’s arm.

“Sam, wake up! It’s just a dream.”

Sam’s fist swung out and collided with Jack’s jaw. Though it didn’t hurt, Jack barely recognized it as a punch at all, it shocked him enough to make him stumble back a step.

“No!” Sam sat bolt upright, his eyes roving the room and that same name coming in panting breaths. “Jess?”

“It’s me, Sam. It’s Jack.”

Sam’s eyes settled on him, and for a moment his lips parted with shock and he whispered, “Jack, what are you doing here?” and then his eyes cleared, and he said, “Are you okay?”

“You hit me,” Jack said.

Sam raked a hand over his face, pressing his fingers hard into his cheeks. “Sorry, man. You caught me off guard.”

“It’s okay,” Jack said with a small smile. “It didn’t hurt. You were having a nightmare.”

“Tell me about it,” Sam murmured.

He tried to sit up, but the sheets tangled around his legs stopped him. He pulled himself free and then sat back against the headboard and took a deep breath, seeming to be trying to shake off the nightmare, though he still looked haunted.

“Who’s Jess?” Jack asked.

“I don’t really…” Sam shook his head and sighed, seeming to be coming to a decision. “She’s someone I knew a long time ago.”

Jack knew it was more than that. You didn’t sound like you were in that kind of pain for someone you just ‘knew’. Jess, whoever she was, had been someone Sam really cared about.

“What happened to her?”

Sam winced with pain. “It doesn’t matter, Jack. I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“You didn’t. I was already awake. But I heard you, and it sounded like you were in a lot of pain. Do you want to talk about it? You said it sometimes helps to talk.”

Sam huffed a small laugh. “Yeah, figures that would come back and bite me on the ass. Should have let Dean talk to you about that stuff.”

“Dean told me to ‘put all that crap in a box and chase it with alcohol’,” Jack recited. “But I think your way is better. You don’t have to talk, but I’m listening if you want to.

Sam considered a moment and then spoke in such a quiet voice that Jack wasn’t sure he really wanted to be heard. “Jessica Moore was my girlfriend a long time ago. She died.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

“What happened to her?”

Castiel had said Sam and Dean had lost a lot of people in their lives, so many that they’d loved, but he’d never mentioned a Jessica before. The only girlfriend he’d mentioned that Sam had was someone called Amelia, and Castiel only knew the vaguest details of that relationship. He said she’d come at a difficult time in Sam’s life and that it hadn’t lasted. Though he hadn’t said it implicitly, Jack had thought Dean was something to do with the reason it hadn’t lasted.

Sam’s jaw twitched. “She was killed on Azazel’s orders by a demon that had possessed my friend.”

“Azazel… That’s the demon that killed Mary,” Jack said.

“Yeah. It was all part of some big plan. It’s over now, Azazel is dead, but killing him cost us a lot. Jessica was one of the things we lost, I lost.” He rubbed at his forehead, his brow creased with pain. “I’ve been thinking a lot about her lately.”

Jack thought there was more he still wasn’t saying, and he wasn’t sure what to do. He was trying to do what the Winchesters would do when he was unsure himself. This was a harder one to maneuver, though, as they would both do different things. Dean would dismiss it, maybe get him a drink and ask if he wanted to play cards. Sam would want him to talk about it

As it was Sam he was trying to help, he thought he should follow Sam’s lead.

“What happened?”

“Our love was this crazy, all-consuming thing,” Sam said, sounding vague as if he was speaking to himself, not Jack. “And then it was gone, just like that. I didn’t save her, and I should have.”

“Could you have saved her?” Jack asked. “Really?”

Castiel said Sam and Dean blamed themselves for things that were out of their control, Dean especially, and he wondered if Sam really could have helped the woman he loved or if it was what Castiel called misplaced-Winchester-guilt.

Sam looked up, and Jack saw his eyes were wet. “Yeah, I could if I wasn’t too busy fighting who I really was. I wanted to be normal so much, and because of it, she died.” He wiped a hand across his cheeks, smearing the tears that had fallen, and said, “I’ve been living with it all these years, trying to work around it so I can do what has to be done, but since Dad came back…”

Jack knew only the vaguest details of John Winchester’s visit and what had happened, but it had changed all of the Winchesters. In the time immediately after, they’d all been sad and quiet, but when that had faded, they all seemed to have gained a kind of peace that had been lacking before, especially Sam.

“Dad was Dean’s heart’s desire,” Sam said. “What he wanted more than anything. And I will never regret having that time with him again. It was amazing. I got to talk to him, make things right. I put one nightmare to bed that day, but it opened an old one again. It wasn’t my dream, see. I would have had Jess back if I’d been the one with that pearl in my hand. I would have had my chance to say sorry and goodbye to her. There was so much more I needed to say, but I never had the chance. And I never will.”

Jack looked away as Sam sniffed and wiped at his eyes again, giving him a moment to compose himself.

“Breakfast,” Sam said bracingly, and Jack chanced a glance back at him to see he was smiling and calm again, his eyes red but dry. “What do you want? I’ll make anything.”

“Pancakes,” Jack said with a wide smile. Second to Krunch Kookie Crunch, they were his favorite, and they would keep Sam busy long enough to—hopefully—let the dream fade. “With maple syrup and strawberry.”

Sam chuckled. “Sure, you can have both.” He swung his legs around the bed and stood, giving himself a moment to get his feet under him before going to the dresser and taking out clean clothes. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

Jack stayed a little longer, mulling over what had happened, and then he went to the library to find Castiel, to tell him what was happening to Sam and to get some guidance on what to do. But when he got there, he saw that the room was empty and there was a note on the table saying that Castiel had gone out and would be back in time for their breakfast. 

He sat down at the table and considered what was happening.

Sam had smiled at him and was going to make pancakes, trying to be normal, but he was hurting. Jack understood that pain as he used to feel it for his mother before he killed Michael, coming at the cost of at least a portion of his soul. After that, what he felt became confused sometimes. He wanted to help Sam, but he didn’t know how.

Donatello said he should do what the Winchesters would do, make them his moral compass, and he knew what Dean would do if he could; he would give Sam Jessica. And Sam would do it for Dean if their situations were reversed. They didn’t have his power so they couldn’t.

But what could he do to help Sam if not bring her back to life?

Sam came from the hall and said, “Pancakes are coming up. Dean’s in the shower. If you see him hanging around in here, send him to the kitchen. He can help make the bacon he’s going to want. If he argues, tell him I’m not his maid.”

“I will,” Jack said distractedly, examining Sam and seeing the lines in his forehead and the tightness of his eyes that were the results of his nightmare.

Sam clapped him on the shoulder and disappeared down the hall that would lead to the kitchen.

Jack got up and walked back to the bedrooms, coming to a stop in Sam’s room. He wanted to do something to help, it was the right thing, and that had been hard to define lately.

He’d never brought anyone back to life, but he’d also never been as practiced and powerful as he was now. He could do so much more than the angel that had told Dean Castiel was unreachable had imagined. Maybe if he tried, really stretched himself, he would be able to bring her back for Sam.

He had to at least try.

He didn’t know what Jessica Moore looked like, and he was sure he’d need to if he was going to find her, so he went to the box he’d sometimes seen Sam’s toying with that he knew he kept his treasures in. He had given Jack a box like that, and Jack kept the flash drive that had the videos his mother had made him, and photos of himself with Sam, Dean, and Castiel in it.

He was sure Sam would have a picture in his.

He opened it, feeling a prickle of unease, and lifted the book that lay on top that looked like a brochure for some kind of hotel for old people. Under that was a sheaf of papers that he set aside e, finding beneath the photographs he needed. There were many of Sam and Dean, looking younger than he had ever seen them, and some of Mary and Bobby, but not the Bobby that had come out of the other world; this was the one Sam and Dean had known before.

At the very bottom was a small picture, the kind that would be kept in a wallet, of Sam and a woman. Sam looked so young, almost Jack’s age, and he was so obviously happy. They were both wearing sweaters with Stanford emblazoned on the front. Their arms were around each other and they were beaming at the camera.

Jack turned the photo and read the note in Sam’s handwriting on the back. ‘Me and Jess, post-finals party’.

He flipped the photo over again and smiled at the woman’s face. “You’re Jess,” he murmured.

Knowing he needed to concentrate and be calm, he sat on the edge of Sam’s bed and took a deep breath.

His powers mostly worked automatically, doing what he wanted when he needed, but it was going to take effort to do this. He fixed Jessica's face in his mind and searched for a sense of her. He felt his grace spreading from him, reaching into the air, and warmth that touched his mind the way it had when he’d been opening rifts.

“Jessica Moore,” he whispered. “Where are you?”

There was a tug on his mind and his grace flared and then there was a flash of golden light as a rift opened, and then a shadow fell through it and landed in front of him to the floor.

Jack blinked and the light faded, revealing a woman crouched on the floor.

Her blonde hair was in a braid over her shoulder, and the black cargo pants and white vest and hoodie she wore looked dusty and old. Jack though the dark stain on the shoulder of the hoodie was blood. As she straightened up and looked around the room, he got a good look at her and saw it was the woman from the picture, though she was older, and there was no smile on her face now.

“I did it!” he cried, jumping to his feet.

Her hands snapped to her sides where there was a gun holster on one hip and a sheaf for a machete on the other. They were both empty, and as her eyes snapped from side to side, she looked shocked and fearful for a moment before her eyes narrowed. 

Jack barely saw it. He was overwhelmed with what he had done. She was here. Sam was going to be so happy.

“You’re Jessica! I’m Jack.”

She fixed her glare on him, and Jack was shocked to see that it was full of hatred. No one had looked at him like that since Dean had first met him.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve helped you.”

“Monster,” she growled.

“No, I’m Jack,” he said again. 

She spun on her heel and grabbed the chair from the desk, lifted it high into the air, and then smashed it down on his head.

It didn’t hurt, but it didn’t feel good either. Jessica gaped at him for a moment then grabbed a broken chair leg from the floor and ran out of the door.

Jack watched her go and murmured. “I think I did something wrong.”

Chapter Text

Dean buttoned his shirt and winked at his reflection in the mirror. He was feeling good, positive, and it promised to be a great day.

Michael was dead, no one was at the bottom of the ocean, and Jack seemed good with whatever aftereffects of burning off his soul there were. And Sam had said something about pancakes. If Dean could persuade him to add some bacon to the platter, everything would be pretty much perfect.

For the first time… ever… things were working for them. There was no Big Bad hanging over them. They were together and happy. He was going to enjoy it and do his best to ignore the little voice at the back of his mind that whispered it wasn’t going to last. It had to last. Finally, after years of trauma and pain, the world was working for them, and Dean wasn’t letting that change if there was anything he could do about it. 

He hung his towel on the hook and strode out of the bathroom, turning into the hall and whistling cheerfully. He was planning what they could do for the rest of the day. He was thinking about trying to pray Sam away from his card catalog project which Dean was sick of hearing about – and forcing him to watch a mindless action movie when someone slammed into his shoulder and then ran past him.

“Hey!” he shouted.

Dean’s hunter instincts kicked in immediately, helping him to recover his balance and set off running after the intruder almost immediately.

It was a woman, which immediately set his heart racing at the wrongness of it. Mary was off with Bobby somewhere, and she was the only woman that belonged in the bunker since Michael had wiped out Sam’s recruits.

He put on a burst of speed and threw himself at the woman’s back, tackling her to the ground. As they fell, Dean rolled her over so he was straddling her, pinning her arms to her sides with his knees and holding her down by her shoulders.

“Okay, who or what the hell are… Jess?”

He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was definitely her, though she looked different to the sweet-faced girl he’d seen the night he picked Sam up from Stanford all those years ago.

She was older, and there was a scar running down her cheek, but there was no mistaking those blue eyes. He’d had nightmares about those eyes burning with pain from the fire that consumed her for two years before they were replaced with new nightmares of his brother’s body on a dirty mattress.

Her lips parted with shock, and then her eyes hardened as she brought up a knee and slammed it into his groin. He collapsed forward, groaning in pain, and she shoved him off of her and set off running again as he lay panting and cupping himself where the fiery pain burned hottest.

“You’re not Dean,” she growled, and then her footsteps pounded the tile floor as she ran away from him.

Dean tried to roll over, but even moving a little made his groin feel like it was going to explode. It took a supreme effort to push down the pain and struggle to his feet as Jack skidded up to him.

“Dean! Are you okay? What happened?”

“Nutcracker,” Dean groaned.

“What?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Dean said, his voice coming clearer now. “Did you see a woman?”

“Yes. It’s Jessica. I think something went wrong.”

Dean’s stomach lurched. “What did you do, Jack?” He shook off the question as soon as he asked it. What Jack had done could be dealt with later. Right now. they had Jessica Moore running wild in the bunker, an unusually violent Jessica, and Sam was home. “Never mind. Come with me.”

He ran into the library and saw Jessica standing in the middle of the room, facing away from them. She had dropped the chair leg, but she was now holding the sword that they had displayed in its decorative stand on the bookcase.

She was gripping it tightly, and as Jack said her name, she spun and swung it through the air.

Dean lurched back, dragging Jack with him.

He knew just how sharp that sword was, and if she managed to reach one of them with it, it was going to end bloody. At least it would for him. Jack would shake it off and keep going.

Dean held up his hand and said, “Calm down, Jess. You’re safe.”

“You’re not a demon,” she snarled. “What are you?”

Pushing aside the fact Jessica Moore now knew about demons, Dean forced his voice to sound calm and factual as he said, “I’m Dean. You know me, right?”

“What did you do to me?” she asked. “Is it a djinn dream?”

Stowing another fact—she knew about djinns, too—Dean said, “No. It’s not a djinn thing. I know you’re probably confused, but if you put the sword down, we can explain.”

“Not a djinn,” she said, seeming to be speaking to herself. “Can’t be. This isn’t my nightmare or my dream. Is it Lilith?”

Dean gasped. “Lilith!”

She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, Lilith. Do you work for her?”

“Lilith…”

Dean gasped with dawning realization. This Jessica wasn’t just older, she was a hunter, it was clear in her stance and the look in her eyes that he recognized from Sam’s gaze and the mirror. She had to be from another of those crazy alternate universes—one where Lilith was still alive somehow and Jessica was a part of the real, hunting world.

“I am Dean, and this is Jack. I can explain if you put the sword down.”

“You’re not Dean!” she growled.

“He is,” Jack said. “Really.”

She snorted. “Yeah?” And his eye magically grew back did it?”

Jack’s gaze snapped from Jessica to Dean. “His eye!”

Dean knew he wasn’t going to disarm her anytime soon, so he kept his hands raised is a show of reassurance and said, “Look, Jess, I am Dean, but not the Dean from your world. This is Jack, he’s a Nephilim. He brought you here from your own world. Right, Jack?”

“I think so,” Jack said. “I was trying to help.”

Dean groaned. He didn’t know how Jack had found out about Jess, but there was only one person he could be trying to help by bringing Jessica here. Sam.

This was going to blow his mind wide open the pain again. How was Dean supposed to prepare him for this? It was Jessica, the woman Sam loved more than anything, but it also wasn’t. This wasn’t the version of her that Sam had lost. She was obviously a completely different person to the sweet college girl.

Would that matter to Sam or would he just be happy to have her back?

“No one here is going to hurt you, Jess, and you don’t need to hurt us. There’s a lot we’ve got to tell you and for you to see. You’re perfectly safe though. There’s no Lilith to…”

He trailed off Sam arrived at the other end of the room, his eyes wide as he took in the scene.

Sam sucked a shocked breath into his lungs that made Jessica narrow her eyes and ask, “Who’s that?”

The color drained from Sam’s face and he stopped edging towards the weapons cache he had been inching towards, one shaking hand pressing to his chest and the other reaching forward. “Jess?”

Jessica’s reaction was a mirror of Sam’s. She paled and her hands flew up, the sword dropping from her fingers as she turned slowly to face Sam.

Dean rushed forward and grabbed the sword then shoved it into Jack’s hands as he rushed towards his brother who looked as though he was going to collapse.

Before he could get halfway across the room, Jessica was passing him, running at Sam and throwing herself at him. Dean called a warning to Sam, but it was too late. She was on Sam, a cry ripping from her and Sam was catching her, crying her name.

Dean stood watching, an outsider to the moment of joy being shared between them as they embraced, and he wondered what the hell they were going to do.

He saw Sam’s happiness and gloried in it, but he had a feeling this was going to end badly.

This Jessica didn’t belong here, and he wasn’t sure she’d be able to stay.

The idea scared him as he had no idea how he was going to be able to get his brother though that kind of pain a second time. 

Chapter Text

Chapter Three

Sam was in the kitchen, mixing the batter for the pancakes and grumbling to himself. Dean had had more than enough time to finish in the bathroom and should have arrived to cook his bacon by now if Jack had passed on the message. Sam wasn’t going to do it for him, and he wasn’t going to put up with Dean’s moans if there wasn’t any for him to pile on his plate. Sam was tired and grumpy after the hellish night and unwilling to cater to his brother.

He set down the bowl and made his way out of the kitchen to look for Dean. He was almost in the library when he heard Dean’s strained voice. He hurried in and saw the strange scene.

Dean and Jack were facing him, confusion on Jack’s face and strain on Dean’s that became horror when he saw Sam. Opposite them, her back to Sam, was a woman wielding the long sword Dean had once tested his skills with and cut himself. She was swinging it around, and the sight of it so close to his brother made Sam gasp and start edging towards the cabinet where they kept some of their weapons. 

The woman stiffened. “Who’s that?”

Sam froze as he felt the blood drain from his face, and his hands shook as one pressed to the sudden aching in his chest and the other reached for her unconsciously. He knew that voice. He had dreamed of that voice in the seemingly endless years since he’d last heard it.

“Jess?”

The sword clattered to the floor and she turned slowly to face him.

His racing heart seemed to stop. It was really her. She was different, older, but it was the woman he loved. It was Jessica.

His head swam and he thought his legs were going to give way.

Dean started towards him but Jessica was moving too. Her eyes blazed with emotion he couldn’t define, and she passed Dean to get to him first.  Sam hardly heard Dean’s shouted warning, and then she was there.

In that moment, Sam didn’t care if she was coming to kill him, if she was some monster sent to torment and end him or maybe drive him mad with longing. He just knew that her face was going to be the last thing he saw, and he wanted nothing more.

His name ripped from her and his arms flew out and caught her as she collided with him.

She clung to him with surprising strength, speaking words of shock and love that blurred into one another, and he was doing the same. He clutched her like she was all that held him to the earth, and when she pulled back to look at him, he stopped both of their words with a searing kiss. She returned it with passion and they only broke apart to gasp air into their lungs and resume.

Dean cleared his throat but Sam ignored him. For Sam, all that mattered was Jessica. She overwhelmed him in every way, eclipsed everything else. She felt familiar and wrong at the same time. Where she had been soft to hold before, where he’d had to be gentle, she was now firm with muscle and holding him with as much strength as he was allowing himself to hold her.

They parted again and Sam started to cry, heaving sobs that shook him. She was crying, too, silent tears that slipped down her cheeks, and she wiped at his as he wiped at hers.

“I can’t believe it,” he breathed. “How did this happen? How are you here?” He kissed her again. “How can you be…”

“Jack,” Dean said, striding towards them, and Sam understood at last.

“I was trying to help,” Jack said a little defensively. “I did help. Sam is happy now.”

Sam stared at Jessica for another moment, seeing the other changes in her that he’d missed before: the hardness of a warrior in her eyes, the scar on her cheek.

He stared into her eyes and then kissed the scar. She was still his, no matter how she looked, no matter what world she had come from.

She smiled blissfully and said, “How did you get free?”

Sam’s exhilaration faded and he forced himself to say what he needed to. “I’m not your Sam, and you’re not my Jess. You’re from a different world.” He looked at Dean. “Right?”

“You want to tell him, Jack?” Dean asked.

“She came through a rift,” Jack stated, his satisfaction obvious. “I brought her to you.”

“Maybe we should sit,” Dean said. “And we’re going to need to do checks. No offense, Jess, but we’ve got to be sure.”

She nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

“I’ll get the kit,” Dean said, going to the cabinet and pulling out a leather bag that Sam knew contained a flask of holy water and a silver knife. He carried it back to them and set it down on the table. “Line up.”

He took the silver knife from the bag and rolled up his sleeve then cut across his forearm. Jessica watched carefully and then took the knife from him and pulled up the sleeve of her hoodie and cut across her own arm.

Sam hadn’t expected a reaction, he knew Jessica was real as he felt it in his heart, but he didn’t see the same surety in her eyes.  He cut his arm and handed the knife to Jack, then received the flask of holy water Dean had just drunk from and took a swig. Jessica watched carefully, a smile breaking over her face as she watched him lower the flask.

“It’s really you,” she breathed.

Sam nodded. “And it’s you. But…”

“But not quite,” Dean said then raised his voice. “Castiel, we’ve got a bit of a situation going on that you might want to be here for.”

“Castiel is here?” Jessica asked.

“You have Cas in your world, too?” Dean asked.

“Yeah. He’s been with us since John got back from Hell.”

Dean’s eyes widened. “Hold up! Dad’s alive?”

“Of course,” she said. “He brought John back after he made the deal to save Sam. He’s been with us ever since.” She looked aghast. “He’s not alive here?”

“Not for a while,” Dean said. “At least not really. We had him for… It doesn’t matter. Our worlds are obviously very different. You’ve still got Lilith, right?”

Her face fell and her hand crept into Sam’s. “Yes.”

“Let’s sit and talk,” Dean suggested, he looked up as someone hammered on the front door. “Jack, can you let Cas in?”

Jack hurried out of the room and up the stairs to the door as Sam and Jessica took their seats. Sam gave her space, not wanting to crowd this version of this woman he loved now that the initial shock and lack of caution of their reunion had passed, but she shifted her chair close to his and looped her arm through his, linking their hands on his lap.

Sam relished the contact. He could feel the tightness in his chest that had been there since the nightmares had started days ago begin to fade and finally be replaced with something that made drawing a breath feel like a joy instead of just a necessity.

Dean gave them a wary look and then pulled out his own chair as Castiel and Jack came into the room. Jack moved to Dean’s side and sat down, his face satisfied as he looked at Sam and Jessica pressed close together.

Castiel stopped dead in front of them and whispered, “Jessica Moore…”

“Hey, Cas,” she said. “What’s with the coat? It’s different.”

Castiel looked startled and plucked at the front of his coat. “I was forced to choose between hydration and laundry when I was first human. I chose right.”

“Human!” Jessica looked at Sam and he nodded. “You’re human?”

“No, I retrieved my own grace eventually. I am an angel again. How are you here?” His eyes drifted to Jack and he said, “What did you do?”

“I helped,” Jack said defensively. “Didn’t I, Sam?”

Sam squeezed Jessica’s hand and answered Jack without looking at him. “Yes, Jack.”

“How did you do it?” Jessica asked. “I was just in my motel when this crazy gold light appeared. I tried to get away from it, but it dragged me through.”

“It was a rift between worlds,” Castiel said. “There are endless worlds that follow a different path. The birth of two men that didn’t happen allowed an apocalypse to reign in one that we visited.”

Jessica gasped. “The apocalypse happened there?”

Dean nodded. “We finally stopped it, but, yeah, it happened. Didn’t it happen in your world?”

Jessica shook her head jerkily. “No. We stopped it before Lucifer could be freed, but…” She looked at Sam and a tear slipped down her cheek that Sam wiped away.

“I died, didn’t I?” He was sure it was the truth. The only thing that could have stopped an apocalypse was if he wasn’t there to kill Lilith, as any form of him that lived would have done it.

A haunted expression came to Jessica and she leaned towards him, as if there was a magnetic pull between them, as she answered. “No, what happened to you was worse than dying. Lilith took you. I haven’t seen you in over ten years. We believe you’re in Hell.”

Dean sucked in a sharp breath, and Sam tried to remember how to draw his own. Hell. Ten years of Hell. The eighteen months of the Cage had destroyed him. He didn’t want to think of what ten years could do or equate how many years that amounted to in Hell time.

“Sammy,” Dean breathed, looking stricken.

“It wasn’t me,” Sam reminded him, forcing a smile. “I’m fine.”

Jessica was watching Dean with a strange look on her face. “Now you look like my Dean,” she said. “Even with both eyes.”

“He lost an eye!” Sam said, his voice catching.

“Perhaps we should start at the beginning,” Castiel suggested. “Jessica, how did you survive Brady’s attack.”

“Brady?” she asked.

“Perhaps he wasn’t sent to kill you,” Castiel said. “In our world, you were killed on Azazel’s orders by a demon that was possessing Brady.”

Jessica looked stunned. “Brady’s a demon? He’s with us, on our side. He has been for years; ever since the siege of California eight years ago.”

“You might want to check him anyway,” Dean said. “But how did you survive? Did a demon come for you?”

“Yes. Sam saw him coming though, in his vision dreams, and you and John came for us. We went on the road and protected ourselves.”

Sam flinched. In her world, he had been a better man. In his world, he had as good as killed her himself.

“Makes sense,” Dean said thoughtfully, staring across the room. “Brady said they killed her because you were turning into a civilian. If you and Jess started hunting together, they would have gotten what they wanted. But you still have Lilith in your world, Jess? She was never killed?”

She looked aghast and her voice was so low Sam thought she was talking to herself. “She died here, of course, yes. The apocalypse…”

“It raged for a year before Dean and Sam stopped it,” Castiel said.

“Since we all stopped it,” Sam said pointedly. “None of it could have happened without you and Bobby on our side.”

Jessica was looking around the library, her eyes wide and confused. “So this is some kind of bunker that protects you from the word?”

“Technically, it protects us from everything. Well mostly,” Dean amended. “But our world is okay. Yeah, we’ve got crazy monsters and we’ve had much worse, but it’s still keeping on. Things are mostly normal.”

“That’s crazy,” Jessica breathed. “We always thought it would be worse. Maybe if we had let him…” She shook her head. “Cliff notes: Sam and I joined Dean and John on the road and we hunted Azazel together. After Sam was killed in Cold Oak, John made a deal for his life and had a year. Azazel was killed by Dean and we spent the year trying to break the deal, but we couldn’t do it; not even with Sam training his powers.”

“Sam was training!” Dean said, his voice close to a shout. “You let him do that?”

“Dean!” Sam snapped. “Calm down.”

Jessica looked puzzled by Dean’s reaction. “It was the only chance we had of saving John.”

Sam understood, even if Dean didn’t. Dean had never wanted Ruby to help him with his powers in the year running down to the deal, but that had been about saving him. If it was to save their father, there was nothing Dean wouldn’t do. How John had been persuaded when he had feared Sam’s fate enough to instruct Dean to kill him, he didn’t know, but he could see how it would happen.

Dean waved a hand and said, “Sure, okay, keep going.”

Jessica nodded. “John was in hell four months before Castiel and his garrison got him out, and before we knew it, Lilith was breaking the seals. Sam was still training to stop her, though it was different then as we were trying to stop him in the end instead of encouraging because of the…” She shot Sam an apologetic look.

“The blood,” Sam said. “Yeah. Me too.”

“We didn’t know until it was too late,” Jessica said. “And we tried to stop him, but he got free and went after Lilith. Cas found out Heaven’s plan and got us to Sam before he could kill her. When we heard what would happen, we stopped him, but Lilith wasn’t happy. Dean lost his eye that day and Sam was taken.” She stared into Sam’s eyes as she finished, her face haunted with pain. “None of us have seen him since.”

Sam pressed his lips to her forehead and whispered. “I’m sorry.”

She leaned into his kiss, her hand settling on his chest right over his heart, and they stayed like that for what felt like a long time, just feeling the presence of each other.

When they broke apart, she asked, “But you killed her here?”

“Yeah, and she’s not the only one,” Sam said, staring into her eyes and trying to prepare himself to share his shame. “I killed you, too.”

“Sam,” Dean growled. “It wasn’t like that, dammit.”

“No. I did,” Sam said, and then addressed Jessica who was leaning away from him, her eyes fixed on his face and her lips a thin line. “I had the dreams of your death, but I didn’t do anything. I thought they were just dreams. I was trying so hard to…” He shook his head brutally. “I let you die because I wanted to pretend I was normal. I told myself they were just dreams. The anniversary of Mom’s death was coming up and I’d been thinking about her a lot. I heard everything about Mom’s death from Dad when he was loaded. I thought that was it, but I should have known better. I let my Jessica die.”

She considered him for a long time, staring into his eyes and making him want to squirm, and then she said, “It makes sense. You didn’t want to believe it in my world either. I think it was because I was worried and spoke to John and Dean that you told us in the end. They got the story out of you and saw the real danger.”

“Me and Dad knew you?” Dean asked.

Jessica frowned. “Well, yeah. I met them not long after me and Sam got together. Didn’t you meet me in this world?”

“Not properly,” Dean said. “I hadn’t seen Sam for years until a few days before you died when Dad disappeared. Things went bad when Sam said he was going to college. He and Dad had a fight and I didn’t exactly step up. It was a nightmare.”

Jessica looked almost angry for a moment before she shook it off and said, “This world is so different.”

“Your world sounds crazy,” Jack said. “Like the apocalypse world Mary and I were in.”

Jessica’s eyes snapped to him. “Mary’s alive? How?”

Dean leaned back in his chair and raked a hand over his face. “That’s another long story.” He sighed. “And we’ll get to it, but I need a break from the crazy. Sammy, you still up for breakfast?”

Sam shook his head, his eyes fixed on Jessica. “No, not anymore. I want to just…”

Jessica nodded. “Me, too. Is there somewhere safe we can go?”

“Pretty much everywhere is safe,” Dean said. “But yeah, you can have the room. We’ll go fix our own breakfast. Come on, Jack, you can fry the bacon. Cas, you can make the coffee.”

As they got to their feet and wandered from the room, Jessica said, “Is there somewhere we can really be alone?”

“My room,” Sam said, getting to his feet and holding her hand as she rose. “We can talk there.”

She beamed at him. “Perfect.”

Sam put his arm around her, allowing himself to luxuriate in the exhilaration of touching her, and led her to his room. Perhaps they would talk. Perhaps they wouldn’t. Sam thought he would be happy to just sit and stare at her forever, but a part of him, the smallest, selfless part of him whispered that he couldn’t have forever; his time was limited.

Their world was safe now but hers wasn’t, and they were going to have to fix that. Sam had a responsibility to the version that had spent over a decade in hell.

He was going to have to let Jessica go again to save his other self.

Chapter Text

Jessica traced a finger over Sam’s bare chest and he shivered.

She laughed softly. “I forgot how ticklish you are.”

Sam smiled and ran a finger over her cheeks. “And I forgot how much you play on that.”

He had spent the most amazing two hours with her, loving and learning her body all over again, and now he was blissed out, lying with her in his bed and reveling in the absolute joy of the moment. They didn’t mean to fall into bed, they were just talking, but when it happened, it felt natural. For a while, he had forgotten about the truth of her presence and the fate of his other self in her world. All he saw and felt, all he cared about was her.

“Did you forget a lot?” she asked. “It’s been even longer for you.”

“I didn’t think so. I thought every moment with you was burned into my mind forever, but I lost scraps while I was trying not to think of them. For the longest time, I let myself remember, to lose myself in the memories, but then Dad died, Dean died, and the apocalypse came, and I had to change myself. I locked you away in a drawer and promised myself I would open it when things were peaceful again. And they are now—in this moment, they’re perfect—but when I let you out, it wasn’t the dream I imagined it would be. Is it like that for you since you lost Sam?”

“No, I never put you away.” When Sam started to apologize, she pressed a kiss to his lips to silence him and then went on. “We all—me, Dean, John, and Castiel—keep you there by talking about you. At first, it was all we could talk about because everything was about getting you back, and the world started to crumble, and we had to concentrate on other things, too. But when we’re together, in the moments we can stop and think, we talk about you and what we’ll do when we get you back.”

Sam drew in a deep breath and sighed it out. The truth of the situation tried to penetrate him again, and he pushed it away as he asked, “Is it really bad, your world?”

“In some ways, it’s like nothing changes. People get up and go to work; the governments come and go with elections; the rest of the world goes on, but the demons are always there. They bring the storms with them and everyone knows its time to hide again. Life stops for most of them and they just pray they won’t be the ones taken or killed. When the storm passes, when the demons move on, they go back to their lives.”

“What’s Lilith doing?” Sam asked.

“We don’t know for sure as no one had seen her in years, not since Abaddon, but we think she’s in Hell, waiting.”

“What’s she waiting for?”

Jessica buried her face against Sam’s chest. “For Sam to break. She wants him to kill her, to break the last seal. He’s held out all this time, though none of us know how, and we’re trying to find a way to free him before it happens. John says it’s a miracle it hasn’t happened yet.” She looked up. “He broke after forty years. You have no idea how ashamed he is of that, especially when Sam has been gone so long and hasn’t.”

“I can imagine,” Sam said. “It happened to Dean, too.”

He knew what it had done to his brother to pick up the blade in Hell and become the torturer instead of the victim, and he could imagine what John must be going through. To have lived as a protector and hero all his life—first in Vietnam and then as a hunter—and then to be broken in Hell must have brought him a whole new kind of torture.

Sam felt the moment had come to break his silence and tell her what he knew and planned, but then she kissed him again and his selfish side overpowered it. He could have just a little longer with her.

He pulled over onto his chest and ran his hands down her back, squeezing her to him. He would do the right thing, but the right thing was going to cost him this miracle, so he would take what he could of it now and come back to the reality of it later.

xXx

“What do you think they’re going to do?” Jack asked.

Dean snorted. “Probably braid each other’s hair. Didn’t you read that book Sam gave you on the facts of life?”

Jack looked unperturbed. “Yes, it was very factual and unnecessary as I learned everything I needed to know from my mother.”

“Which is not at all weird,” Dean muttered.

“And I watched some of the videos you sent me,” Jack went on. “I liked the book better. It wasn’t so… sweaty. But that’s not what I mean. Obviously, they’re having sex, but I mean what are they doing next? Is she going to stay here with us?”

Dean sighed. He was pretty sure he knew the answer.

Even if Jessica was willing to leave her world behind—leave her Sam—their Sam would never let her do it. A version of himself was suffering unimaginably in her world, and Sam wouldn’t going to let that lie. Dean knew his brother.

As he had known from the moment Sam and Jessica touched, it was going to end in pain, but it was going to be his brother’s pain, not hers. She was the one that would have everything she wanted. That was if it worked. If it didn’t, it wasn’t only Jessica’s Sam that would be destroyed. Dean knew his brother wouldn’t be able to handle it either.

“I don’t think so,” Castiel said. “It sounds like the world she left behind is in trouble and she’s a warrior now. I never imagined that was what would become of Jessica Moore.”

Dean frowned. “How much do you know about Jess? I didn’t think you guys were ‘walking among us’ back then.”

“We weren’t,” Castiel said, looking abashed. “But I have visited Jessica Moore’s Heaven more than once.”

“What’s it like there?” Jack asked curiously.

Dean wasn’t sure he wanted to know, he’d seen himself that Heaven could be a pretty big disappointment, but he couldn’t help but listen as Castiel answered.

“It’s a beautiful one. She has her Sam and they sit beneath blossom trees in a garden.” He glanced at Dean. “It’s not truly a shared Heaven, it’s not Jessica that Sam will share that with, but it’s a place of happiness and peace.”

Dean nodded. “Good. She deserves that. Like this one deserves her Sam.”

“But she doesn’t have him,” Jack said. “He’s trapped.”

“For now,” Dean said darkly.

When Jack looked at him blankly, he pressed his fingers to his temples and said, “Sammy’s not going to be able to let them all suffer in that world and that Sam in Hell. I know my brother. I can tell you how he’s going to do it, too. He went to Hell to pluck Bobby when he was doing the trials though a door into Purgatory. He’ll do it again. He’ll get Sam out and take him back to his family.”

“But how much will be left of him?” Castiel asked.

Dean squeezed his eyes shut as a spike of pain pressed above his eyes, born of the tension he was feeling. “Honestly, I don’t know, and I don’t know if Sam has thought that far ahead. The Cage memories would have killed him if you hadn’t done what you did. Over a decade of Hell… What the hell kind of mess would that leave behind? But he’ll do it anyway. He’ll do it for Jess, even though it’s going to destroy him. All we can do is hope that he’ll let himself have time with her before he has to say goodbye.”

“You mean he will want another rift?” Jack asked. “I’ll need to open a door to that world again?”

Dean nodded. “He’ll come ask you soon; I guarantee it.”

Jack smiled, a light in his eyes. “But he doesn’t have to get it. I can tell him it’s impossible, that I can’t find it. You can’t do the spell you used before because it needed archangel grace, and there’s none left. Is there, Cas?”

“No,” Castiel said, “Though you took in Michael’s, it would have changed when it met you. Grace or no, you are still a Nephilim and you have power. Michael’s grace is yours now. It wouldn’t work.”

Jack grinned. “Then he doesn’t have to lose her. He can be happy.”

Dean was so tempted. Sam could have Jessica, and she could have the man she loved. The fact they weren’t technically the people they loved first, they would have different memories, that didn’t have to matter. They would have a chance to build new memories together. They could have a life. They were both young enough to start over together. In this world, without a huge threat, they could settle and be the kind of normal they’d once dreamed of sharing. Hell, they could have a family.

The thought of what that would mean to Sam swelled inside him and he found himself smiling. He imagined a child with Sam’s dimples and Jessica’s hair. A kid that would call Dean uncle that he could watch grow and change. A life that was impossible in either of their worlds now.

But it wouldn’t work.

Dean’s smile faded. Sam would never allow himself that happiness. If Jack couldn’t open a door, he would spend the rest of his life finding another way to get there. There would be no life with Jess, no children; there would just be an endless search for answers.

“No,” he said dully. “Trust me, it wouldn’t work. When he comes, you’ll have to do it, Jack.”

“But he’s happy now,” Jack said. “Why do we have to let that go?”

“Because it’s Sam,” Castiel said quietly. “He won’t let himself be happy for long.”

“That’s stupid,” Jack said. “He’s stupid.

Dean huffed a laugh. “You’re just working that out now?”

“But he loves her,” Jack said, annoyance etching lines into his face. “And I did this for him. He’s supposed to be happy now she’s here.”

“And right now, he is,” Dean said. “But he’s going to have to do the right thing. Maybe you’re not making our Sam happy, but if it works, you’re making another family very happy. You’ll be reuniting them. Think how amazing that’s going to be.”

He understood how Sam would feel about the other version of himself in that world, trapped in Hell, because there was another version of Dean out there, too, and he was in his own kind of hell knowing his brother was trapped and hurting. He would go with Sam and help him to save that version of himself, too.

He got to his feet and dumped the dirty plates in the sink.  Breakfast had been delicious, but now it soured in his stomach. He wanted a drink, a real drink, but if he was right, if Sam came ready for action, he was going to need to be sober and ready to fight.

And he was definitely right. He knew his brother.

Chapter Text

Chapter Five

When Sam and Jessica appeared again, Jessica was wearing one of Sam’s own vests, hanging baggy across her shoulders, and her hoodie tied around her waist. They were both wearing the sated smiles Dean had expected after they’d closeted themselves away for hours, but there was tension in Sam’s eyes that told Dean his thoughts had already moved to that other world and what had to happen there.

“Hey,” Dean said. “Finally, you two come up for air. You should probably hydrate.”

Jessica grinned but color flushed Sam’s cheeks, and he glared.

Dean held up his hands. “No shame, man. If I’d had the shock you’d had this morning, I’d need to lie down for ten hours, too. The fact you got to do that with a hot woman beside you is just the cherry on top.”

Jessica stretched and yawned. “Yep, I feel rested.”

Dean snorted. “Sure you do.”

She stared at him a moment, a smile playing around the corners of her lips. “You’re so different.”

“You mean he’s not a crass jerk in your world?” Sam asked.

Jessica shook her head, her eyes still on Dean. “No, not anymore. Now he’s . . .  a hardened warrior.”

“I’ve always been a warrior,” Dean said.

“Not like my Dean you haven’t,” she said, a touch of sadness in her voice. “He’s lost so much. You still have your brother.”

Dean nodded and looked away. He was a warrior, he had been since he was a kid. He’d lost a lot, but he still had Sam, and the other version of himself didn’t. That would make a huge difference to the kind of man he was.

“Where’s Jack?” Sam asked.

“He’s gone out for pizza with Cas. Do you need him?”  

“Yes.”

The one word was simple, but the emphasis told Dean Sam had decided it was time to do the right thing, to begin the journey that would possibly break him.

Jessica leaned against his side and looked up at him. “And are going to explain what this is about then? Because you’ve been weird since we got out of the shower, and I thought that was actually pretty awesome.”

Dean grimaced. “In our showers, Sam! Seriously? Your bedroom not enough for you?”

Sam shrugged, his attention not all the way on the room, and said, “It’s not like we used your room.”

Dean pointed an accusatory finger at him. “Don’t ever, and I mean ever, do that, or I will make you wish you’d never been born.”

Sam’s eyes cleared and he smiled. “Noted. Want a beer?”

“Sure,” Dean said, and Jessica nodded.

Sam kissed her cheek and wandered from the room. Jessica sat down at the table and patted the spot beside her and said, “Sit. I want to talk to you.”

Dean obeyed, wondering what it was she wanted to talk about. “Go ahead. You don’t have long. Sam’s not going to leave you sitting here with me when he can be with you.”

“What’s going on with him?” she asked. “I know my Sam and wouldn’t need to ask, but this one is more guarded and quiet.”

“Sam? Quiet?”

“Yes. Don’t you see it, too?”

Dean considered. It was true Sam was a little more reserved when it came to the chick flick moments these days, and he wasn’t the chatterbox he’d been growing up, but was he that different?

The more he thought about it, the more he saw he was and had been for a while. He couldn’t pinpoint the moment it changed, maybe sometime around the Mark of Cain troubles, but Sam was different.

Dean was surprised he’d missed it so long. He also wondered what he was supposed to do about it. How could he make him talk when he’d spent most of Sam’s life trying to avoid “talking it out.”

“Okay, yeah, he’s different,” he agreed. “And he’s definitely not himself right now, but it’s not my place to fill you in. When he’s ready, he will do it himself. I don’t think it will take long.”

“Is it because I’m here?” she asked. “He seemed so happy before.”

Dean patted her shoulder. “It’s definitely not because you’re here, not the way you’re thinking. That’s made Sam happier than I’ve ever seen. But his mind goes a mile a minute and he’s got a lot to think about. He will tell you though.”

Sam came back at the same moment there was a knocking on the door. “Got it,” he said, changing direction and going up the stairs, coming back a moment later with Castiel and Jack both laden with pizza boxes which they set down on the table.  Sam handed around beers from the six-pack he’d brought in.

Dean flipped open the top of the closest pizza box and inhaled deeply. “Hell yeah. This is the stuff.” He grabbed a slice, folded it, and took a huge bite.

Sam sat beside Jessica, nudging his chair close enough that their elbows brushed as they took their own slices.  Jack and Castiel sat opposite.

Jack dove into the pizza with a look of glee, saying, “I’m starving,” as Castiel gave him an indulgent smile.

For a while, there was only the sounds of eating and the clink of beer bottles being placed back on the table. Then Sam cleared his throat and said, “There’s stuff we should talk about.”

Dean swallowed the bite of pizza that had just lost all flavor and said, “Maybe not now, Sammy. Why don’t you sleep on it a night before throwing us all into more drama?”

Sam looked surprised and then nodded. “Should have known you’d get there before me.”

“Probably not before, but I am your brother,” Dean said.

“Baby, what’s going on?” Jessica asked.

 Sam stared at her, his eyes sad, and said, “I think we can help you.”

“Help me how?”

“By taking you home and getting your Sam back. There’s a way. Jack will need to open another rift and . . . Jess?”

Jessica clapped a hand to her mouth and her eyes swam with tears that fell when Sam stroked her cheek.

“You can get him out of hell?” she whispered.

Sam nodded. “If your world is really like ours, then yes. There’s a way into Hell at least. If we all go, Jack too, they shouldn’t be able to stop us taking him. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s definitely dangerous, but we can do it.”

Jessica lowered her hand slowly and pressed it to her chest. “You don’t have to come if it’s dangerous. Just tell us and we, -  me, Dean, John, and Cas -  can go.”

“No,” Sam said. “It’s going to take us all. I’m not letting you go into this without stacking the odds as much in your favor as possible.”

Jessica smiled sadly and kissed him softly. “Thank you.”

“You’re thinking of the Purgatory door,” Dean said.

“Yes. I got Bobby out alone, but that was against Crowley’s mooks and he wasn’t well guarded. If Lilith is still in charge, you can bet they’re going to be a damn sight smarter, battle-ready and multiple. He’ll be guarded. But I want to do more than just get him out. I don’t want to bring him out to a nightmare world.” He locked eyes with Dean and said, “The Trials.”

Dean’s eyes widened and his breath caught. “Trap them all. Yes! Even Lilith would be stuck in the Pit.”

“What are you talking about?” Jessica asked.

“There are these trials that let you close Hell,” Sam said. “We were doing them, but I… I didn’t finish. But we can do them for your world. We have to kill a hellhound, save an innocent soul from Hell and cure a demon.” Seeing her quizzical look he said, “It’s possible. When you’ve done all the trials, there’s this spell to do, and then the gates will close. Every demon on earth would be dragged back there and trapped.”

“That would save our world,” Jessica breathed. “Lilith is behind everything. If there were no more demons, it would be over; no more war. Okay. Cure a demon. You have to tell me how to do it.”

“No!” Sam said, his voice almost a shout.

Jessica flinched, seeming stunned. Dean was willing to bet Sam had never raised his voice to her before.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because whoever does these trials, dies,” Sam said. “It’s the ultimate sacrifice.”

“Then who will do them?” she asked.

Sam smiled slightly. “Me.”

Dean gaped at him. “You!”

“Yes. I’m the obvious choice. Our world is okay now, Dean. We’ve got peace. I’m not needed for some big fight anymore. I can finish what I started back then. I do the trials and save Sam, save Jess and Dean and Dad.”

Dean jumped to his feet. “No way, Sam! You can’t do this.”

Sam rose, too, his face aggravatingly calm. “I can and will do this for her.” His eyes flickered between Dean and Jessica.

“No, you won’t,” Dean snapped. “You can’t.”

Sam frowned. “You don’t think I would do it? It’s Jess, Dean, you know how I feel about her.”

Dean spat a curse. “I know exactly how you feel because I saw it, I was there after you lost her, but if you think that means you have to die to prove some point . . .”

“It’s not about proving a point. It’s about doing something to save myself and my family. They’re us, Dean, you and me and Dad.”

“Sure, they’re us, our family, but what about your family here?” Dean asked. “What about me?”

“You’ll be fine,” Sam said dismissively.

Castiel shifted uncomfortably and Jack’s eyes moved between them both like he was watching a tennis match.

“I’ll be fine!?” Dean shook his head brutally. “I know you don’t believe that. You’ve seen what happens when I lose you. Do you think I won’t do it all again this time because you’re doing it for Jess?”

Sam started to speak, to argue, but Dean spoke over him, his tone hard with his anger.

“I will do it. Like you said, it’s our family, that Sam is my brother. I will get him out and slam the gates, and you can be the one that gets to live after.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s me this time, Sammy.”

“You can’t think I’ll let you do that,” Sam said, eyes wide and face pale.

“But you think I’ll let you?” Dean asked with a snort. “Now you’re getting it. How about we see who’s faster when we get there. Whoever nails the hellhound first, gets to do the rest.”

Sam smirked. “I won that race last time.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, you did, but this time I’ll have learned my lesson.”

Jessica cleared her throat. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be either of you. I can…”

“No!” Sam growled.

“Why don’t we wait until we actually reach Jessica’s world and gather everyone before we start fighting over who gets to die,” Castiel said dryly. “Whatever happens, we’re not going to be able to do that for at least twelve more hours.”

“Why not?” Sam asked.

“Because Jack needs time to prepare and replenish himself,” Castiel said. “It takes a lot of energy to open a rift. Give it until morning and then we will be able to try.”

Jack raised a hand awkwardly, looking like a kid in school. “I think I can—"

“You cannot,” Castiel cut him off. “You need to rest. We can gather here tomorrow at nine and then we can prepare what we’re going to need to take with us.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, sure. Tomorrow.”

Jessica stood and entwined her fingers with Sam’s. “I can wait.”

Sam smiled. “Yeah, me, too. We’ll go somewhere else tonight.”

Jessica beamed. “Can we find somewhere to look at the stars? We used to do it all the time, me, Dean, John, and Sam, but it’s been years. Where are we? Is there a beach nearby?”

Dean laughed. “We’re in Kansas, so no, but there’s a few good places for stargazing around here. You can take the Impala. The keys are on the hook in the garage.”

Sam thanked him, and he and Jessica hurried from the room together.

Dean sat down again and took a deep draw on his beer. “You going to be good for this, Jack?” he asked. “If you need longer than tonight, we can wait.”

“I don’t need to wait at all, do I, Cas?”

Castiel smiled slightly. “No. You could do it now, but I thought Sam deserved another night with Jessica.”

“Yeah, before he went off on some suicide mission,” Dean said bitterly. “The fact that that bitch thinks he’s got a chance in hell of… What’s funny, Cas?”

Castiel was smiling widely, his eyes gleaming, but at Dean’s question, he cleared his throat and said, “Nothing funny, really. But watching Winchesters arguing amongst each other over who gets to die next does have a certain degree of humor. I am amused because you’re both missing a very obvious point. There is another Dean in that world, and a John. Do you really think either of them are going to let someone else sacrifice themselves for their family and world?” He shook his head. “Neither you nor Sam are going to have a place in this as anything more than advisors. Winchesters take care of their own.”

Dean stared at him for a moment and then huffed a laugh. They had both been very stupid. He didn’t want any version of his family or himself dying, but if it was a choice between them and Sam doing it, he knew which one he would choose.

He would never choose to give up Sam.

Chapter Text

Sam and Jessica were sitting on the hood of the Impala, one blanket shared over their shoulders and another across their legs. Sam wasn’t particularly cold even without them, but the feeling of Jessica sitting close to him, sharing the warmth, was something he wasn’t going to deny himself when he had so little time with her left.

Jessica raised her head from where it had been leaning against his shoulder and said, “What are you thinking?”

Sam smiled slightly. “You used to ask me that all the time.”

“I did. You were always thinking hard when you got quiet.” She turned her face to kiss his cheek. “You went to a place where I couldn’t join you, and the only way to bring you back was to ask.”

“I was always happy when you did. Dean says I think too much, and he’s probably right, but in this world, coming back isn’t always a good thing, not until recently anyway. Not that it’s always good in my head either.”

He thought of Lucifer and The Mark of Cain, when his thoughts had been worse than dark, lost in two kinds of torture, the one he suffered and the one his brother suffered when that thing was on his arm. Coming out of those thoughts had been coming back to something just as hard to face—Leviathans, no Bobby, Dean being dragged down into the darkness of the Mark.

“No, I guess it’s not.” She sighed. “But it’s good here now?”

“It is,” Sam said.

She shifted so she was looking at him fully and her bottom lip caught between her teeth as her eyes bored into his. “So why do you want to leave it behind?”

Sam frowned. “For you, of course.”

“I don’t mean coming to my world. I mean those trials. They’ll kill you, but you’re fighting Dean so you can do them. You’re finally living on the flipside. Why would you give that up?”

Sam lowered his eyes. “Still, for you. I couldn’t save you before, but this time I can. I can make your world a good one and I can bring your Sam back.” He sighed. “I know you’re not really my Jess and it wasn’t you that I let die, but you are to me. I see you and I see the woman I loved. I touch you and I feel the same spark I always did. You don’t belong to me, you belong to that version of me in Hell, but I don’t feel that. You’re mine and I can do this for you.”

Her eyes grew wet. “I never deserved you, and I always knew it. I felt like I’d won the lotto the first time you kissed me, and when you told me you loved me, I knew that I would never be the same. And that was before I saw the real you. I hadn’t seen you running into metaphorical burning buildings to save strangers day after day. I’d not seen you embracing the powers that scared you to save your father. I just loved you for who you were to me. Every day we spent together made me love you so much more, and then I lost you. And now I have you again. You aren’t my Sam, not really, but I don’t feel any different when I’m with you to when I’m with him. You are the man I love, and you’re proving it by being willing to give it all up, your world, your family, your life, for me to have mine back.”

Sam shook his head, a smile playing on the corners of his lips. “I was the winner in our relationship. I never told you about hunting because I didn’t want you to be scared, but I should have had more faith in you. You’re amazing. You gave everything up in your world and became a hunter with me. I’d lived in that world before college, but it still scared me. You would have handled it better than I did.”

“I was scared, and sometimes I still am, but I’m fighting on the right side, for the right reasons, and that makes it easier.”

Sam kissed her cheek. “And I’ll do the trials again for the right reasons. Doing it for you… I can’t imagine something better to die for.” His lips quirked into a smile. “I’ve died before, Jess, more than once, and each time I told myself I came back for a reason and tried to live up to that. This time I won’t come back, but that’s okay, because my reason will be over. It will be you.”

She wiped at her face and Sam saw the sparkle of tears on her hand in the moonlight. “I’d do it for you,” she said quietly.

“I know you would.” Sam kissed her hair and buried his face against its sweet smell, the same shampoo he used in the hair he’d washed himself that evening. “But I’m going to need you. Sam, the one you lost, is going to need you more than anything when he comes back. I went to Hell, too, once, and I was there a long time. It almost destroyed me. Dean saved me at first, and then Castiel took away the worst of it. I hope we can do the same for your Sam, but even with that, if we can take it away, he’ll need you.”

Jessica nodded and new tears slipped down her cheeks. “I’m scared for him.”

Sam couldn’t tell her she didn’t need to be scared, as she truly did. The Hell his other-self had experienced was going to have done untold damage, and even if they were able to recreate the wall Death had put up for Sam, he was going to have to deal with losing ten years of his life—ten years of his life with Jessica as well as the temptation of the itch of the wall. He was going to suffer. Thankfully, he would have the woman and family he loved to help him through it.

His Dean was going to suffer, too, but he would have Mary, Castiel, and Jack to help him through it, and he would know Sam had done what he’d needed to do to finally have true peace. Sam thought that would help him.

“How are you going to stop Dean being the one to do the trials?” she asked. “He seems pretty set on it, too.”

“I’ll find a way,” Sam said. “If reasoning with him isn’t enough, I’ll have Cas and Jack help me. I can make them understand why I need to do it, I know, and they’ll want to protect him.”

“They’ll want to protect you, too.”

“Yes,” Sam agreed. “But they will let me go for this. It’s Dean that’s blinded. He’s been saving my life forever.”

Jessica nodded. “So has our Dean. When you were killed in Cold Oak, John had to knock him out and tie him up to stop him making a deal. He was fighting to do it.” She smiled slightly. “He had a concussion that lasted days.”

Sam huffed a laugh. “That’s what I’ll do then. If I can’t get Cas and Jack onside, I’ll knock Dean out.”

“You really think you can?” she asked doubtfully.

Sam considered. “It would be hard. We’re evenly matched, but if I catch him off guard…” He sighed. “Maybe not. I’ll have to reach him some other way. No one in the world knows me better than Dean. I’ll have to make him see this is what I need. And he’s always given me that when he can. I know it’s going to hurt him, and I hate that it will, but he’ll know I can’t let anyone do it for me.”

Jessica tilted her head up and kissed him. Sam tasted the salt of tears on her lips.

“I love you, Sam Winchester,” she said. “I have never and will never love anyone or anything more. Maybe I’m not your Jess, but I know she loved you just as much.”

“Your mine right now,” Sam said. “And that’s what counts.”

It was what was going to make it possible for him to say goodbye to his brother and the rest of his family for the last trial. It was going to be his strength when he gave her up and placed her back in the arms of the Sam that she needed.

xXx

Dean gave up trying to sleep after two hours tossing and turning. He knew he needed to rest, to be on top of his game the next day, but rest wouldn’t come. He was consumed with what was happening and what was still to come. They were going to that world to save it and those version of themselves, and that was going to be easy compared to what came after—watching Sam saying goodbye to Jessica.

Sam wasn’t going to die. No matter what he thought and wanted, Dean wasn’t letting it happen. If it came down to it, he would knock Sam out and do the trials. If not, if his other self or John did them, he would play his part. But no matter who did them, who died, Sam was the one that was going to lose the one he loved and Dean didn’t know if his brother was going to be able to handle that.

He got out of bed and went to the dresser for clean clothes then wandered into the bathroom to use the toilet and clean up. When he came out fifteen minutes later, clean, dressed but still tense, he went to the library where he was sure he would find Castiel waiting.

He was right that Castiel was there and not that surprised that Jack was, too. The kid needed less sleep now he had grace again, and he had to be antsy after the way the day before had gone and with what was coming next. Jack’s experiences in a different world had left their mental scars, and this new one promised to be difficult, too. Dean wasn’t that calm either.

They both looked up as he entered and Castiel pushed a cup of coffee towards him as he took his seat.

“I didn’t think you liked coffee anymore, Cas,” Dean said. “Didn’t you say it tasted of atoms or something.”

“Molecules,” Castiel said. “And I prepared this for you. We heard you moving around and I was sure you would appear soon.”

Dean grimaced. “The fact that you can hear me on the crapper is one of those things I could have lived without knowing, thanks.”

“Sorry,” Castiel said.

Dean sipped the coffee. It was hot and strong, just the way he liked it, and he murmured thanks as he set the cup down again,

“Any sign of Sammy and Jess?” he asked.

“No,” Jack said. “I can go look for them if you like.”

Dean laughed. “You probably don’t want to do that, Jack. I’m guessing it’ll make the educational videos I sent you look tame.”

Castiel frowned. “They should be rested for we go to that world. I don’t think we’ll be able to rest much there.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, they should, but if you had one night with the woman you loved left, would you sleep?”

“I’ve never loved a woman,” Castiel said.

“Trust me, they’re not going to waste it sleeping. We’ll load them with No-Doz if we need to. And they’ll have time to rest some in that world. It’s not going to be easy to get the trials done. Just because we know what they are this time, we still need to find a hellhound and rogue reaper. It’s not going to be easy.” 

Getting Sam to sleep was going to be the least of their problems. If Lilith found out they were there, they were going to be fighting demons constantly until they could get the trials done. They had Jack on their side, and he was something no one in that world had ever faced, but if they were smart, they might find a way to slow him down with sigils. Dean had to hope they were dumb.

Dean toyed with his cup, turning it around by the handle and then pushed it away and said, “Jack, you’re going to need to be ready for demons when we get there. You, too, Cas.”

“We know,” Castiel said. “We’ve discussed it. We can both smite them with ease. And we have planned how we’re going to deal with angels, too.”

Dean’s head snapped up so fast his neck cricked. “Angels! Damn. Jess didn’t say anything about them. They’ve got their own Cas so they’ve probably got a buttload more.” He pressed his hand to his forehead. “And they’ll be gunning for us if they find out we’re there to stop their apocalypse plans. They’ve got to be getting pretty frustrated with Sam holding out all this time. They wanted Lilith dead so the apocalypse could kick off.”

“Exactly,” Castiel said. “Jack can conceal his powers from them, but we have to assume they’re watching Jessica, Dean, and John of that world. When they see us appear…”

“We have to kill them,” Jack said.

Dean nodded. “Yeah. That’s actually a pretty good point. Maybe we can wipe out Michael while we’re there. And if those assholes Zachariah and Uriel are still kicking, I’ll do them for good measure.”

Castiel smiled slightly. “Yes, I would enjoy ending both, but—”

“Dibs on Zach,” Dean said quickly.

“But we cannot risk the ire of Heaven,” Castiel went on. “We will be leaving that world a better one by closing Hell, but we cannot leave our counterparts to face their wrath either. We must tread carefully. If we can do it without bloodshed, going unnoticed by as many as possible, we will be protecting them, too.”

Dean sighed. “Fine. We’ll ‘tread carefully’. I would have liked another go at Zach though.”

“I could kill them all,” Jack offered.

Dean huffed a laugh. “That’s sweet, Jack, and I appreciate the offer, but the fact we’re hanging on here with the few that are left is probably a lesson against.  If Michael comes calling, though, you can have him. Raphael, too. They were both assholes.”

Jack looked pleased and Dean grinned a moment before his smile faded. He wanted to be doing something, preparing the weapons, but most of them were in the trunk of the Impala and that was with Sam and Jess, probably having the backseat defiled by a little brother who was going to be valeting  her as soon as this was all over.

He wanted a drink but couldn’t drink. He should sleep but that was impossible. He wanted to do anything but sit here waiting for the last night his brother could have with Jess to pass so they could enter a world that was going to be a whole new kind of nightmare.

“Okay,” he said, forcing cheer into his voice. “Cas, get the cards. Jack, get the pretzels. We’re playing poker.”

There was nothing else useful he could do, so he was going to annihilate the two celestial beings that may have grace and infinite power, but neither had a poker face worth a damn.

Chapter Text

Jessica and Sam came into the library, exactly one minute before Castiel had suggested they assemble, and they were both stony-faced. In Jessica’s eyes, Dean could see her excitement, her eagerness, but there was nothing but pain in Sam’s.

Dean wished he could get his brother alone to talk to him, but when he started to suggest Sam come to the garage with him to help gather the weapons when they’d arrived back at the bunker, Sam had said he was going to shower and that Jack could help. He was in a world of hurt, that was obvious, and he wasn’t letting Dean help. Not that Dean had any idea what he could say to help, even if he did have a chance. 

“We ready?” Jessica asked eagerly.

“Yeah. Grab a duffel,” Dean said.

Jessica took one of the duffels they’d prepared for her, Dean, and Sam from the table and opened it. Her mouth dropped open and she pulled out an angel blade. “Where did you get this?” she asked.

“A lot of angels died here, so we picked up what was left,” Sam said, shouldering his own duffel.

“They died?” Jessica asked. “How?”

Castiel shifted from foot to foot. “There were wars.”

“Are there a lot of angels in your world?” Dean asked.

“Probably thousands,” Jessica said. “But we’ve not seen them—apart from Castiel and Hannah—since Sam was taken. They disappeared at the same time as Sam and Lilith. We think they’re just biding their time until Sam breaks.” She shivered. “If he does.”

“He won’t,” Sam said. “He’s lasted over a decade, and he’s not got long left. Saving him is the second trial, and I’ll do it as soon as the first is over.”

Dean clenched his jaw at the easy way Sam was saying it, as if he still believed there was a chance that he was going to be allowed to do something so stupid.

“You have Hannah on your side?” Castiel asked.

“Yes, she fell about a year after Castiel did and joined our side. Not all the angels are on the side of the apocalypse, but most are too loyal to Michael to do anything about it. Hannah saw what the demons were doing and she couldn’t stand it.”

“You think she’s for real, Cas?” Dean asked. “She got pretty shady with you.”

“Yes,” Castiel said firmly. “She had a more defined conscience than most angels. I can’t imagine that she would be able to stand and watch for long in that world.”

“Good,” Sam said. “That’s one more on our side.” He turned to Dean. “The demon knife?”

Dean patted his jacket pocket and said, “Got it.”

“You got one of them, too?” Jessica asked. “Did you get it from Ruby?”

“Yes, I used it to kill her, too,” Dean said brutally.

Jessica’s eyes widened. “You killed her!”

“Yes,” Sam said. “She was working for Lilith. Wait! She’s still with you?”

Jessica nodded. “She’s the one that helped train Sam. She got him on the blood, which almost got her killed, but when Sam was taken, even John had to see we needed her. She’s been with us ever since. She sometimes hears about the demon sieges before the signs start so we can get there first. That’s where Dean and Cas were when I was brought here. Demons descended on Boulder so they went to help. Me and John were supposed to join them there yesterday. Hannah was going to take us, but John was healing from a gut wound he got from a different demon and Dean persuaded him to stay back. Cas and Hannah can’t heal since they were cut off from Heaven. We have to do it all the hard way.”

“I can heal him when we get there,” Castiel said. “I was readmitted to Heaven after Lucifer and Michael were trapped. Jack can heal, too.”

Jessica looked startled. “Don’t suppose you can fix Dean’s eye while you're there?”

Sam looked at him hopefully. “You can, can’t you, Cas? It can’t be much different to fixing Kevin’s finger.”

“I can do it, I think,” Castiel said.

“Great,” Dean said, picking up his duffel. “Let’s get there so the healing can begin. You ready for this, Jack?”

Jack nodded. “I need you, Jessica. I have to find something that connects to that world to find the way.”

Jessica kissed Sam’s hand which was entwined with hers and then walked to Jack’s side.

Sam watched her longingly, and Dean guessed he was thinking, as Dean was, that would probably be the last kiss they would share.

Jack pressed his hands to Jessica’s head and she winced and Jack’s eyes glowed gold and he stared at a point across the room where a thread of light appeared and stretched down to the floor and up towards the ceiling.

“Wow,” Jessica breathed.

“Ready?” Dean asked. In answer, Castiel strode forward and passed through it, followed by Jessica. Dean glanced at Sam said, “You going to be okay?”

Sam nodded stiffly and followed Jessica through.

Dean went after them, coming out on his knees in a small, dimly lit motel room. The visible light came through a shaded window. Sam, Castiel, and Jessica were standing across the room, Dean got up and moved away from the rift as Jack stepped through, looking as though he felt none of the same disorientation Dean had, and the rift closed behind him.

“This is the right place?” Dean asked. 

Jessica looked to the bedside table where a framed picture of herself and Sam was sitting. She smiled at it and said, “This is it. And here’s my stuff.” She picked up a gun and machete from the floor and tucked them into the holster and sheath on her waist. “I better find John.”

Castiel went to the shaded window and opened it. Through the water-spotted glass, Dean could see his father—or this world’s version of him—standing with a man that looked like he was being threatened as John’s arms moved jerkily through the air. He glanced to the side and then his eyes widened and he disappeared from view.

“Definitely the right place,” Sam muttered.

The door to the room flew open and John was revealed on the threshold. “Jessica!” he said, relief and anger combined in his voice. “Where the hell did you go? I was…” The color drained from his face and his lips parted with shock as he looked at Sam who was staring back at him with a guarded expression.

“Sammy,” he whispered. “How?”

He shook his head and strode across the room on unsteady legs and threw his arms around Sam and clutched his son against him. His shoulders began to shake and Dean heard his breaths rasp and then become voluble sobs. Sam patted his back awkwardly and cast a panicked glance at Jessica.

“John, it’s not really…”

John pulled back and cupped Sam’s face in his hands. “Sammy, son, I’m so sorry,” he said in a choked voice. “I am so sorry. My boy, I…”

Sam flinched and Jessica moved into action at last. She placed a hand on John’s shoulder and said, “It’s not our Sam, John. He’s from a different world.”

John staggered back, his wet eyes wide and the tears still streaming down his cheeks. “What?” He looked from face to face, settling on Dean and said. “Your eye… No! Please, no. You have to be him.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam mumbled. “I’m not him. But we’re here to help. We can get Sam back.”

John turned away and wiped at his face. When he faced them again, his eyes were dry and his expression had hardened into the one Dean had seen many times in his childhood; it was the face John wore when the pain of losing Mary was too much but he was still fighting.

“How?” he asked.

“Maybe Dean and Cas should be here for this,” Jessica said. “And Hannah.”

“They’re not here,” John said. “Boulder has taken a turn and they’ve got on radio blackout. Ruby’s gone with them. It’s just me. I couldn’t even get hold of them when you went missing yesterday. It’s just been me and I’ve been looking, but… What happened to you?”

“It’s a really long story,” Dean said. “And we’ll tell it all—”

“Can I help your wound first?” Castiel interrupted. “It’s festering.”

“You can do that?” John asked.

Castiel nodded. “If you’ll let me.”

John lifted his shirt where a large bloody dressing covered a swatch of his stomach. Castiel peeled it back to reveal a line of uneven stitches in raw, red skin with lines of red spreading from it.

“John!” Jessica gasped. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You weren’t here,” John said dully. “Go on then. Fix me up. I want to know how the hell you got here and how we’re getting my boy back.”

Castiel placed his hand over the wound and light glowed in his palm as John winced. When Castiel pulled back, the skin was clear and flushed with healthy color again. “There,” he said. “Now we can talk.”

“You might want to sit down,” Sam said. “It’s a long story.” He took a seat on the bed and John stared at him for a moment before sitting down beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed, and Jessica took his other side.

Seeing their closeness, the look in John’s eyes, told Dean that they weren’t truly conscious that this wasn’t their Sam. They were taking their comfort in Dean’s brother, and that was going to hurt Sam when they left. 

Though Dean felt no regret that they had come, that they would save this version of Sam and their world, he was worried about what kind of world they were going back to with Sam in the kind of pain he was going to suffer.

“Okay,” Sam said. “Here we go. This is Jack, and he’s a Nephilim…”

xXx

John raked a hand over his face and said, “So if you finish these trials, Hell is closed for good?”

“Yes,” Sam said. “All demons on earth will be dragged back and the doors closed. They’ll never get out.”

John blew out a breath and then fixed his eyes on Sam with such intensity it was hard for Sam to stop himself squirming. “And one of the trials is to get you out?”

“An innocent soul,” Dean said. “Sam qualifies.”

“Hell yeah he does,” John said. “My boy has no place in there. He never did. If I hadn’t…” He shook his head. “He doesn’t belong there.”

“It wasn’t your fault, John,” Jessica said, reaching across Sam to grip his hand. “It was Lilith.”

“I should have known what they were planning,” John growled, pulling his hand away and making Jess withdraw with a hurt look. “If I’d been paying attention, I would have known. I didn’t even see that the stupid kid was on that filthy blood. I was so caught up in my hell memories, in stopping Lilith, that I didn’t see what was happening to my own family.”

“You couldn’t have stopped him,” Sam said quietly. “No one could stop me either. Dean and Bobby locked me up in the panic room, but I got out.”

“You did here, too,” Jessica said. “We never understood how you did it.”

“Neither did we,” Sam said. “Not really. I was locked down but then the cuffs were off and the door open.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter how. It’s done. It’s what we do next that matters. We need to find a hellhound for the first trial.”

“The trials that are going to kill you?” John asked, his brow furrowed.

Sam nodded and John’s expression hardened.

“You can’t seriously believe I’m going to let you do that, Sammy.”

Dean looked away but Sam thought he saw a flash of triumph in his face before he did. Sam knew it wasn’t that he didn’t care about John, like Sam did with Jessica, Dean had to see the fact this was their father as much as Jessica was the woman he loved and John saw his son when he looked at Sam. But Dean could probably distance himself from that fact where he couldn’t let Sam go. It was hardwired in him to protect Sam.

“It’s the best way,” Sam said. “Sam, your Sam, is going to need all of you when he gets back. He’s going to… struggle.”

John shook his head jerkily. “He’ll have Jess and Dean. He’ll be fine.”

Sam opened his mouth to argue, but John spoke over him.

“I am going to be the one to do this for my son and my world. You don’t see it, but this is on me. I didn’t stop Sam training his powers when my year was counting down, and I could have. Once he was on the blood, I didn’t stand a chance, but before then, I could have reached him. I didn’t which meant he was ready for Lilith when it was time. The fact we stopped him before he could kill her means nothing when stacked against what happened to him after.”

“The apocalypse would have started,” Sam said.

John huffed a laugh. “And what do you call what we’re living with now? No, this is on me, and I’m going to be the one to put it right.” He slapped his hands down on his knees. “I need to kill a hellhound. Fine. I can do that. Jess, find a crossroads for me. I’ll put in a prayer to Cas. If they’re hearing it and can get free, they need to see…” He glanced at Sam. “They need to be here.”

When Sam had been with Jessica, consumed with her and how it felt to be with her, he hadn’t allowed himself much time to think of this world. Now it occurred to him that he was going to see this world’s version of Dean and have that same moment of seeing his joy and heartbreak when he realized Sam wasn’t the right version of his brother, that he hadn’t been saved. He would be, Sam would make sure of it. He might not be able to be the one to do the trials, but he could be right there with John while he did them.

Jessica got up and took a laptop from a bag on the table where Dean and Jack sat and Castiel stood sentinel. She booted it up and tapped her fingers impatiently.

“How do you plan to force the demon to summon a hellhound?” Castiel asked.

John smiled grimly. “I plan to make it hurt enough to call in backup.”

Sam flinched away from the dark look in his eyes. He knew he had broken in Hell, become the torturer, but he seemed to have embraced those lessons more than Dean ever had. Sam supposed this world had forced him to, but it was still a shock to see it in his father.

Dean seemed as disturbed as Sam felt, but he was better at pushing it down and schooling his expression as he said, “We’re going to need the magic glasses. Don’t suppose you’ve got any.”

“Glasses?” Jessica asked.

“Yeah, if you pass glasses through holy fire, you can see hellhounds. I put holy oil in the bags.”

“There’s an eye doctor in town,” John said. “Take my truck.”

“Did you bring money, Dean?” Sam asked.

“We don’t need money,” John said, then went on after seeing their blank looks. “You say your world is different to ours? It must be. In our world, hunters get to take what they need for the war. We’re the ones fighting it for them. Show them a weapon and they’ll hand over whatever you ask for.”

Sam and Dean exchanged a glance. They’d lived through hard times in their world, some really hard, but their world had never found out the truth about what really moved among them. They've kept that part of their innocence.

This world really was different. 

Chapter Text

Dean glanced at Sam as he pulled to a stop outside the office John had directed them to, seeing his furrowed brow and distant eyes.

“You okay, man?” he asked.

Sam flinched as if Dean had shouted and quickly nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just thinking.”

“About?”

Sam looked at him for a moment as if assessing him and then he said, “John. He’s not Dad, is he?”

“He’s really not,” Dean agreed.

Sam raked a hand over his face. “I mean, Jess is Jess. That’s who I see. I get that she’s different, but she would be different if she’d lived in our world, too. We were kids when we were together. I’ve changed, too. But John… I didn’t know what to do when he was crying like that. It was so damn hard. I wanted to help but at the same time…”

“You wanted to cut and run?” Dean suggested.

Sam nodded. “His pain was hard to bear when he realized I wasn’t who he thought. It made me feel guilty.”

Dean nudged his arm with a fist, “Sammy, you’ve got nothing to feel guilty about. So you’re not him, but we’re here to get him back. You’re the one that decided that. You could have kept Jess and no one would have judged you. But you’re the one that brought her back here and you’re the one who was going to die to get her Sam back. I’m damn glad you’ve got that stupid idea out of your head, but the fact you were willing still stands. You must have been tempted as all hell to keep her.”

Sam pressed his lips into a hard line and then said, “I was for like a second, but I knew I couldn’t. It would be worse than cruel, and not just to her. There’s a Sam here, a me, that’s suffering through hell and he has been for over a decade. I was in the Cage but even I can’t imagine what he must be going through after all that time. Leaving him there would have been evil. Sure, it’s hard to be here, seeing John’s eyes when he looks at me, and I think seeing Dean is going to be even harder, but it’s worth it.”

“You don’t have to stay,” Dean said, knowing Sam would never agree to leave.  But he needed to say it for himself, to offer Sam this out.  “Jack can open a rift and you can wait at home for us to get back.”

Sam frowned. “You really think I’d do that.”

“No,” Dean said. “But I kinda wish you would. It’s going to be hard on you.”

“I know, and there’s harder to come, but I’m staying.”

Dean knew what Sam meant “what was to come.” He was going to have to say goodbye to Jessica, leave her with this Sam, and it was going to be a one-sided goodbye.

Their reunion had been perfect for them. Sam had been so happy, but when it came time to leave, Jessica would already have the Sam she needed. She wouldn’t be saying goodbye really. If Dean was in Sam’s position, he would be dreading it. Sam had never been as good at pushing down feelings and getting on with it as he was. 

Sam threw open his door and climbed out of the truck. Dean did the same and they met on the sidewalk. Dean checked his pocket for the weapon John had instructed them to bring—he’d chosen the demon knife—and pushed open the door of the office. The walls were lined with racks of glasses with artful lighting above to show them off. At the end of the small room was a counter with a young man sitting behind it in a white shirt and blue tie with a badge naming him as Trent. His eyes widened as he looked up from his computer and saw them walking towards him.

“Hey,” Dean said. “We’re—”

“Hunters?” the young man asked, his voice weak.

“Uh, yeah,” Dean said. “Didn’t think it’d be that obvious.” He took out the knife and set it on the counter. “We were told you’d want to see this.”

The man glanced at it and then looked up again, his eyes flickering between Sam and Dean and said. “Are the demons coming?”

“No,” Sam said quickly, and the man breathed a deep sigh. “We need glasses.”

The man frowned. “Glasses? You mean an appointment?”

“No,” Sam said. “We mean display frames with clear lenses. We need them for… a hunt.”

Dean was sure he’d stopped himself saying they needed them for a hellhound, which was a good idea as the man still looked pretty spooked.

The man nodded jerkily and said, “I’ll get the doctor,” before rushing around the counter and through a door at the side of the room.

Dean glanced at Sam. “He tagged us fast.”

Sam shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. We’re pretty good at spotting hunters, too, and his world has got to be full of them. I have no idea how it works here, but I’m guessing there are more hunters around than in our world. Think about it; most people don’t hunt unless they’ve been a victim themselves. They see the real world and join the fight for revenge or to protect others. There’s got to be a lot of people in this world that have suffered losses to the demons, and there’s some that will want to help without that. Think about it like joining the military.”

Dean hadn’t thought about it, but it made sense that there would be more hunters now. He thought there would be a lot more hunters lost, too. If they were putting themselves in the path of demons, they were going to be at risk.

The door opened again and a woman strode out followed by the young man they’d spoken to. She gave them an appraising look and then nodded. “Gentlemen, I understand you’re here for glasses.” Her lips quirked into a smile. “And you don’t need a prescription. I’m curious, what can you need glasses for?”

“There’s some things in the world that can’t be seen by the naked eye,” Sam said. “We’re hunting something like that. If we use holy fire on the glasses, we’ll be able to see it.”

“Then feel free to take whatever you need from the racks,” she said, a strange heaviness to her tone.

Sam smiled and Dean nodded. “Thanks.”

He grabbed a pair of glasses from the rack and said, “How many, Sammy?”

Sam considered for a moment and then said, “Five pairs. Castiel, both of them, will be able to see without, and since Jack is even more powerful, I’m guessing he will, too. You, me, John, Jess, and Dean will need them.”

Dean grabbed four more pairs and turned back to thank the doctor and clerk that were watching them.

Before he could speak, the doctor did, and Dean thought he’d rarely seen so much gratitude in the eyes on a victim they’d actually saved. “I wish you luck,” she said. “And my sincerest thanks for what you do.”

Dean frowned and made for the door, feeling awkward, as Sam stuttered thanks and followed him out.

Dean climbed back into the truck and dropped the glasses down in the door well. Sam got in beside him and said, “Did that feel like she was saying goodbye to you, too?”

“Yeah,” Dean said, starting the engine and sighing. “It figures, I guess. We’re obviously going into something and in a world like this, the odds are on us getting killed.”

“How do you think they stand it?” Sam asked. “The whole world must be scared. God, I can’t even imagine. At least we know we can fight back when the shit hits the fan for us; we’ve beaten it back before. Most of these people are helpless.”  

“They are now,” Dean said pointedly. “John will get these trials done and it will be over. They’ll probably make it a national holiday.”

Sam’s lips quirked into a smile. “With parades?”

“Yep. All the thank-you-for-saving-the-world parades anyone can stand. We should stick around for one.”

Sam relaxed in his seat. “Yeah, maybe. Honestly, I’d rather go home fast.”

Dean nodded, realizing what he’d said. When it was over, when the world was saved, there would be no place for them here, no place or role for Sam at all. They would leave it to the other versions of themselves to have that success and loss. John would be dead but the world would be saved.

That hadn’t been enough for Dean when Sam was in the Cage, and he wondered whether it would be for the Dean they would be leaving behind.

They were halfway back to the motel where they’d left the others when Sam leaned forward and said, “We’re in Nebraska.”

“Huh?”

Sam pointed up at the banner hung across the road at the end of the street. It was advertising the town’s bicentennial celebrations. “We’ve been here,” he said. “We took a vengeful spirit that Ellen hooked us up with way back in the day. We’re only a couple hours away from the bunker. We should relocate there. We can use the dungeon for this crossroads demon.”

“Yeah!” Dean said, then an idea occurred to him. “Will a hellhound be able to get into the bunker?”

Sam frowned. “Honestly, I don’t know. Asmodeus got in that time. I’d like to say no because the idea of one breaking in is more nightmares than I already have, but you’re right. We should probably set up somewhere else for the hound to come. We can take them there after, though, when the first trial is done. They’ll need somewhere to bring Sam when we get him back, and home is a good place.”

Dean nodded his agreement. He remembered how disappointed he’d been, how disconnected he’d felt, when he’d been settling in his room at the bunker, making it a home, and Sam had still been refusing to settle, only seeing it as the place they worked. It had taken a long time, but the fact it was home to both of them now felt good. The bunker would be a good place for them to bring their version of Sam. He would be protected there and it would be peaceful, too. He was going to need that.

“We’ll talk to them about it,” he said.

Dean pulled them onto the street where the motel was and into the parking lot. The door to Jessica’s room was ajar which Dean was surprised by, and he was concerned enough to be out of the car and in the room before Sam’s question of what was going on was completed. 

What he walked into was a shock. Jack was standing behind Castiel and Jessica, looking nervous, which wasn’t a surprise when you saw the angel standing opposite him with her blade drawn. She was dressed differently to the grey pant-suited pain in the ass Dean had met, the one that ordered Castiel to kill him, but he recognized Hannah at once.

John was standing with Hannah and he seemed to be trying to explain the situation. “He’s not from this world, Hannah, so sure, he’ll feel different, but—”

“No!” Hannah growled. “This Castiel feels different, but I recognized him. I have never felt anything like this child before. He’s powerful.”

“He is,” Dean growled. “So you might not want to piss him off by holding a blade on him.”

She spun around and her eyes widened. “Dean? Sam!”

“No,” John said emphatically. “They’re Sam and Dean from another world like Castiel. They came through a rift to help us get our Sam back, so stow the damn blade and listen.”

“We also came to help you save this world,” Dean said. “And Jack is the reason we were able to, so maybe start with a thank you and an apology for being a bitch.”

He’d never liked the angel. She had tried to make Castiel kill him once, which pissed him off, but she’d set Castiel up to be tortured by two of her mooks so she could ride in to the rescue and that was where his remaining goodwill towards her as a friend of Castiel disappeared.

You could screw with Dean, and he’d find a way to make it right for himself eventually, but if you screwed with his family? There were no limits to what he might do. This wasn’t the Hannah that had screwed Castiel over, but she was now threatening Jack—though it was an impotent threat—and he was done.

 “Do it, Hannah,” John said.

With one last long look at Jack, Hannah stowed her blade in the pocket of her long coat—Dean guessed she took fashion tips from Castiel—and raised her hands. “I’m sorry, but that kind of power is unprecedented. You cannot blame me for being on guard.”

“We can’t,” Castiel said. “Jack is powerful. He’s my son.”

Hannah gasped. “A Nephilim!” 

“Yes,” Dean said. “Castiel’s son.” He wasn’t letting anyone in this world know Jack’s roots as Lucifer’s child. It had taken him time to get over his judgment of the kid, and he wasn’t going to put Jack through their reactions and that same judgment. Lucifer was just an accident of birth. Jack was a Winchester where it mattered.

“But Castiel…” she whispered. “How could you do that?”

“Okay, that’s enough,” John growled. “Jack is on our side and he’s good. That’s all any of us need to know. Thanks to him, we’re getting Sammy back and saving the damn world. Now, what are you doing here? I thought you, Dean, and Cas were on radio silence while you dealt with the trouble in Colorado.”

“We were,” Hannah said. “That’s why I came. The odds are even further against us than we anticipated. We need backup. I came to ask you and Jess to help us.”

“No can do,” John said curtly. “I’ve got something else to be doing. You’re going to have to deal with it alone.”

“Dean came come,” Sam said.

Dean glared at him. “Dean can what?” 

“Go,” Sam said. “I can stay here with John and help him with the trial. You can take Cas and Jack to help with the demons.”

“Or I can stay and you can go,” Dean said.

He didn’t want them to split up at all, and he definitely didn’t want Sam running into a demon hotspot with odds bad enough that they were calling in backup, but he wasn’t leaving Sam here with John before the first trial was done. He was the one that was supposed to kill the hellhound last time but Sam had been the one to do it. It had been on him and he’d failed. If John looked shaky, Dean wouldn’t put it past Sam to dive in and do the trial himself.  Again. 

Sam frowned. “Why do you want to stay?”

Dean decided not to go with honesty. “Because this thing in Colorado is a demon thing, and we both know you’re better with them than I am. Your Latin is faster and you can do the reverse exorcism. You’re the best person for the job and we both know it. I can stay back here and help John. Or we can wait until the trial is done and all go.”

“No!” Hannah said. “There is a town full of people needing help now.”

“I’m not waiting either,” John said. “This is my son.”

Dean nodded. “The hellhound needs to be killed so John can move on to the second and these demons need to be stopped.

“Okay,” Sam said. “But you’re keeping Cas with you, too.”

“I would be more potent as a weapon against demons than I would be observing the demise of a hellhound,” Castiel said.

“Yeah, but you can heal,” Sam said, crossing his arms over his chest. “John and Dean need you here. I’ll have Jack which is all the potency we’ll need against demons.”

Castiel glanced and Dean and nodded. “Okay. Yes. I’ll stay.”

“I’m coming with you, Sam,” Jess said.

Sam smiled slightly and then turned to Jack. “You good for this?”

“Yes,” Jack said eagerly.

“We’ll be back as soon as we can then,” Sam said. “John, you should…” He bit his lip. “Good luck. Cas, don’t delay with the healing if it’s needed.”

“I won’t,” Castiel said and then patted Jack on the arm. “Be careful.”

Jack grinned. “It’s just demons.”

John glowered. “You might be all-powerful and able to rip open doors between worlds, but in our world, there is no such thing as ‘just demons’. They’re feral and fierce and you’d better remember that when you’re facing them.” His hands fisted. “These are Lilith’s.”

Jack nodded and said, “You’ll need to lead me,” to Hannah.

“Hold up,” Sam said, catching Dean off guard as he turned him and pulled him into a hug. For a moment he clung to him and then pulled back and gripped the back of his neck. “You’re watching and supporting, Dean. This is John’s job, remember?”

“Don’t worry,” John growled. “This kill is mine.”

Dean patted Sam’s cheek and said, “I’ve got it, Sammy. And make sure you let Jack do the heavy lifting.”

“I will,” Sam said.

He stepped away from Dean and then, with a rustle of sound, he, Jess, Jack, and Hannah were gone. Dean took a breath and said, “Okay, John, are you ready?”

“Yes. Jess found me a crossroads just outside town. We’ll grab the demon and bring it back here.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to bring a demon back here to… talk… to it?”

John nodded. “Different world, Dean. No one’s going to bat an eyelid if they see red eyes being chained up here.”

“No,” Castiel said thoughtfully. “But do you think it’s wise to bring a hellhound into a populated place?”

John huffed a laugh. “No, I guess not. We’ll find somewhere on the road. Now, can we go? I’ve got a son in Hell that needs rescuing, and apparently, I’ve got to kill a dog first.”

Castiel looked concerned. “A hellhound isn’t a dog. It’s a vicious and murderous creature that you should—”

John held up a hand. “You’ve got no more understanding of sarcasm than the Cas we’ve got kicking around here. I know exactly what a hellhound is as it’s not going to be my first time facing one. Last time it dragged me to Hell. This time…” His lips curled back from his teeth in a harsh snarl of a smile. “This time I’m going to be the one doing the killing.”

Dean shivered and quickly covered it by stepping forward and saying, “I’ll prep the glasses. They’re in the truck.”

He hurried out of the room and drew a deep breath of fresh air. He knew this wasn’t his father, they all knew it, but seeing that expression on the face he loved was disturbing.

His father had been dangerous when he needed to be, but he’d never even touched on the kind of darkness he saw in this version of John. 

Chapter Text

Chapter Nine

Sam wasn’t sure what to expect when they arrived in Colorado, but as soon as they arrived, he realized there was no way he could have prepared himself for this. He’d handled demons before, but never in numbers like this before. There were hundreds, and they were all black-eyed and raging.

They’d arrive in front of a school with chain-link fences and a parking lot, at the edges of a salt circle that surrounded the building were the demons. The rest of the area seemed deserted. Sam wondered where everyone else was. Were they cowering in their homes and other buildings, or were they now the meatsuits he was looking at?

He looked at the salt line and then glanced up at the sky. It was dark with clouds, but none of them looked like rainclouds. That could change in a moment though. The rain could come and wash away the salt, giving the demons free rein to come inside and start whatever nightmare they were here for. Even a strong wind would be enough. They were going to have to be fast.

“In here,” Hannah said, hammering on a door and shouting, “It’s me!”

The door creaked open and Sam slipped in after Jess, Jack bringing up the rear. As the door was closed behind him and a fresh layer of salt was placed in front of it, Sam looked at the sloping back of the Dean that belonged in this world as he shook the sack of salt.

He held his breath as he waited for him to look up and see him, and when he did, his face must have shown the same shock he could see on Dean’s face.

Jessica had said his Dean wasn’t the same as hers, he was hardened, but Sam hadn’t pictured this. There was a patch over the place his right eye should be and a long scar running from underneath it to his jaw. The visible eye held a darkness Sam had only seen in the very last days of Dean bearing the Mark of Cain. It was wide with shock and Dean’s lips were parted.

“Dean,” Jessica said quickly. “You need to listen to me. It’s not—”

Before she could finish her sentence, Dean was on Sam. With the way he looked, Sam was expecting an attack, but it was his arms that flew around Sam in a hug and his hot and quick breaths that rushed against Sam’s neck.

“Oh god, Sammy,” he whispered. “How?”

“I’m not him,” Sam said quietly.

Dean didn’t seem to hear him. He was clutching Sam against him and Sam could feel the tremors working through him.

“It’s not him, Dean,” Jessica said again. “He’s not from this world.”

Her words seemed to penetrate Dean this time and he pulled back, his hands on Sam’s shoulders to steady himself. “What?”

“I’m not your Sam. I came from a different world to help you.”

Dean blinked and a tear slipped from his visible eye. It was the only show of emotion he allowed before his expression hardened and his hands dropped to his sides. “A different world, huh?”

Sam nodded. “We’re going to get your brother back though. There’s a way. John is preparing to do it now.”

“He’s going to save the whole world,” Jessica said eagerly.

Dean frowned and then nodded curtly. “Sure. Okay.” He ran a hand over his face and when it dropped, his face was neutral. “I’m glad you came. There’s too many for us to take alone.”

“I can help with that,” Jack said.

“Who are you?” Dean asked.

“This is Jack. He’s a Nephilim,” Jessica said. “He can kill demons.”

Dean stared at him a moment and then said, “That’s good. We’ve got plenty for you to work with.”

Sam glanced back at the door and said, “Maybe we can work with something else. There’s a lot of people out there.”

Dean huffed a laugh. “Your world a bit different to this one, is it? They are demons, not people.”

“Yes, but…” Sam shook his head. It could be incredibly stupid what he was thinking, but Jack couldn’t exorcise that number of demons. The only way for him to stop them was by killing them, and that meant hundreds of deaths. If he could find another way, it would save the lives of the meatsuits that hadn’t yet been mortally injured. It had to be worth trying something, anything else.

“Come see what we’re protecting, new guy,” Dean said. “Maybe when you get the stakes, you’ll see why your pocket rocket needs to do his thing.”

He strode away and they followed into a hall lined with grey lockers and doors leading into what looked like classrooms. They turned a corner and then Dean slapped a hand on double doors and said, “Let me in.”

There was the sound of chains sliding against metal and then the door creaked open.

“Rufus!” Sam blurted.

Rufus raised an eyebrow. “Sam Winchester… I’m going to need to know how this happened.”

“It’s not him,” Dean said roughly. “Let me pass.”

Rufus stood back and they filed into a vast room that Sam guessed would have been used as an auditorium usually. Each seat was filled with a person.  The ones that hadn’t been lucky enough to get a seat were gathered in groups on the floor and the raised stage at the front of the room. Some of them were armed with guns and knives, others had flasks of holy water. There were men and women, children and elderly, and they all wore the same expression of shock and fear. Even the children weren’t oblivious to the danger they were in.

Sam sucked in a breath and stood back as Rufus laid a new line of salt in front of the doors they’d come through.

Castiel was standing with a group, and his mouth dropped open as he saw Sam. He strode towards them, his eyes flickering between Jack and Sam.

“It’s not Sam, Cas,” Dean said. “He’s from a different world.”

Castiel nodded stiffly and then his eyes fixed on Jack. “And what is that?”

Jack looked stunned at the look on Castiel’s face, the face of the father he loved, and he said, “I’m Jack,” quietly.

“He’s a Nephilim,” Hannah said. “They brought their own Castiel. Jack is his son.”

Castiel gaped at him. “My son! I would never…”

“But you did,” Sam said, a bite of anger in his voice. “And Jack is here to save these people, so how about you show a little respect.”

Castiel stared at him a moment, “You are very different.”

“I would be,” Sam said. “I’m not him.”

“You were more reverent.”

Sam snorted. “Then we are very different. I got over that thing pretty much as soon as I met you and Uriel.”

Dean sighed heavily. “Figures. Still, Cas and Hannah are the most powerful allies we have on our side, so you show them respect.”

Sam knew it was a watershed moment. He could accept Dean’s edict and be his inferior, or he could stand for what he believed, his family, and show them all he wasn’t going to be under their control.

“Castiel and Hannah are no longer the most powerful in the room. Jack is. When they show him respect, I’ll give it to them. We came here to help.”

Dean stared at him for a moment, giving nothing away in his expression, and then said, “Yeah, you’re really not him.”

“Never mind this,” Jessica said, her hands curled into fists. “We’ve got bigger problems. What are we going to do about the demons? Sam, I get that there’s a lot of lives going to be lost, but that’s the way it is in this world. If we don’t stop them, there will be a lot more lost when they kill everyone here and move onto the next city.”

Sam nodded and looked around at the people. He didn’t want to lose any of them, but he didn’t want to lose the people being used as meatsuits either. He’d killed countless demons in his world, ending lives, but never these kinds of numbers. Because of him, during the apocalypse, thousands had died, and he didn’t want to add more to his account by letting Jack do his thing. There had to be another way. 

He wished Dean was there. He would have been able to come up with something if he was. They thought in sync so often that Sam relied on him to make the connections where he couldn’t. He had a town full of people that needed him to be smart. If he failed, the day would dawn tomorrow over Colorado in the aftermath of a tragedy.

Suddenly he gasped. “Colorado!”

Dean frowned. “Yeah. Is our location going to make some difference to you getting your head out of your ass?”

Sam glared at him, just as he would if it was his Dean, and said, “Yes, it is. It’s given me an idea. Me and Dean were in Colorado this one time, years ago, and we were attacked by a group of demons. We were trapped in a cop station. It wasn’t as many at this, but it was way too many for us to deal with.”

Jessica clapped a hand to her face. “Monument?”

“You too?” Sam asked.

She nodded. “Yeah, but, Sam, we swore we’d not do that again. I don’t even know where we’d find the… ingredients.”

Sam gasped and his hands raised, as if they could defend him from the realization. “Wait! You did Ruby’s spell?”

“Yes,” Dean growled. “We had a group of civilians with us and—we thought—Lilith was at the door. We thought we could end it there, so we did what we had to do.”

Sam was stunned. He’d almost been persuaded to do the spell, too, as he’d believed it was the only way. He hadn’t seen the meatsuits that day. He’d just seen Dean who would be worse than dead if the demons got in; he would be in Hell.

He was forever grateful to Dean for reaching him that day, when the horror and fear of the moment had passed and he realized what he’d almost done. He could imagine this Dean doing it to save his father’s from the same fate that had scared Sam for his brother, but the fact that Jessica had done it…

He was wrong. This wasn’t his Jessica. She was as much a hunter as Dean was, He just hadn’t wanted to see it.

“What did you do in your world, Sam?” Jack asked. “Can we do it here?”

Sam started out of his thoughts and said, “Yes, I think so.” He looked at the corners of the room and saw the speakers that would connect to the PA system. “We let them into the building and—”

“You let them in?” Dean growled. “Were you crazy?”

Sam spoke over him. “We let them in and trap them inside by lining the doors with salt from the outside. When they were in, we played an exorcism over the PA system. They were all exorcised. We can do that here.”

“That is a very dangerous plan,” Castiel said.

“Maybe, but it might save a lot of lives,” Sam said. “Isn’t that worth the risk?”

Dean glowered. “How about we ask the hundreds of people in this room what they think? They might be willing to die so you can have a clean conscience. It’s not like this kind of fear is anything new to them.”

“No one will die,” Sam said. “Jack can be posted at the door in here. If the demons get close, he can kill them. No one needs to die at all if it works. Even if it fails, it will be the meatsuits only that are killed.” He looked at Jessica, his eyes imploring, “We have to try.”

She stared at him for a moment and then said, “Yeah. Okay.”

“He’s not him, Jess,” Dean growled. “You know what Sam would do as he did it before.”

“He did because he was desperate and scared,” she said. “And  we helped each other through the nightmares that came after. If he was here, he would want to try another way. None of the people in this room have to die, and maybe we can save some of the meatsuits Some of these people are here with their kids. We can prevent making those kids orphans.”

Dean and Castiel exchanged a long look and then Dean nodded. “Fine. We’ll try. What do we need?”

“Salt,” Sam said. “A lot of it. And as many people on the doors outside as we can get. We’ll let them in and salt them when they’re through. Someone will need to record the exorcism and be ready to start it playing.”

“Jess can do the exorcism,” Dean said. “She’s faster with Latin than the rest of us.”

Sam looked around the room and whistled. Among the people that were gathered, Sam saw more familiar faces looking up and coming towards them. Walt and Roy were there, and Steve, Reggie, and Tim. There were even a few faces he hadn’t seen since The Roadhouse days that he didn’t know the names of. They all came over and Dean began an explanation.

“Sam 2.0 here has an idea, probably a dumb one, and we’re going to need you all…”

Sam tuned him out and said, “Jess, let’s go find the office and get the exorcism ready.”

She nodded and walked to him. Sam asked Castiel to lay the salt behind them and then followed her out.

“Offices are usually near the main entrance,” he said. “I think that’s where we came in.”

Jessica fell into step at his side and her hand brushed against his. He wanted to take it, to hold her the way he had before, but it felt different now he was in this world. It wasn’t just about him being with her, enjoying the moment. She had a responsibility to the Sam that belonged here.

“You’re disappointed in me, aren’t you?” she asked.

Sam stopped. “What? No.”

She sighed and moved on, Sam hurrying after her.

“We did the spell,” she said.

“I almost did the spell, too,” Sam said. “I was just surprised that…”

“That I could do it?” she asked then, perhaps seeing the answer in his eyes, she said, “I’m not the woman I was in college, Sam. That day I was facing losing all the people I love and a bunch of civilians. John would have ended up in Hell, and he’s my family. I have done things I would never have imagined myself capable of since college. That was just one of them.”

“So have I,” Sam said quickly. “I started the apocalypse. I killed a woman to drink her blood and then many more died during the year Lucifer walked the earth because I couldn’t save them. I’ve killed demons without a second thought to save others. I have done so much that’s so much worse than anything you’ve done. I’m not judging you or any of your family. I am in no position to do that.”

“But you won’t touch me now,” she said.

“I want to. Being this close to you and not touching you is killing me, but you’re not mine in this world. I don’t regret anything we did before, and I am never going to forget it, but this is your world and there is a Sam that is yours here.”

“Yeah. There is,” she agreed. “But that doesn’t take away from what you are.”

Sam forced a smile but he knew she was wrong. When she had her Sam back, he was going to become nothing more than one of the people that had helped it happen. She was clinging to him still because she didn’t have the one she needed. That was all going to change soon, and Sam didn’t know how he was going to handle it.

xXx

They were ready. Dean, Sam, Jess, Castiel, and Hannah had joined the other hunters at the doors, ready to lay the salt. Jack was with Rufus in the auditorium to protect the terrified people within. Sam joined Dean at one door while Castiel partnered with Hannah, ready to remove the salt line. Jessica joined the other hunters at the doors ready to lay the fresh salt lines outside. Walt had been left to start the exorcism when it was time.

Sam was nervous. This was his plan, and if it went wrong, it would be his fault. He didn’t regret arranging it though. They could save so many lives, and Jack was capable of protecting the people he needed to. 

And it really could work.

As they stood by their allocated door, waiting for demons to come when the salt line was removed, Dean cleared his throat and said, “Jess said Dad is doing some trials and one of them is going to Hell to get Sammy back.”

“Yes, and when he’s done the last, it’s going to banish all demons off the face of the earth and trap them in Hell. There will be no getting out again ever.”

Dean’s lips pressed into a thin line. “And these trials are going to kill him.”

Sam chanced a glance at him, seeing the hard look in his eyes, and said, “Yes. The trials require the ultimate sacrifice.”

Dean nodded. “Okay.”

Sam was stunned. He thought this version of Dean would love his father as much as his Dean had, would perhaps worship him the same way, but he was taking the news that his father was going to die much better than his Dean ever could.

Dean raised an eyebrow. “You’re shocked.”

“A little,” Sam admitted.

“That’s because you’re not really Sam. He would understand this, too. He’s seen our dad die once already, and that was just for him. He’ll be dying for the whole world this time.”

“In my world, Dean made the deal for me,” Sam said. “Dad was already dead. He made his own deal to save Dean after the car crash.”

“Car crash?”

“You didn’t have one? Yellow-Eyes possessed Dad and hurt Dean pretty bad. After he was out, I was driving him and Dad to the hospital and we were run off the road by a demon. Dean was really bad, dying, and Dad made a deal with Yellow-Eyes to save his life.”

“So your Dad is still in Hell?”

“No. When the Devil’s Gate opened, he busted his way out with the demons. He’s in Heaven now.”

Dean nodded slowly. “Heaven… huh.”

“It’s real,” Sam said quickly. “I’ve been there. It’s a good place.”

He wasn’t sure he was technically telling the truth as his heaven had been a disappointment that almost destroyed his relationship with his brother. As it was, it broke something between them. But Mary’s heaven had been everything she’d wanted, and Bobby had seemed happy in his before Sam screwed that up. He had always told himself John’s was better, and he had to hope for that for this version of his father, too.

“Good,” Dean said curtly.

Sam shifted from foot to foot, wanting to act but having to wait. Dean was calm. He stared up at the door and took slow and even breaths. Sam supposed this kind of tension, this situation, was nothing new for him.

Suddenly, there was a roar from outside and Dean grunted. “Cas and Hannah have got the salt wiped. You might want to stand back.”

Sam pressed himself into the alcove behind the door on his side of the hall and a moment later the doors were thrown open and demons started to spill inside. They crowded at the door, fighting to be first in, and Sam held his breath as they broke free and ran past him, whoops coming from them. They were enjoying this; it was a party to them. He wondered how many other towns had suffered this kind of ‘party’.

When the last of the demons were past them, Sam and Dean grabbed their bags of salt and ran outside. Dean slammed the doors closed and Sam started the salt line that would keep them in. When it was done, they ran to the right where Castiel was waiting around the corner and Dean said, “Get us in!”

Sam felt the swoop in his stomach of flight, and he arrived in the office where Walt stood with his finger poised over a button on the PA control panel.

“Ready?” he asked

“Wait,” Dean said. “Hannah isn’t’ here yet.”

Sam looked around anxiously, waiting, and then Hannah was there saying, “Now!”

Walt slammed his finger on the button and the exorcism started playing in Jessica’s rapid Latin.

The screams and shouted started at once and Sam ran for the door. Demons were standing in the hall, clutching their heads and writhing. He watched with pleasure as one opened her mouth to escape the exorcism but failed as the Latin already had its hold on her.

Jessica’s voice rose above the sounds of the suffering demons, “...Audi nos!” and the air was suddenly filled with the black smoke of demons expelled from their meatsuits.

The pressure in the air made Sam’s ears pop and the floor shook slightly as the demons poured into it, drawn back to Hell.

The meatsuits were dropping to the floor, some stilling at once and others shifting and crying out. Sam rushed over to one and checked for a pulse but it was clearly dead, his eyes wide and staring and chest perfectly still.

Dean looked around at them and said, “There’s some living. Walt, call in the crew.”

“Crew?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” Dean said. “We’ve got official teams to clean up after something like this. The survivors will go on a waiting list for therapy. The dead will be returned to their families where possible. And us…” He smiled grimly. “We move on and wait for the next storm.”

“No,” Sam said. “That was what you did before. This could be the last town it happens to. If John gets the trials done quickly…”

“He’ll be dead and it’ll be over,” Dean said brutally. “Yeah. I know.”

He looked at Sam for a moment and then said, “I’m going to find Jess,” and walked away.

Sam watched him go and then knelt beside a woman that was stirring and crying, one of the surviving meatsuits. He was going to help their people until the ‘crew’ arrived because that was what he should do, and then he was going to get back to his brother and Castiel make sure they were both okay.

That was what he needed to do.

Chapter Text

Dean felt John’s eyes on him as he painted in the last of the devil’s trap.  He wondered what John was thinking, if he was nervous.

When Dean had been preparing to start the trials, he had been full of bravado and the surety that he was protecting Sam, but that had disappeared when the hellhound arrived, and he’d seen the monster that had dragged him to Hell. Only the fact that he had still been set on protecting Sam had enabled him to face it bravely. Ultimately, he had failed - Sam had killed it, and he’d never shifted that guilt because of what came after.

He finished the trap and straightened up but didn’t turn until Castiel said his name and asked if he was okay. He was nervous for John. Though he knew Castiel could save him from any injuries he accrued, he wouldn’t be able to do a thing if John was killed, and that could happen easily going up against a hellhound. It could rip his throat out, claw its way to his heart, bite through an artery.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he said with a nod. “The trap’s done.”

“I can see that,” John said tonelessly, not sarcasm exactly, just John Winchester at his most closed-down best.

Dean moved out of the trap as John came forward with a small tin in his hand. He bent and buried it in the gravel and then stepped back.

“Come on, you red-eyed bastard,” he said.

It was disturbing for Dean to see John at the crossroads, his offering in the ground, even though he knew he wasn’t there to make a deal. Though it wasn’t his father where it mattered, it looked too much like him for Dean to feel comfortable with the situation.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” a female voice said. “Again!”

She was redhaired and pale, with full lips and blue eyes. Her dress was longer than he’d expected, more demure, and he supposed she was playing to a different audience than the demon he’d made his deal with. Her intent had been to allure. The only thing that spoiled the image of beauty were the eyes that flashed red as they settled on John.

“How many times do we have to tell you Winchesters? We cannot make a deal for Sam. It’s out of our hands. Lilith has him and she’s the boss. It doesn’t matter which one of you comes, the father, the brother, the lover; he’s off the menu.”

It shouldn’t have surprised Dean that they had tried to deal to save Sam. Dean and John had both dealt for him before between their worlds, and Jessica was just as invested. It did surprise him though. Even at his most desperate, he would have known that it would do no good.

“I’m not here for a deal,” John said. “I want something else from you.”

She frowned and looked at Dean. “You should take better care of your father, Dean. He’s…” Her lips parted with shock. “Your eye. How?”

“Saw a doctor,” Dean said.

“No, you didn’t. How did you do it? I would have heard if there was a deal made, and your guardian angels are cut off from Heaven. Who healed you?”

“No one,” John said. “Dean’s—”

“Lucky,” Dean cut in. “Experimental surgery.”

He didn’t think it was a good idea for the demon to know he was here from another world. Lilith might come to investigate, and they’d already discussed how dangerous that could be. If she found out what they were doing, she would fight to find a way to stop them. Dean didn’t think she could, Crowley hadn’t been able to, but he wasn’t willing to find out. 

John nodded and said, “Castiel, get the cuffs on her.”

She backed away and hit the edge of the trap, her eyes wide as she was stopped. Castiel pulled one arm behind her back, slapped on the cuff, then attached it to the other wrist. He grabbed her upper arm and said, “Where shall we do this?”

John pointed to the trees that surrounded the crossroads. “In there will do. There’s not going to be anyone around to get in the way or be hurt.”

Castiel dragged her into the trees and John followed. Dean picked up the duffel from where he’d left it by the truck and went after them.

When he caught up to them, Castiel had removed a cuff and then reattached it so her hands were bound around a tree. With the cuffs that stopped her escaping her meatsuit, she was trapped. 

“Got the knife, Dean?” John asked.

Dean took the demon knife from the duffel and hesitated before handing it over. “We’ve got salt and holy water, too.”

“I know, but she’s dead either way,” he replied. “We can’t let her go back to hell and tell Lilith what we’re doing.”

“What are you doing?” she asked.

John ignored her. “It’s the way it is here, Dean.”

Dean knew this world was different. He’d killed dozens of demons in his own world, their meatsuits along with them, but this woman looked sweet and innocent. He felt bad about ending her life.

Ultimately, he had no choice. She had to die. They couldn’t risk Lilith finding out what they were doing and interfering. She would not know what the trials were and would be confused only by the fact they were killing a hellhound, but she might come to investigate to find out why. Also, if she came, she would see Dean, both Deans, and they had no idea what she would do then. She had Sam trapped in Hell and could easily take her confusion and frustration out on him.

This demon had to die.

“Okay,” he said, handing the knife to John who pressed it to her cheek.

“There’s no need for violence,” he said. “You can give me what I want and I’ll put you out of your misery fast.”

She narrowed her red eyes. “You expect me to believe you’ll let me off that easy? You’re infamous, Winchester. We all know what you learned from Alastair and how you like to use those lessons on us.

“Maybe you’re right,” John said. “We’ll see.”

He cut the knife into her cheek and drew it down, leaving a deep wound that looked grotesque on the pretty face.

She screamed, words coming through the expression of pain. “What do you want?”

“A hellhound,” John said. “I want you to summon a hellhound.”

“What makes you think I can do that?”

John leaned forward, close to her face, and smiled a truly evil smile. “I know you can because I have spent over thirty years studying your kind. I know crossroads demons have a hound on standby that you send when the deals are called in. That’s what you’re going to do for me. Call it in.”

She laughed harshly. “John Winchester is suicidal. Has the knowledge of what’s happening to your youngest finally driven you to this?”

“I’m not dying,” John said.

“You will if I call my hound. They’re obedient when it comes to deals, the rest of the time they’re wild and out of our control. You will be destroyed while I watch.”

“No, he won’t,” Castiel said.

“Because you’re here?” she asked. “You can’t think you can protect him, angel. You’re cut off from heaven, have been for years. You’re probably barely an angel at all anymore. You can’t beat a hellhound.”

John lowered the blade to her throat and said, “Call the dog.”

“Why would I? You said it yourself, I’m dead anyway. Why would I give you what you want?”

In answer, John plunged the knife into her shoulder and twisted it, making her howl in pain. Before she had even quieted, he withdrew it and did the same again on her other shoulder. She hadn’t even time to breathe before he was on her again, the knife at her eye and driving into it and scooping out the eyeball and flicking it off the knife on onto the ground

Dean watched John work and realized what he had overlooked before. This man was different in more ways from his own father that he’d seen before. His father had been a warrior, a dangerous opponent to his enemies, but he hadn’t delved into torture like this. Dean could see Alastair’s influence in him and knew John had excelled past what even he had in the Pit. Hell had changed him so much, but Sam had kept him from losing himself to it. This John was too far gone to be rescued. 

“Please stop,” she begged.

“Call the dog,” John said again.

“It will kill you,” she said.

“It won’t,” John said. “Call it now and I’ll leave you one eye to watch it happen. Refuse me again, and you can just listen.”

She panted through the pain, her face and remaining eye agonized and then raised her voice and said in a shout, “Particeps ego beatos vos!”

“That it?” John asked.

“Yes,” Castiel said, a frown etched into his brow. “It’s coming.”

John stepped away from the demon and widened his stance as the howl ripped through the trees towards them. He took the glasses from the pocket of his shirt and put them on.

“Remember, Cas, it’s got to be his kill,” Dean said, putting on his own glasses.

Castiel nodded. “I will remember. You must, too.”

Dean would remember. He didn’t want to watch John fight it alone, but he knew he couldn’t interfere. The kill had to be solely John’s for the trial to be completed.

They all looked to the right as the sound of paws pounding the ground reached them, and then the nightmare was there. The dog was huge, bigger than the one Sam had killed, and Dean wondered if this might be Crowley’s own pet, Juliet. She had seemed pretty huge when she was trying to break down the gate to the mausoleum he and Sam had barricaded themselves inside.

The hound looked from face to face as if assessing where to start and then John jabbed out with the blade and said, “Come here, bitch,” and it launched itself at him.

John stepped to the side and thrust the knife into the hound’s side, but it didn’t even seem to feel it. It turned and slashed out with its claw, cutting into John’s leg and sending a freshet of blood flowing.

“Cas!” Dean said urgently

“No,” John grunted. “Wait.”

Dean watched the blood spill down John’s leg to the ground and wondered if he had time to wait. It looked bad.

The hound struck again, sweeping John’s legs out from under him, and he fell back and hit the ground hard.

Though he knew he couldn’t interfere, Dean took an automatic step forward and the hound rushed at him. He saw the long claws coming for him and then a searing pain as they slashed his side. He fell, too, and clutched his hands to the wound as blood gushed from him. His eyes swam and then consciousness returned with a rush of warmth and pain of flesh knitting together as Castiel held a hand over the wound and healed him.

He stood in front of Dean as he tried to get to his feet, his blade raised defensively. Dean looked around Castiel and saw John on the ground with his hand held above its face, his fingers digging into the throat of the hound as it snapped its jaws. It was an old nightmare for Dean, though it had been Sam holding off the hound when he’d seen it in the weeks that followed the first trial, and he shouted, “Do it!” as John brought up the knife and thrust it into the hounds chest and dragged it down to the dog’s groin. Blood flowed and splashed down on John, soaking him just as it had Sam, and the hound dropped to the side.

“Heal him, Cas!” Dean ordered, but Castiel was already in motion. He held one hand over John’s leg and the other over a slash in his shirt above a raw wound Dean hadn’t seen caused in his stomach.

John flinched and grunted and then sat up and looked down at his soaked shirt. “Is that enough blood?” he asked. “Do I need to roll in it or something?”

“It’s enough,” Dean said. “That’s pretty much exactly what Sam did. I guess you’re more alike than I thought.”

John got to his feet and huffed a laugh. “Then our worlds really aren’t that different at all. Me and Sammy were always two sides of the same coin, though he hated to hear it.”

Dean smiled. “So did my Sam at first.”

John nodded and turned back to the demon that was limp against the tree, her eye wide with shock and lips parted with fast breaths.

“What did you do?” she asked weakly.

John stalked towards her. “I killed a hellhound. Now I’m killing a demon.” Before she could say anything, beg or plead, he was driving the knife into her heart. She bucked once and then fell forward as her legs gave way, her hands were cuffed behind her holding her almost upright.

“We need to bury her,” Dean said.

“I’ll do it,” Castiel said. “You have both lost a lot of blood, and that’s something I can’t replenish. You will need rest.”

John stared at him for a moment and then said, “No, I can handle it. I feel fine.”

Dean could tell it was a lie as he had to steady himself on a tree as soon as he said it, but he knew enough not to argue. He didn’t feel that good himself, he was a little lightheaded, but he knew juice and cookies would mostly take care of that. 

It was John that wasn’t going to bounce back. He was doing the trials now and Dean knew what that did to a body. Sam had suffered for months, at first secretly. John was going to suffer the same way. All Dean could do was hope that they would be able to move through the trials fast so he wouldn’t suffer long, and this world’s Sam wouldn’t suffer more than he had to.

He wasn’t Dean’s Sam, he didn’t have the same connection to him, but the thought of any version of his brother in Hell was abhorrent. Dean was going to get his strength back and then he was going to find them a reaper.

But before that, he was going to make sure his Sam was okay. He’d gone to Colorado to face demons on a scale they’d probably never seen. He was with Jack so should be okay, but Dean wouldn’t be able to settle until they were together again.

Chapter Text

Hannah said she wanted to stay to assist the ‘cleanup crew’ so they left her in Colorado and Castiel brought them back to the motel room they’d left from.

As soon as they arrived, Sam’s eyes moved around the room, searching for his brother. He wasn’t there, and Sam hesitated for a moment over whether to call him or not. He wanted to make sure he was okay, but at the same time, he didn’t want to distract him while he was going after a hellhound.

He decided not to risk it, to wait, and instead turned his attention to Jack who was perched on the bed and looking uncomfortable as this world’s Dean and Castiel busied themselves cleaning weapons and making coffee while Jessica leaned against the wall beside Sam.

“You okay, Jack?” he asked.

Jack nodded. “Yes, I’m fine. I am just feeling… strange.”

“Figures,” Dean said. “You went in expecting a fight and came out with nothing more than itchy feet.”

Sam frowned. “It’s better that no one was killed by us, Jack.”

“I know. Even the demons that reached the gym were held back by the salt line. I was just expecting to be able to help more. Even though I didn’t kill anyone, many died when the demons were exorcised. I would have liked to be able to help them.”

“So would I,” Castiel said, drawing a confused look from his version of Dean. “I have been cut off from Heaven for a long time, but I still haven’t accepted the fact I can’t heal. Dean’s eye especially.”

Dean shrugged. “I’ve adapted.”

Castiel’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Yes, you have.”

“You’ve done plenty without healing us, Cas,” Jessica said. Her tone wasn’t kind as Sam expected it to be. She was stating a fact. She seemed different from the woman that had lain with him in his world, the woman that had given herself over to joy.

Dean poured himself a coffee then jerked his head towards the pot and said, “It’s ready.”

Sam shouldn’t be surprised that Dean wasn’t serving them, he obviously wasn’t the kind of man that indulged in common courtesy, he still noted another difference between this version and his own brother. His Dean could be crass and moody, but he wasn’t usually a jerk. And Sam had his own bad days, too.

He wondered what he would have been met with had he met this world’s version of himself before he was trapped in Hell. He had a feeling that when they did meet, this Sam wasn’t going to be the same man that was trapped by Lilith over a decade ago. He was going to be a wreck. That worried Sam as they had no guarantee Castiel was going to be able to rebuild the wall Death had created in Sam to protect him from his Cage memories.

Sam poured a coffee for himself, Jessica, and Jack, then pulled a chair away from the table and sat down.  Dean perched on Jessica’s bed and stretched his legs out in front of him while Jessica sat opposite.

“The second trial,” Dean said, “that’s the one that’s going to get Sammy back, right?” 

“Yes. It’s to rescue an innocent soul from Hell.”

“And how do we get into Hell?” Dean asked. “Because it took Cas and a garrison to get Dad out, and I don’t think the three angels we’ve got can pull it off.”

“No, it’s got to be John that does it,” Sam said. “Alone. There is a way into Hell if we can find a willing reaper. We had one in our world that helped us, but I have no idea if we can find him here. Our world… things had changed. Reapers and angels that followed the path before, were loyal to the rules, went off the rails after the apocalypse.”

“We’ve never had much to do with reapers,” Jessica said. “There was one that we saved when Alastair was breaking a seal, but we’ve not seen her since.”

“Reapers are loyal,” Castiel said. “We’re going to struggle to find one that will break rules for us.”

Dean set down his mug on the bedside table hard, sloshing some of the coffee over the side, and said, “Well we’re going to have to. Sammy needs us to find a reaper, we’re damn well going to get one.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s not in question.”

“We will,” Sam said. “Even if we can’t find Tess or Ajay—the one that helped us—we’ve got a store of lore in the bunker that will help us find one.”

“What is the bunker?” Castiel asked.

“It’s our home,” Jack said. “It’s amazing.”

“It’s kinda everything,” Sam said. “It is where we live, but it’s also where we work. It’s got pretty much all the lore in the world on record there and a wealth of weapons. We’ve been there years and we still haven’t finished finding out everything about it.”

“It’s pretty impressive,” Jessica said. “I think John would be pretty interested in the library.”

Dean nodded and then looked to the window as the sound of an engine approached and cut off outside the room. Jessica stood and opened the door. “They’re back,” she said. “And… Whoa.”

Sam jumped to his feet and moved to the door as John, Dean, and Castiel climbed out of the truck and stumped to the door. John passed him without a word and sank down onto the side of the bed but Sam’s Dean held up his hands and said, “I’m fine. We’re fine. Cas healed us.”

Sam gaped at the bloodstain on the leg of his jeans. It was huge. Dean had lost a lot of blood. “What happened?” he asked.

“Hellhound,” John said gruffly. He turned to his son. “It’s done.”

Dean nodded. “Good.”

“And it was you, John?” Sam asked nervously.

His own Dean answered, a touch of annoyance in his tone despite his wide smile. “Yeah, I just provided background noise while John went in for the kill. The first trial is done, and John is already showing the changes.”

Sam was relieved that the first trial was done but he was nervous about the fact Dean had been hurt, too. He’d known it was a risk, but that was a big bloodstain and that made him worry.

“What changes?” Jessica asked.

Castiel started to answer, “His body is changing on a molecular level…” but Sam’s Dean answered, saying, “You’ll get damn sick.”

John’s own family accepted the news with nods and no sign of concern, not even Jessica, but Sam wanted to reassure them anyway. “It starts out okay, then will feeling like the flu from Hell, but—”

“But I’ll be dead soon after so it’s a moot point,” John said brutally. “I know. When can we start the next trial?”

“As soon as we have a reaper,” Sam said. “We can start looking now. There’s a place in Kansas City where we met one before that I’ll check, but if not, we’ll go to lore.”

Sam’s brother yawned and said, “We better get started then. You got sick fast after the first trial, Sammy, so we’ve got to get it going before John’s weakened.”

“We will,” Sam’s Castiel said. “But first you and John need to rest. You lost blood that I cannot replenish. You’re going to feel weak for a while.”

“I’ll be fine,” Dean said as John glowered. “We’ll fill up on sugar.”

Castiel nodded then shared a look of understanding with himself from this world and said, “Perhaps you would like to change first. You both looked macabre.”

John got to his feet and said, “Yeah. I want to clean up.”

The Dean that belonged to this world said, “There’s stuff in our room that you can wear, Dean. You’re only a little smaller than me.”

Sam’s Dean snorted. “Dude, we’re the same person.”

“Yeah, but I’ve bulked up fighting demons. You’re still a little scrawny.”

Sam hid a laugh with a cough at the furious look on his brother’s face and said, “Go change, Dean. I’ll get the juice.”

He and John got to their feet and walked from the room, them both looking weary. When they were gone, Sam’s Castiel stood and said, “I’ll be right back.”

“What are you doing?” Dean asked suspiciously.

“Ensuring that they rest,” he said, then strode from the room with a purposeful look on his face. 

Dean sighed and said, “Dad is gonna be pissed if he knocks him out.”

“Never mind,” Jessica said. “If John is going to Hell next, he needs to be at his strongest. He needs to rest.”

“And we need a reaper,” Sam said, turning to the Castiel that belonged to this world. “Can you give me a ride to Kansas City? I want to check if Ajay is there.”

Castiel nodded. “Yes.”

Dean got to his feet, too, and said, “I’m coming.”

“No,” Sam said. “You guys can stay and keep an eye on Dean and John. If Lilith hears somehow that they killed a hellhound, she is going to want to know how and why, and she might come calling. You’ve got Jack on side, but he can’t kill her. I’m not sure if it technically has to be me that kills her for the seal to break, but we can’t risk it. Jack will maybe be able to trap her. I don’t know. But you stay.”

Dean stared at him for a moment, seeming to be looking right through him, and then nodded curtly.

“Jack, keep an eye on them,” Sam said and then addressed Castiel. “We’re going to the Industrial District of KC, Missouri. Put me down there and I’ll be able to find the place. Ready?”

In answer, Castiel walked towards him and Sam felt the swoop of flight in his stomach and then his feet were hitting the sidewalk in front of a dingy looking bar and the sound of traffic was in his ears.

He looked around, searching for something he recognized from his and Dean’s visit. It looked familiar, but Sam guessed industrial areas would look basically the same all over the country. He was going to have to look around on foot.

He set off walking and Castiel fell into step at his side. They had walked for a few minutes and taken a corner before Castiel spoke, and he sounded strangely indifferent to the importance of the question. “Is John going to suffer greatly for these trials?”

Sam glanced at him, seeing the furrowed brow, and answered honestly. “Yes. By the time I reached the third trial, I was in agony. I didn’t know if I’d live long enough to finish it. And then after, when I stopped, it was so much worse. John won’t stop though.”

“Why did you stop?” Castiel asked. “Wouldn’t your world be better devoid of demons?”

“Because of Dean,” Sam said. “We didn’t know for sure it would kill me, though I had a pretty good idea it would with the way I felt. When Dean found out, he came and stopped me just before I was done. He said some things, and…” He sighed. “In the end, I couldn’t do it to him. I could see what it would do to him if I had died, and I couldn’t let him suffer like that.”

“He’s important to you,” Castiel stated.

“He’s my brother,” Sam said. “He’s more important than anything.”

“I think our Dean feels the same way about Sam. He changed so much after he was taken. He’d always been strong, a brilliant fighter, but he was also lighter as a person. He laughed and joked. He and Sam balanced each other out perfectly.”

“You said Sam was more reverential,” Sam said.

“He was. When we met, I saw the light of faith in his eyes. I did not behave very kindly towards him, but that didn’t seem to stop him wanting to please me. He was consumed with stopping Lilith, we all were, but when I spoke to him on the rare occasions, we were together, he really was reverent, as if he was clinging to the faith he’d had when we met. He never forgot that it was angels that saved John. Though he changed over the course of the year as his need to stop Lilith took over and the blood’s hold on him grew, he still showed gratitude. He was a good man, a great hunter, and letting Lilith take him is one of my greatest regrets.”

“He is a good man,” Sam corrected. “He’s not dead. He’s just trapped. John will get him out.”

“I hope so,” Castiel said. “I know if anyone is capable of doing it, it would be a Winchester. I have seen them do incredible things.” He stopped as they came to an intersection and Sam looked up and down the street before choosing to cross the street and then went on, “What Dean is to you, they are to me.”

Sam slowed to look at him for a moment, seeing the intense blue eyes, and said, “You are to them, too, I think. Cas is family to us. He has been for years. He’s screwed up badly, and it’s come close to breaking what we have, but it’s never done it all the way. He’s my brother. I don’t know your Dean properly, or Jess and John, but I think they probably feel the same way. They just can’t show it because they’re too taken up with this war you’re fighting. When it’s over, when Sam is back and the demons gone, things will be better.”

Castiel looked pleased for a moment and then his expression became serious and he said, “Your Castiel has made mistakes?”

“We all have,” Sam said.

“Yes, but what did he do? If I am warned of what he’s done, perhaps I can avoid it.”

Sam huffed a laugh. “Sure, okay. Uh… Purgatory. There’s a demon called Crowley that persuaded our Cas to help him open a door to Purgatory to take the souls. Don’t do that. Purgatory souls include Leviathans which are pretty much the nastiest monster we ever faced. And… uh… Metatron! He was the scribe of god and he’s a toady little asshole. He made Cas believe he was going to save Heaven—which was a huge mess—and ended up taking Cas’ grace and using it for a spell to expel all angels from Heaven. If you see him—squat, beard, froggy eye—kill him. He might be calling himself Marv and, in our world, he was hiding out in a hotel in New Mexico. Actually, you might want to kill him anyway. It’ll save a lot of trouble.”

“Your Castiel did a lot of damage,” he stated.

“Yeah,” Sam said uncomfortably. “But his heart was always in the right place. He hurt when he was trying to help. We’ve all done that before.”

Castiel nodded solemnly. “Is that all?”

“No, there’s Lucifer, too, but I don’t think that will be an issue since Hell will be closed. Our Cas let himself be used as a vessel to bust Lucifer out of hell to fight the Darkness…” He bit his lip. “About her and God. I don’t know what your feelings for him after what’s happened to your world, but God didn’t abandon you completely. He still knows and watches. He just doesn’t interfere. When it came down to it in our world, he came to help us.”

Castiel came to a dead stop. “He helped you?

Surprised by his hostile tone, Sam rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, yeah. His sister was about to destroy the world.”

“And what does he think Lilith and her demons have done here? Is this world not destroyed?” He shook his head briskly and strode away.

Sam hurried after him, feeling oddly guilty about the way his attempt to comfort had gone so wrong, and then caught his arm and stopped him. “We’re here, I think.” He walked into the alley they were passing and saw the heavily graffitied walls that Ajay had used to create the door for him. “Yeah, this is it. His cab’s not here though.”

“There is no reaper here,” Castiel said. “I would sense them.”

Sam sighed. “Figures that would be too easy. Never mind. We’ll go back and then start on the lore when Dean and John are awake.”

Castiel nodded. “Yes, but… Do not tell them what you told me about God. I don’t think any of them hold residual faith after what they lived through, but there is a chance Sam might have. I don’t want that to be destroyed.”

Surprised, Sam said, “You care about him, too?” He didn’t think Castiel had given a crap about him until well into the year of the apocalypse.

“Living with the Winchesters all this time, hearing the way they speak about him and knowing how much they miss him, it’s impossible not to care about him.”

Sam stared at him for a moment. So far in this world, he’s been struck by the differences in the people here compared to his family. There were huge differences in them all, but there were similarities, too. This version of Castiel was good, just like his was, and he cared.

It was reassuring to see. He thought that Dean, Sam, and Jess were going to need that when the trials were done and John dead. They were going to suffer with his loss.

Chapter Text

Sam let himself into the dimly lit room and looked between the two beds. Dean was lying on one on his back, his arms at his sides and his face peaceful. It looked as though he hadn’t stirred since Castiel had settled him here. John’s position was more torqued, as if he’d been tossing and turning, perhaps with nightmares.

He had come in to check on Dean only, planning to return to Jessica’s room and the others when he was sure Dean was okay, but the sight of the blood-soaked clothing that Dean had been wearing when they’d parted, tossed into the corner and his brother in clothes that didn’t belong to him, made him reluctant to leave him again.

He’d known Dean being there for the first trial was dangerous, that he could be hurt, but knowing and seeing how bad it had been were two very different things. At least it wasn’t Dean that had completed the trial. Castiel said John had done it alone and that his body was already showing the first signs of the same changes Sam had undergone on a molecular level.

It had started.

Dean stirred and opened his eyes. He blinked blearily up at Sam and said, “You watching me sleep, creeper?” He pushed himself upright, looked at John in the other bed and frowned. “Why am I sleeping at all?”

“Cas helped. You both lost a lot of blood and neither of you were willing to rest.”

Dean glowered. “He put me out! That asshole.”

“He was worried about you both. He could sense how bad it was and figured the best thing you could do was sleep awhile.”

“I’m still kicking his ass for it,” Dean grumbled.

Sam shrugged. “I guess you can try. How are you feeling?”

Dean rolled his shoulders and stretched his arms above him. “Not bad. I’m hungry.”

“We’ve got juice and cookies next door from the vending machine,” Sam said. “And I’ll go out and get you something decent when you’ve had that.”

Dean got up and looked back at John who was sleeping restlessly, his hands fisting and relaxing. “We should wake him, too.”

“We’ll let his Dean do it,” Sam said. “They need to talk anyway.”

He thought they had a lot to discuss, trials, rescuing Sam, the appearance of four people from another world in their life. They could do with some privacy for it.

Dean nodded and got to his feet. Sam opened the door and gestured him out. The door to Jessica’s room was open and Dean and Castiel of this world were standing in the parking lot, leaning against the Impala.

The two Deans surveyed each other for a moment and then this world’s version said, “I’m going to talk to Dad.”

Sam handed over the keycard and Dean walked to his father’s room and let himself inside, the door swinging shut behind him.

Sam and Dean walked into Jessica’s room where she, Jack and Castiel were gathered on the bed and chairs. Castiel looked up cautiously at Dean and said, “I know you’re not happy but…”

“But nothing!” Dean snapped. “I could have been doing something useful instead of napping. Don’t do that to me again.”

Castiel stared back at him impassively.

Sam grabbed the juice boxes and a package of cookies and pushed Dean towards the bed. “Be useful. Eat these.”

Dean sat and tore open the cookies without a word. 

“We were talking about the Bunker,” Sam said, moving to lean against the wall opposite Dean. “We’ve got to find a reaper and there might be something in the books about summoning one.”

Dean frowned. “Why not just call one? Or track that Ajay down?”

“Already tried Ajay,” Sam said. “He wasn’t there.”

“Okay, but we can still call,” Dean said. “Billie came that time.”

“Yeah, because she was listening,” Sam said. “She was itching to end us, and so would have been hanging around when she could. There’s no one listening for us in this world.”

Dean chewed hard and then swallowed. “We could die.”

Castiel made an exasperated sound. “You do realize I can’t bring you back, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but we’ve done it without you, too,” Dean said, his tone aggravatingly reasonable. “There might be a Doctor Robert here. Shame I didn’t think to bring the Lazarus kit with me,” he muttered. 

“How about we start with research?” Sam said, forcing himself not to show his extreme frustration. Dean was always so willing to dive into death, and Sam wasn’t sure it was wholly because he had faith that he’d come back each time. 

Dean bit into another cookie and said, “Sure, okay,” around another mouthful.

“Where is this bunker?” Jessica asked.

“Kansas, only a couple hours drive away. We’ve got a key with us but…” He trailed off. They hadn’t asked if Henry had made it to this world. They might not have their own key to access it when Sam and the people he belonged with had gone home. He was pretty sure getting one cut professionally wasn’t going to work. “Did Henry ever find you?”

“John’s father?” Jessica asked.

“Yes, it would have been a while ago. He was being chased by a demon called—”

“Abaddon,” Jessica supplied. “Yeah. They were both here. Henry was killed and we think Abaddon was, too. We were going up against her when there was something like an earthquake and we all woke up an hour later alone. We figured the angels came for her.”

Sam acknowledged the fact his grandfather was dead in this world, too, with a sigh and a nod and said, “Did he leave you a key?”

“He left us a box,” Jessica said. “John has it.”

“And you never looked inside?” Dean asked.

Jessica shrugged. “It was never really up to us to look. John packed it away and we never asked him about it again. Some topics are out of bounds for us.”

Sam and Dean exchanged a glance and both nodded. There had been topics out of bounds for them with John, too. Sam could understand why John had been unwilling to talk about his father with the rest of his family.

“Well, in the box is a key,” Sam said. “That place you arrived in, the bunker, was made by the Men of Letters…”

“Never mind them,” John said curtly from the door, cutting Sam off. “We need to start the second trial.”

Sam looked at him and saw that his face was tight with carefully controlled anger. It was clear that he knew something about the Men of Letters, possibly from Henry when he had come to this world, and wasn’t going to talk about them. He was going to have to though, Sam knew, and he didn’t feel much pity for John. His pity was for Henry and the kind of reception he imagined he’d gotten from John in this world. The fact he’d packed away the key and never mentioned it again made it clear that he was still full of anger towards his father. Sam was determined that John was going to get the full story. This wasn’t his world or father, but he was going to make sure John knew what a sacrifice Henry had made when John just thought he’d abandoned him.

“We can’t start the second trial without a reaper,” Sam said. “And we don’t know how to get hold of one here. We need the lore the Men of Letters have to find one. We’re going to the bunker.”

John frowned but didn’t ask what the bunker was which made Sam think he’d been outside, listening to their conversation for a while.

“We’ve got to get to Kansas,” Dean said. “Lebanon. It’s only a couple hours away.”

Jessica got to her feet “Okay. You’ll need to tell me the way. Sam, you want to ride with me?”

Sam did want to, he wanted to wring as much out of the time he would have with her left, but he also knew that John needed to hear what he had to say more.

“No, I’ll ride with John,” he said. “Dean can go with you and show you where it is if we get separated on the road. Cas, you good to go in the Impala with Dean, Jack, and… well, Cas.”

Both Castiels nodded.

“Do you want to eat before we go?” Sam asked.

John opened his mouth, perhaps to argue against the need for food when there was a trial waiting to be undertaken, but his world’s Castiel said. “Yes. John and Dean need to eat. And the rest of you should fuel yourselves.” He looked at Jack, something strange in his eyes. “Do you eat?”

Jack beamed, perhaps pleased to be addressed by the angel that had been so against him when they’d first met, and said, “I do. I like nougat.”

Sam huffed a laugh. “We know, Jack, and we’ll stock the cupboard with it when we get home.”

“Really?” Jack asked. “What about cavities? You said that too much candy…”

Sam held up a hand. “After what you’ve done to get us here and will do to get us home, you can eat as much as you like. I’ll stock up on that cereal you like, too.”

Jack grinned and his eyes danced with glee, but his answer was mild. “Okay. Thank you.”

Sam thought the kid was doing well. He’d handled himself against Hannah and Castiel, he’d managed to get them here, and he was going to get them home. If he wanted sugar-filled cereal and candy as a reward, Sam would make sure he got it. 

xXx

Sam and John had passed most of the journey to Lebanon without talking more than for Sam to give directions, and he’d struggled to find the courage to bring up the subject of Henry. As they passed into the town limits, he knew he had to if he was going to do it at all. Soon they would be in the bunker and their attention would return to the trials.

He cleared his throat and said, “About Henry…”

“I don’t want to hear it,” John snapped.

“No, I don’t imagine you do, but I also think you need to. When he was here, did he have a chance to tell you how and why he got here?”

“No. He had just long enough to tell me some crap about a secret society of scholars, get his chest punched out by Abaddon, and to shove that damn box in my hand.”

Sam nodded, understanding John’s reluctance to talk about him now.

“Well, he was in a secret society called The Men of Letters. It was scholars that studied the supernatural world. They facilitated hunters. In Britain, they did a lot more. They were more like soldiers, and they obliterated all monsters there. They were assholes, sure, but they were good at what they did.”

“Sounds fascinating,” John said, turning the radio on and cranking the volume.

Sam turned it down again and said, “It was. It was your family legacy. You should have been one of them, too, but Henry wasn’t there to teach you.”

John spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m guessing your dad was more open to discussions like this, but I’m not. You want to ride with me, you shut your mouth or I’ll kick you out and your buddy Jack can come pick you up.”

Sam snorted. “My dad wasn’t remotely open, and you can kick me out if you like, but if you want help with the trials, you’re going to listen to me.”

He was surprised at himself, he doubted he would ever have spoken to his father like this, and this version of John had an even darker face now that his had ever managed, but he owed it to Henry.

“Henry was at a chapter house for The Men of Letters that night when Abaddon arrived. She killed almost everyone there but one of them lived long enough to hand over the key to Henry. He had to hide it and she was right behind him, so he did the only thing he could. He used a spell to travel through time to his bloodline. In our world, that was me and Dean because Dad was dead. In this world it was you. We had longer with him, so we learned more. He didn’t leave you, John. He was trying to save lives. If Abaddon had gotten hold of the key, all Hell would have broken loose. When he heard what had happened to you from us, he wanted to come back. The idea that you thought he had abandoned you wrecked him. He would have done it if Abaddon hadn’t grabbed me. He stayed to save my life, and he died for it. If he could have, he would have come back to you.” 

“Nice story.”

“It’s not just a story. It’s your father’s life.”

John glowered at the road and then, as they came to an intersection, said, “Which way next?

Sam sighed. “Take the left. About a mile down, turn right onto the dirt road and you’ll see the entrance. It’s under a power plant.”

John took the turn and then cranked the radio again, the message that the conversation was clearly over.

When they reached the bunker, Sam got out of the oppressive atmosphere of the truck at once and waited as Jessica’s car and the Impala pulled up behind them and everyone climbed out.

“You’re going to need the key,” Sam told John.

John pulled a bag out of the back of the truck and rooted through it then pulled out the carved wooden box, the twin of the one Sam and Dean had in their world.  He slid open the lid and took out the key then looked up at the power plant.

“No, it’s that one,” Sam said, pointing at the sunken door at the base of concrete steps.

John walked down the steps and paused a moment before inserting the key and turning it. The lock squealed and the door creaked as it opened. John pushed it open and went in.

Sam went after him, the others filing in after him.  He went down the steps confidently straight to the power point and pulled the lever that would turn on the lights and start the generator that provided oxygen to the bunker.

The Dean, Jessica, John, and Castiel of this world looked around in wonder, while Sam’s family watched them. Jack looked especially happy to be home, or in a version of it at least.

“There’s bedrooms, a kitchen, bathrooms, everything,” Dean said.

“Where’s the books?” his counterpart of this world asked.

“Through there,” Sam said, pointing toward the library.

Dean, John, and Castiel strode away and up the stairs, leaving Sam with his family and Jessica. 

“It’s protected?” Jessica asked.

“Yes,” Sam said. “Sam will be safe here. You can make a room ready for him.”

She smiled and nodded. “I will, but first we’ve got to find a reaper so we can get him back”

She went into the library and Sam heard the occupants speaking in low voices.

“You okay, Sammy?” Dean asked.

Sam nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

And he was. He knew that by coming here they were making a leap towards getting the second trial started, getting Sam back, and he sensed that Jessica was now distancing herself from him, seeing the difference in him to the man she needed as Sam had when he’d been with her in Colorado. It was right. They didn’t belong to each other, and he understood that. Letting go of her was going to hurt, but it was also the right thing to do.

He could handle it.

Chapter Text

Sam sucked in a breath and Dean’s head snapped up. He recognized the gleam in Sam’s eyes and the high curve of his lips that meant he’d just found something that excited him. Before he could ask what it was, he heard a soft gasp and he turned to see Jessica watching Sam with wet eyes. He looked past her to see John and the other Dean were also fixated on Sam with strange expressions.

Sam looked up, his smile wide and then he frowned as he saw their scrutiny. “What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” John said gruffly as Dean crossed a hand over his face and cleared his throat.

Jessica wiped her eyes and said, “Did you find something?”

Sam looked puzzled still, but Dean thought he understood. He had seen the moment he was used to in his brother, the excitement of revelation, and they had seen it, too. But for them, it was so much more than just a familiar quirk of his brother. For them, it was seeing their Sam in him. Even Dean and John were affected.

“Sammy,” Dean prompted.

“Yeah, I think we can summon a reaper,” Sam said. “It’s similar to the spell to summon an angel—which makes sense, I guess since they’re both divine—but the ingredients are a little different. We have them in our lab so they should be in the lab here, too.”

“Where’s the lab?” John asked, getting to his feet, his eyes intense.

“I’ll go,” Dean said. “What do we need, Sam?”

Sam ran his finger down the page and said, “Sands of time, gold ore, hemlock, mace, and… I’ll bring the book.”

They stood and Sam picked up the book and strode out. Dean followed him through the halls to the working area of the bunker where the lab was located. He pushed open the door and flipped on the light and sniffed at the strange-smelling air. He was never sure it was healthy breathing in the funk of this place. Some of the ingredients the Men of Letters had kept were pretty out there—he’d seen one marked Anthrax and he was only hoping it was code for something else.

Smell aside, he was glad to get away from the crowd for a moment. It was weird enough looking at the mirror—and only slightly more built—version of himself. Seeing his father’s face but the wrong man behind the eyes, the Castiel that was pretty much the same as theirs physically but still a different man, and Jessica, but he wasn’t being stared back at the way Sam was. 

Sam put the book down on the table and said, “Okay, we need a… What?”

Dean realized he was staring and quickly looked away. “Nothing.”

“No, really. They were all staring, too. What’s going on?” He grinned. “Do I have something on my face?”

“Is it weird for you?” Dean asked. “Having them all looking at you like that? Before, when you found the spell, it was pretty intense.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “You really want to talk feelings?”

Dean shrugged. “This is me trying to help and understand.” He laid his hand on Sam’s arm and softened his face, not able to hide the mocking in his eyes. “I’m here for you, Sammy.”

Sam pushed him away and laughed. “Yeah, it’s weird, but it’s weird for all of us right now. Things are crazy. We’re in a different, crazy-ass world.”

“But it’s not more than that?” Dean pressed. “You’re not thinking about after.”

He saw when Sam understood the question as his face fell. “You mean saying goodbye to Jess?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s going to be hard,” Sam said, his eyes fixing on a point above Dean’s left ear and his fingers drumming on his crossed arms. “But what I had in our world was amazing. She gave me something incredible. We’re giving her what she needs with her Sam. She’s going to be happy with him, and that’s what matters.”

Dean couldn’t agree. To him, in this situation Sam was what mattered. Jessica was a great girl, and Dean felt good about the fact they were leaving her in a better world with the man she loved when they left. It was the man he was taking home with him that worried him.

Sam drew a deep breath and said, “Grab the gold ore and sands of time. They’re in the locked cupboard”

Dean knew Sam was done talking and he accepted it easily, saying, “They lock the good stuff down, sure, but they left some pretty damn dangerous stuff hanging around on the shelves.”

Sam chuckled, “Yeah, but I think the anthrax is a joke one of the old Men of Letters was playing on his buddies.” He paused and then said, “Don’t go sniffing it though.”

“Yeah, because sniffing it was my first thought. Right after that, I was going to lick it.”

Sam huffed a laugh and took a bowl from the cupboard and started to fill it with various jars and envelopes of ingredients. 

Dean took the key for the cupboard from the drawer and unlocked it. There were small envelopes and jars in here, but it was the black velvet bag he wanted. That was where the chunks of gold ore were kept. He had joked once that they could make a decent bit of money selling them off. Sam had disagreed, citing the fact they might need them for a hunt and they could sell Dean’s antique porn if they needed money, Dean hadn’t been sure he was kidding—he better be kidding—so he’d changed the subject.

Dean took the vial of Sands of Time and dropped them into the bowl with Sam’s ingredients. “Ready?” he asked.

“Yep,” Sam said cheerfully.

Dean eyed him for a moment and said, “You do realize that finding a reaper means finding a way into Purgatory and Hell, right? It’s going to be rough, Sammy.”

“I know,” Sam said. “I remember. But I’m not doing it alone this time. We’ll all be together, all of us fighting. We’ll be fine.”

Dean shrugged. He wasn’t feeling that good about going back to Hell. Maybe it was because their Hells were so different. Sam was in the Cage with Lucifer and Michael. Dean didn’t know if that meant he smelled the sulfur, heard the screams, saw the racks of people. That was the Hell they were headed into, and Dean had forty years of memories of that place to back up his discomfort.

Sam checked the book once more, picked it up and took the lead back to the library where the others were waiting, Dean and John on their feet and Jessica, Jack and the angels surveying them.

“Do you have it all?” John asked.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “We just need to add a little blood.”

“Are you trapping it?” the Dean of this world asked. “Dad’s got the symbol copied in his journal. We took it down after that Alastair went after that seal.”

Dean considered a moment and said, “No, I don’t think we need to. If they’re not willing to help us without being trapped, they’re definitely not going to be once we’ve done it. What do you think, Sammy?

“No,” Sam said firmly. “We’re asking for them to do something for us. We’ve got to treat them with respect.”

John crossed his arms over his chest. “Or we could skip the respect and just threaten them. You brought angel blades with you. They’ll kill a reaper, right?”

“Yes,” the other Castiel replied. “But if you kill one, you’re going to find it hard to have any others help you. Reapers are brethren the way angels are.”

John shrugged. “We’ll try your way then.”

Sam took the bowl and began to shake in ingredients. “When they come, we need to be careful,” he said. “The reapers we’ve met have all been…”

“Proud?” Castiel of their world suggested. “Difficult?”

Sam nodded. “Maybe let me handle it.”

John glowered and his son crossed his arms over his chest. “We know how to talk to monsters, thanks.”

“Yes,” Sam said patiently. “But reapers aren’t monsters. Look, I get that you want this done, so do we. The sooner we get a door, the sooner we can get Sam back. Pissing off the being that’s going to get us that door is going to slow us down.”

“If you say so,” John grumbled. 

Jessica and the angels got to their feet and looked expectant as Sam threw a pinch of powder into the bowl and said, “Blood,” thoughtfully as he took the switchblade from his pocket and opened it. He cut across his palm and dripped it into the bowl. Castiel rounded the table and healed Sam’s hand as Sam stared at the page and said, “Be ready,” before taking a book of matches and dropping a lit match down into the bowl reciting the Latin. “O theristis, kaleo se kai deo.”

Flames roared up and Sam stepped back.

Dean’s eyes darted around and then widened as he saw the reaper appear. “Tessa?”

She looked from face to face, settling on Sam and them flickering to Jack. “How is this possible?” she asked. “What is that child.”

“That’s Jack,” Dean said, carefully controlling his annoyance so as not to anger her and put her off helping them. “Me, Sam, Castiel and him are from another world. Jack brought us here.”

“He’s a Nephilim,” the Castiel of this world said.

Tess looked stunned. “A Nephilim lives? How can you allow it, Castiel?”

Jack’s brows lowered over his eyes and his jaw clenched.

“We didn’t call you here to talk about Jack,” John said. “We need you to open a door to Hell.”

Tess took a step back. “You bring me here, to a Nephilim, and then expect me to do that! Castiel, you know how many rules that breaks. Heaven will not allow it. Death will not.”

“Please,” Jessica begged. “We can get Sam back if we have a way in.”

“No,” Tessa said. “I won’t do it. I’m not going to…”

“It’s okay, Tessa,” a smooth voice that Dean recognized said. “I’m here.”

They all spun to see the newcomer and Dean sighed and said, “Billie.”

“Are you a reaper or angel?” John asked.

“Neither,” Billie said. “I am Death.”

“You are?” Sam asked. “But we’re not in…”

“All worlds, one God, Sam,” she said. “All worlds, one Death. Tessa, you can go.”

With a look of exquisite relief, Tessa disappeared, and Billie came towards them, her dark eyes narrowed. She drew a deep breath and said, “I warned you against doing this, Dean. A house of cards. Punching holes through worlds is dangerous. And yet you did it anyway.”

“I did it,” Jack said. “I had to. This world needed us.”

Billie stared at Jack for a moment and then her eyes moved back to Dean. “I could drag you home now, you know. Your Nephilim is not strong against me. I should drag you home. You have no business here.”

Dean swallowed hard. She really could do it, and she would find a way to stop them from coming back. This world would be left in the chaos it was now, and Sam would stay trapped in Hell. Dean didn’t want that, he wanted to help them all, but he wanted to help his brother more and he knew he would never forgive himself if he didn’t get Jessica’s Sam back to her.

“Please don’t,” Jessica said. “We’re going to save the world because they’re here.”

Billie nodded slowly and fixed her eyes on John. “Yes, the trials, I can see the damage already.” She looked back at Sam who was trying to hide his fisted hands behind his back. “I won’t take you back… yet. I will give you seven days to finish what you started here. In that time, you can get Sam Winchester out of hell and finish the trials. I warn you, though, I won’t give more time. If you haven’t succeeded before the time is up, I will take you and leave these versions of yourselves to save their world alone.”

“We’ll get it done,” Sam said. “I promise.”

“Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “I think you will. But have you considered the cost of doing it?”

“Yes,” John said. “I die. We know. That’s not an issue.”

Dean glanced at his counterpart of this world to gauge his reaction and was surprised to see that he was nodding his agreement. He kept being hit by the differences in their worlds, but this was the greatest. He couldn’t imagine himself ever being so hard when faced with his father’s imminent death.

“It’s good to see you’re so accepting,” Billie said. “Most people fight the inevitable. Now, this door. I will open one, but you’re not all going through.”

Jessica gasped. “What? No!”

Billie nodded. “This world relies on the Winchesters, extended included, more than you know. John is going to die for the trials, you’ve all accepted that and the world can suffer the loss, but if you all go to Hell and become trapped there, your people will be left without their greatest protectors.”

“No,” the Dean of this world growled. “We’re just hunters. There are more of us that matter. We’re going to Hell.”

Billie raised an eyebrow and surveyed him for a moment and then seemed to decide to ignore him. She turned to Sam and Dean and said, “You can go. Your world is finally in a place of something close to peace. You, Dean, and John can have your chance.”

“What about us?” Jack asked, indicating himself and the two angels.

“Heaven has no place in Hell,” Billie said. “And you… with one mistimed sneeze, you could break open the Cage. You might not like to be reminded of who your father is but—”

“Okay,” Sam cut in loudly. “We get it. Me, Dean and John will go. No problem.”

Billie stared at him for a moment, a wry smile on her face, and then said, “I see. Well, if we’re doing this, we should do it now. I don’t like being in this world much. Have you got everything you need?”

Sam hurried to the table where the bags of weapons they’d brought with them had been left. He grabbed one and handed it to John and Dean collected his own.

“John…” Jessica said, her eyes full of need.

John looked from her to his son and said, “I’m bringing him back, I promise.” He looked at Billie. “We’re ready.”

Billie walked away and Dean and Sam hurried after her, leaving the others watching from the table they surrounded. They came to the end of the room where the door that would eventually lead to the garage was and Billie held out her hand to Dean. “Link hands, all of you, and be prepared.”

Dean felt a thrill of trepidation as he shouldered his bag and reached for Sam. “Prepared for what?” he asked.

“Nausea,” Sam said, gripping Dean’s hand and John’s.

“Awesome,” Dean muttered.

Billie grabbed his hand and held it tight as she fixed her eyes on the door.

The color of the wood seemed to bleed and melt as white light emerged around the edge. It grew brighter, making Dean’s eyes squint, and then it was touching him. He felt a wave of heat, a roll of nausea, and then his feet slammed into dirt and twigs.

He looked around as Sam dropped his hand and took a breath.

He was back in Purgatory.

Chapter Text

Sam looked around at the trees and stream they’d arrived alongside, and he felt a chill of anticipation. The last time he had been here with Bobby, Benny had given his life for them to escape. He was back with John and Dean, all of them competent fighters, and they were better armed than Sam had been then, but he was nervous.

He shot a quick look at Dean to see if he seemed troubled, too, but he was looking around with a strange expression. If Sam didn’t know better, he would say Dean was excited. He knew Dean had a strange connection to Purgatory, even though his time here had been constant warfare, but he couldn’t be happy to be back, could he?

“This is Hell?” John asked doubtfully.

Dean turned to Sam. “You didn’t tell him?”

Sam raised his arms. “When? You’ve had more time with him than I have.”

“Tell me what?” John growled.

“This is Purgatory,” Billie said. “The resting place of every monster that has ever been killed. Human souls and Angels belong in Heaven. Demons in Hell. All other monsters belong here.”

John grunted a laugh. “And no one thought to warn me about this?” He frowned. “Where are they all? If this is the monster Heaven, why aren’t they attacking?”

“They will,” Billie said confidently. “Right now, you have a supernova of energy with you warning them away. They will come when I’m gone. And that will be soon. We just have a little more to discuss before I can leave you to your task.” She smoothed the front of her shirt and fixed her eyes on John. “Your son is not here in the technical sense.”

“No, he’s in Hell,” John said. “I know.”

"He's not entirely there either. His soul was taken to Hell, but his body remained on earth."

John's fists rose, and he took a step towards her. "My son's body has been on earth all this time, and no one told us? What the hell kind of monster are you? I should— “

Billie held up a hand, and his teeth snapped together as his mouth was jerked closed. “Do not forget who you are talking to, John Winchester. I am eternal. You are not even an insect to me.”

John's eyes blazed, but he couldn't speak.

“I have endless worlds to monitor,” she said. “I control life and death in each of them. And you should be grateful. If Sam’s body had been trapped here, can you imagine what kind of ruin it would be after all this time? It was Sam’s true self that was left here.”

John’s eyes asked the question his mouth couldn’t, and Sam answered it. “His soul is here.”

Billie nodded. “Exactly.”

“Wait!” Dean said. “Are you telling me their Sam has been running around soulless upstairs all this time?”

Sam’s mouth dropped open. It made sick sense. If that version of himself was soulless, he would have no need for family and wouldn’t go to them.

He had only gone to Dean when he was targeted by the djinn, and that was truthfully a hunt and not concern for his brother’s life. The idea that the other Sam could be doing the same, racking up the kind of path of destruction Sam didn’t even want to think about, was horrifying.

“I don’t know,” Billie said. “I don’t often visit this world. Your own keeps me busy, as does the world your friend Bobby Singer came from.”

“Can’t you find out?” Sam asked.

She nodded. “Of course, I can. I won't, though. It's down to you to find your lost property. I am not your mother running behind you and picking up your toys."

John’s face flushed with fury and she smiled indulgently at him and then made a small jerking movement with her hand, and he burst into speech, though he was obviously being careful to be respectful now, “How am I supposed to find him and put the soul back?”

“Finding him should be easy for a man as resourceful as yourself. Dean will know how to put the soul back where it belongs. You have seen it before, hadn't you, Dean?"

Dean glanced at Sam, grimaced, and nodded. “Yeah. I remember, but that was Death—the old Death. How am I supposed to do it?”

“I suggest you utilize one of the angels you have available to you.” She looked around. “One more thing and then I will go. There are three vampires close that would enjoy a fight. I can sense them edging in on us. Now, when you have Sam—again, Dean and Sam will both know how to bring him out—you need to return to this place as fast as you can. Call me, and I will come. Be careful with Sam, though, John. He's going to be sensitive once you have him. Perhaps leave the fighting to Sam and Dean. And remember, your life alone is not at risk. If you're killed, there will be no saving Sam.”

“Sam will be fine,” Dean said determinedly. “We’ll protect them both.”

Billie nodded. “Good. Then I will see you soon. Don’t keep me waiting too long. Oh, one more thing. Hell is a big place, as I am sure you remember, Dean. Sam will be in the center, in Lilith’s own lair.”

Sam’s mouth dropped open. “How do we find that?”

"You go to the place where the screams are loudest and the flames hottest.” She clapped her hands and disappeared, and at the same moment, there was a feral roar from the trees and the sound of racing footsteps. Sam thought that she had perhaps given the vampires a little nudge to come.

“Weapons,” Sam said, sliding the duffel from his shoulder and yanking it open as John and Dean did the same.

“Go for the heads,” Dean said. “It’s the only thing in here that kills everything.”  

Sam pulled out a machete and shook it out of its sheath at the same moment the vampires arrived on the other side of the stream. He lifted his machete and jerked his head to invite them closer.

Now, faced with the enemy, he felt calmer. It was often like this. Things became clear: kill or be killed. There was no confusion about motivations or innocence the way he was sometimes hounded. He was ready.  

“Come and get it,” Dean growled.

John wasted no words. He just ran at them, machete poised to swing, and shouted in what sounded a lot like a war cry. Sam and Dean followed a beat later, and the vampires met them.

Though they were all armed and the vampires not, the vampires threw themselves into the fight instead of running away. Sam took a punch to the arm that almost made him drop his machete. As it was, he had to switch it to his left hand and swing it to drive the vampire back.

Dean grunted with pain at his side, but Sam couldn’t look to check on him as the vampire that was coming at him was bouncing on the balls of his feet and preparing to strike. Sam decided to accept an injury for the kill, and he moved into the vampire’s blow, catching it across the jaw, as he swung his hand and cut into the vampire’s neck.

As the pieces dropped, he spun around and looked at Dean, who was rubbing his jaw, apparently having taken his own punch, and looking down at the two pieces of his attacker on the ground.

Sam looked to John and saw that he was still in combat, though it was a very one-sided as the vampire he was fighting had already lost one arm and the hand on the other side. Its secondary teeth were descended, and it looked ready to rip John's throat out if given the chance. John gave it no chance, though. With a cry that Sam didn't want to call excitement, John cut off its head and kicked it hard as it landed near his foot.

Dean watched the head fly and land in the stream, where it created a small obstacle that the water gushed around and then said, "Okay… That's done. Sammy, you've done this before. Lead the way."

Sam picked up the sheath of the machete from the ground and attached it to his belt, then put the machete into it, feeling its reassuring weight on his hip, then took a knife from the duffel before slinging it over his shoulder. 

“We’ve got to find our way back,” he said. “I wouldn’t put it past Billie to insist on this exact stop for the cab ride home.” He carved a pentagram into the bark of the nearest tree and then looked around. “I remember the stream,” he said.

“Then we’ll follow it,” John said gruffly, setting off walking. “Move your asses. My boy is waiting for me.”

Dean and Sam exchanged a glance and then followed him, Sam scouring the area for the entrance to Hell he remembered. He was going into the very center where he might be forced to face Lilith again. He would do it gladly, this was for himself in a technical sense and Jessica in the literal, but he was worried about how they were supposed to get Sam free without killing her.

xXx

Dean was three steps back from Sam, scouring around him for danger approaching from behind, while Sam and John strode ahead. They’d been attacked fives time so far, Sam only making it through the second attack as John had pulled off a fast move with a machete, taking out two ghouls with one swing while Dean dragged Sam out of range of the blades they were swinging. Dean and Sam had both babbled their gratitude, but John merely stepped over the bodies at his feet and walked away, growling over his shoulder for them to hurry up.

Dean could tell Sam was starting to worry. He didn’t know exactly how long had passed since they’d arrived in Purgatory, but it had been hours at least, and they only hoped they were going in the right direction along the stream.

“Recognise anything yet?” John asked as Sam slowed and looked around.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “I mean, I think so.” He looked back up and down the stream again and then set off at a run.

“Dammit, Sam, slow down,” Dean called after him as he started running after him. “You could be running right at a monster.”

“Then we fight,” John said, his words and breaths even though they were sprinting now.

“No, it’s here,” Sam said, pointing to a tree with three large rocks at the roots.

“So are they,” Dean said as five figures raced through the trees at them. He couldn’t tell what they were and didn’t much care. The more pressing problem was the fact they were splitting up, one going for John and two apiece coming at Sam and Dean.  

"Sammy!" Dean shouted as the larger grabbed Sam's shoulders and pinned him as the smaller snapped his teeth in his face. Dean wanted to protect, but his arms were caught and pinned as a monster came at him. He pushed his weight back on the one holding him, using him as a balance as he brought both feet up and kicked the monster in the face. It staggered away from him, and the one holding him stumbled and fell, releasing Dean.

Though he had one on his back and one he'd kicked was coming back, his attention went to Sam as he pulled his machete and checked he was okay before striking. Sam was standing back to back with John, and one of the attacking monsters was in pieces on the ground. They were both facing a monster now.

Satisfied Sam was safe, Dean turned his attention back to the ones coming at him and spun with the blade extended, slicing into the cheek of one and driving the other back. The one he'd injured brought his hand up to his wound, and Dean left him a moment and dealt with the one that had dodged the blade. He stepped into its space and sliced the machete through the air, driving it through the monster's neck and removing its head.

He used the momentum on his swing to spin him around and behead the second as Sam and John’s monsters were felled.

As the pieces hit the ground, John jerked a thumb at the rocks and said, "Is that our door?"

Sam just breathed for a moment, and then he nodded and said, "Yeah, behind the rocks, there's a way in."

John heaved on the center rock, and it fell away, revealing bright white light that spilled towards him. As it touched the toes of his boots, John disappeared.

“Come on,” Sam said urgently, grabbing Dean’s arm and yanking him forward.

The light reached for them, and Dean's head swam as the light blinded, and then he was stumbling on a stone floor in a long, narrow corridor and in the distance were moans and screams that chilled Dean's blood and made his flesh crawl.

“You okay, Dean?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” Dean lied. “It’s good to be back.”

Sam's frown deepened, and then he said. "We better catch up with him."

Dean looked and saw John striding ahead of them.

“John, wait,” he shouted, running after him.

“My son is waiting,” John called back.

“I know,” Sam replied. “But you’re not armed with the right weapon anymore.” He slid the duffel off his own back and pulled out an angel blade. “Take this.”

John stopped and allowed them to catch up. Then, he took the blade and slid away his machete into the sheath on his belt. Dean took his own blade from his bag and said, "We don't need this stuff now, and there's no point carrying more than we need." He dropped his bag down and kicked it into an alcove. Sam and John dropped their own beside it, after Sam had taken his blade from the bag, and set off walking again.

They continued until a voice called to them, and Dean stopped. John grabbed his arm and tugged him forward, and Dean forced his feet to keep moving toward the pained sound. He was finding it hard to be back, the memories of what he had experienced and done here were rushing at him. 

John went ahead, not even slowing when he reached the source of the sound—a wrought iron-barred door that hid a woman with lank blonde hair and haunted eyes. Her hands curled around the bars, and she moved closer, saying, "Help me, please. Let me out."

Sam swallowed hard and took a step towards the door, but Dean grabbed his arm and said, “It’s not why we’re here, Sammy.”

The woman’s eyes moved to him as he spoke, and then she staggered back, her hands flying up to cover her face as she moaned as if in agony. “Not again…”

Dean stared at the woman, confused by the reaction, and then he froze as her hands dropped, and he saw her face again. He recognized it and knew the exact moment he'd last seen it. She had been on the rack, screaming in pain, and he'd been over it with the razor in his hand. He'd been working, slicing into her, when the blue-white light had rushed at him, and the too hot touch on his arm had seared a burn.

She had been the soul he was torturing the day Castiel had saved him.

“You okay, Dean?” Sam asked.

Dean turned away from the woman and gritted his teeth. “Yeah, fine. Let’s go.” This time he took the lead and walked ahead of them. He felt Sam’s eyes on his back, but he didn’t turn or slow. He didn’t want Sam to see the truth in his eyes of what had just happened, and he would. No one in the world knew him better than his brother. 

xXx

Sam knew Dean was struggling to be back, and the sight of the first soul had obviously shaken him, but he couldn't talk to him about it as John was with them, and they really did have something more important to worry about.

They came to an intersection, and Sam paused a moment to remember and then took the right, and they strode along it together without a word. They took another turn into a long corridor with cells lining the walls. They called to them, and Sam and Dean flinched with each plea for help, but John didn't even seem to notice them.

They were deep in Hell now, close to the screams and heat Billie had told them about, and with every turn, Sam thought they were going to be faced with Lilith.

But there was no sign of her. In fact, there was no sign of any demon at all.

Sam thought they were being lulled into a false sense of security by the place, and that made him sure that the fight, when it came, was going to be bigger than they could handle.

A scream ripped through the air, and Sam's heart froze. He knew the sound as he'd heard it thousands of times in his life. It had been the sound that ripped from him when Lucifer and Michael had been slicing into him and tearing him apart.

“Sammy!” John gasped and set off running.

Dean stared at Sam for a moment, wide-eyed, and then they both broke into runs after John.

Sam called after John, warning him to be careful as he knew they were going to face the demons at last when they reached his son, but he didn’t break pace in his sprint.

Sam caught up to him and tried to grab his arm, but John yanked free and pushed him back. Sam got his feet under him and ran after him again, only reaching him when they reached a heavy wooden door with iron nails hammered into it. The screaming was coming from behind the door.

“Sammy!” John shouted, shoving at the door with flattened hands.

"Move," Dean grunted, pushing him out of the way, then grabbed the handle and twisted it. It turned slowly, as if someone was holding it on the other side, and Sam put his weight behind the door, pushing it open enough that John could squeeze through.

There was a grunt, a shout of pain, and then the force pushing back was gone, and the door flew open. There was a dead demon on the stone floor in front of the door, partially blocking it, and Sam jumped over it and ran towards the chair that was in the center of the room.

The chair that housed the bloody and bruised version manifestation of himself that belonged in this world who was panting hard against the constricting chains around his chest. John was kneeling in front of him, his hands touching his face and whispering his name with growing urgency as he stared through him.

“Where is she?” Dean asked, his eyes roving the vast room they were in.

There was no sign of Lilith or any other demon apart from the dead one on the floor. Apart from Dean, John, and the two Sam's, the place was empty.

“This is too easy,” Sam said.

“Sammy, son, look at me,” John was pleading, his hands cupping his son’s cheek. “I’m here. It’s Dad. I’ve come to get you out.”

The Sam in the chair stared right through him, his breaths still panting, but his eyes devoid of awareness. Sam could tell he wasn't aware of anything happening around him the same way he had felt by the end. Lucifer and Michael became vague threats, and all he felt was the pain. That Sam was lost in himself. 

“We can’t wait,” Sam said. “John, get out the way.”

Either unable or unwilling to obey, John stayed by his son, and Sam worked around him to cut the other Sam's forearm and then John's.

"Hold him, John," he instructed. "Repeat after me." When John was holding his son's arm, Sam recited the required Latin, and John repeated it. “Conjuncti sumus, unum sumus.”

The Sam that John was gripping with his intense and wet eyes fixed on his face, seemed to glow for a moment, and then his form bled into a bright light that seeped into John's arm and disappeared. 

John grunted and cupped his hand over the spot his son was held as if cradling it and said, “Okay, I’ve got him. Move.”

Sam took the lead towards the door and then turned back to Dean and said, “That was too damn easy, Dean.”

Dean nodded. “It really was. There should have been way more than one demon with him. Which means they either don’t want us, and they don't want Sam here, or..."

“Or what?” John asked curtly, his hand still cradling the light that was his son.

“Or this whole thing is a trap,” Dean said.

John considered for a moment and then stroked a hand over the light on his arm. "They can come up with whatever the hell kind of trap they want, I don't care. I've got my son, and there's nothing in the world that's taking him away from me again. Move!"

Sam fell into step behind him through the door and along the corridor. He was thinking hard, though.

If the demons wanted Sam out, did it mean he was broken and ready to kill Lilith?

Chapter Text

They were walking through Purgatory in a single file, Sam at the front, leading the way and looking out for danger ahead of them, and Dean at the rear, constantly aware of every sound and movement around him in case it was a sign of impending attack. John was between them, his attention fixed almost wholly on the light burning on his arm. He was cradling a hand over it, and though Dean knew it was uncomfortable to bear a soul like that, he thought it was more about keeping the connection for John than pain. That was his son he was holding, the son he’d lost over a decade ago, and he was trying to soothe them both with the touch. It was such a tender sight, private, that Dean’s eyes moved on quickly every time they fell on it.

Sam came to a sudden stop and John almost walked into him. The difference in the man since they’d found his son was stark. As they made their way to the entrance to Hell, he had been alert and poised for action. Now he had given over all trust to them and was concentrated on his son only.

“What is it, Sammy?” Dean asked.

Sam’s eyes scoured the trees and said, “I’m not sure. I felt something… There!”

Around a grouping of trees to the right were two women sprinting towards them. Dean recognized them as vetala from the distinctive teeth and he remembered the last time he’d faced them: when Sam had been bleeding, tied to a chair, and Krissy trapped in the arms of one. That had been a close call and had Krissy not been fast and smart, it would have had a tragic end.

“Stay behind us, John,” Dean ordered, moving to stand at Sam’s side.

It was his instinct to run at them, to meet them and launch his attack, but he had someone to defend who was vital to the lives of a lot of people; it soothed Dean, in a way, since it was a version of his brother and Sammy always had to be defended, even if it wasn’t his own Sammy.

The vetalas were smart enough to separate and come at them from each side, but Sam and Dean were practiced and fast. They both swung in unison and kept their attackers at bay. The vetalas dodged back and then seemed to decide John was the more tempting target. They both swung around Sam and Dean and came at him. Dean stepped in front of John, blocking one, and Sam tackled the other. He knocked it to the ground and then pinned it with his knees on its chest as Dean swung out with his blade, holding the second at bay.

There were dual screams of pain and the vetala facing Dean looked stricken. Dean moved into its space and swung with the blade, his aim a little low and the blade sinking into its arm. He chanced a glance over his shoulder and saw that Sam was forcing the machete through the neck on the one he’d pinned. He pulled the machete back and swung again, neatly decapitating it this time.

The body remained on its feet a moment after its head dropped, and Dean kicked it in the chest to send it falling back onto the ground.

“You okay, Sammy?” he asked. “John?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, breathing hard as he got to his feet.

John made a stroking motion over the light in his arm and said, “We’re fine.”

Dean knew he wasn’t including the Sam that mattered to Dean in his words. He was referring to himself and the soul he was cradling.

“Are we nearly there?” John asked, his hand making a soothing motion over his arm again.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “We’re close. It should be around that curve in the stream.”

Dean expected John to hurry ahead, but he stood and waited for Sam to set off again before following. He was playing it smart, and Dean was glad. It had been a lot harder for them getting back to this place than it had for them to reach Hell, they’d been attacked more times, and he didn’t want John rushing ahead and getting attacked without them there to defend him and his son.

They set off again, following the curve, and had walked perhaps fifteen minutes before Sam said, “Yeah. Right there.”

Dean moved forward and saw the pentagram carved into a tree just a dozen steps away.

“We can call her now?” John asked, his voice hopeful.

“Yeah,” Dean said then raised his voice and said, “Billie? You around. We’re done.”

She arrived soundlessly, her eyes amused as she looked at the light burning under John’s fingers.

“You actually managed it. I wasn’t sure you would. I’m assuming Lilith is still alive as Lucifer is still trapped.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, and Dean heard the same worry in his voice that he was feeling. “We didn’t see her at all. We barely saw anyone. He only had one guard.”

Billie frowned. “One?”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking…” He glanced at John who narrowed his eyes. “Do you know if he’s broken?”

Billie eyed the soul for a moment and then said, “In a technical sense, he is a broken soul. The damage done to him exceeds even your own soul, Sam. Whether his spirit is broken and he would now kill Lilith, I can’t tell. It’s safe to assume that he was no longer required in Hell, though, and that you were allowed to ‘rescue’ him.”

“Will that make a difference to the trial?” Dean asked.

“No. An innocent soul has been rescued. When he is returned to his body and the incantation spoken, the trial will be done. You will need to be careful in what happens next though. There is a trap set somewhere, and I don’t know what it is. They obviously want Sam on earth.” She fixed her gaze on John who was staring down at his son. “Watch him carefully. I would suggest you lock him down until the last trial is complete—”

“Never,” John growled. “This is my son and…”

“…But I know Winchester stupidity and stubbornness is going to oppose that idea,” she said over his continuing words. “Do not leave him alone though. He cannot be allowed to go to Lilith, and she cannot be allowed to find him.”

“Can she get into the bunker?” Dean asked, thinking of Asmodeus’ incursion.

“Perhaps. Guard him.” She smiled slightly, a small quirk of the lips that denoted amusement, not pleasure. “I suggest you keep the Nephilim with him.”

“We will,” John said curtly. “We’ll protect him. Now, can we get out of there? I want to get him back where he belongs.”

Which meant they had to find him first. Dean hated the idea of this Sam being soulless for his own reasons: he would have to face that again and have the reminders of his own Sam’s time like that. But for the rest of this Sam’s family, the people he loved and that loved him, he didn’t want them to suffer that pain. Especially not Jessica. For her to suffer like that would hurt his own Sam, and Dean knew there was already too much of that waiting in the wings.

“Hold up,” Sam said. “Do you really not know if he’s soulless out there somewhere?”

“He is without a soul, though I don’t know if he is as active as you were,” Billie said. “Lilith may have incapacitated him some other way.”

“What does soulless even mean?” John asked. “He’s still going to be Sammy.”

“No,” Sam said. “He’s not. He’ll be a monster. He will feel nothing for anyone. He will have no emotional connections at all. People, even his own family, will just be a means to an end for him. He won’t love.”

Dean shifted uncomfortably and John gaped, perhaps trying to imagine his son like that.

“Perhaps not,” Billie said. “Donatello isn’t exactly a monster.”

“If he really is me, he will be,” Sam said.

“I don’t want Dean and Jess seeing him like that,” John said, a fearful note to his voice that sounded out of place in the man they’d been with so far. “Don’t take us to them. Drop us off somewhere else and we’ll find Sam together. I’ll take him back to them when he’s… Sammy again.”

Billie shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”

She pointed a finger at the carved tree and a pinprick of light started at the trunk and then spread upwards and outwards. Without hesitating even a moment, John walked into it, one hand cupping the light on his arm, and Dean and Sam followed.

They came out at the end of the dirt track that led to the entrance to the bunker. Dean could see the gleam of light on the Impala’s chrome in the distance. Dean got his feet under him and checked Sam was through then turned to look for Billie. She was watching them with a quirked brow and lips pressed into a thin line.

“Happy?” she asked.

“Yes,” Sam said. “Thank you, Billie.”

Billie nodded and said, “You have five days remaining to you now. I suggest you put that soul back where it belongs and then move on with the next trial. It may not be as easy as you think.”

John nodded, his eyes fixated on his arm and said, “We will.”

Billie disappeared and Sam cleared his throat. “Okay, five days…” He rubbed a hand over his face, his eyes bleary. “How are we going to find Sam?”

Dean didn’t know, and his thoughts were coming slowly now that he was out of the clarity and sleepless environment of Purgatory. They’d been in this world for days and he’d only had the little sleep Castiel had given him when he’d knocked him out. Sam hadn’t slept at all. They needed rest. None of them were going to get any before Sam was back in his body, but they had no idea how long that was going to take. If John wasn’t letting his family be a part of the search for him, he and Sam were going to have to stick with him.

“We can use Castiel,” John said. “When Sam was about to kill Lilith, he tracked him to that church.”

“You don’t have the Enochian on your ribs?” Sam asked.

John frowned. “Ribs?”

“That’s a no,” Dean said. “Perfect. We’re going to need wings, too, so call your Cas. He can get us to Sam and he can put the soul back where it belongs.”

John nodded and raised his eyes from his arm, “Castiel, don’t say a word to Dean or Jessica. We’re back, but they can’t know yet. Come outside. We need you.”

Dean looked back to the door, waiting for the familiar creak as it opened, but he’d forgotten how little his Castiel liked to waste shoe leather and apparently his counterpart here felt the same. With a faint flutter on the air, Castiel arrived and looked at John with wide eyes.

“Where’s Sam?” he asked.

John moved the hand concealing the light burning under his skin and said, “It’s his soul. That was all that they took to Hell. His body is here somewhere. Take us to him.”

For a moment, Castiel just stared at him, and then he closed his eyes and nodded. “I have him,” he said. “He’s in Maryland still.”

“He’s still there?” Dean said doubtfully, wondering what Sam would have wanted from that place if he was soulless, unless he knew perhaps that his soul was now free and he was also prepared for Lilith’s death.

John gasped. “He’s alive though? He’s got to be alive.”

Castiel frowned. “I sense life, yes, but it is diffuse. I will take you there.”

John cupped the light again and then they were moving. They came to rest in a room that Dean tagged as a hospital—even before his eyes had adjusted to the move—by the smell.

He looked around and gasped. Sam, the Sam they had come for, was lying in a narrow bed almost perfectly still. His eyes were closed and shadowed and there was a tube leading from a bag hanging beside the bed that fed into the back of his hand. He was covered in a sheet and blanket to the chest and beneath it, he was wearing a pale blue t-shirt. His cheeks were cleanshaven and his hair was about the same length as his own Sam’s

“Sammy,” John whispered, staring at his son in shock for a long moment before rushing to the bed and cupping his cheeks. “Wake up, son. It’s me, Dad. I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m going to take care of you.”

“He can’t wake up,” Castiel said. “Sam is not present in that body. The part of him that matters is the part you are bearing.”

“Get him back in there then,” John ordered.

“I will,” Castiel said. “You need to…”

He trailed off as the handle of the door turned.

“Hide, Sammy!” Dean hissed. Whoever was coming in was going to be shocked enough seeing a group of battle-worn people around the bed without seeing the patient’s doppelganger there, too.

Sam ducked behind the door just as it opened and an attractive, middle-aged woman came in, “Hello, Johnnie,” she said. “How are you feeling— Oh.” She looked from John, positioned still with his hands on his son’s face, Castiel at his side and Dean standing at the end of the bed, her eyes wide with shock. “Who are you?”

“We’re…uh…” Dean grappled for an explanation but John was reacting without thought and he said, “I’m his father.”

She blinked twice as if expecting them to have disappeared when her eyes opened, and then said, “Well… um… hello. How did you… How are you here?”

“We’ve been looking for him,” John said.

She frowned. “Johnnie had been here over ten years and he’s never had a single visitor. No one has ever come looking for him. No one told me you were here. How did you get past security?”

“What happened to him,” John asked, straightening up from the bed to look at her, one hand still on his son as if claiming him.

“Johnnie was found in a church in Ilchester. He’d been badly beaten and was suffering from exposure. We have no idea how long he’d been there alone before he was found. He was treated in the hospital for months before his condition was decreed to be irreversible and he was brought here. His care is paid by a consortium of private donations. He’s never…” Her eyes widened and John moved his hand over Sam’s chest. “What’s that on your arm?”

Castiel strode across the room to her and pressed his fingertips to her head. She collapsed to the floor without him making an attempt to cushion her fall and said, “We don’t need this information. We need to return Sam to where he belongs and then leave.”

“Okay,” John said. “Do it. Put him back.”

Sam walked forward, taking a knife from his pocket and handing it to John. “You need to set him free first.”

John snatched the knife and cut slowly across the brightest point of his arm, his movements careful as if he feared injuring the soul beneath.

Castiel moved to his side and held a hand under his arm as the bright light of the soul spilled out like blood and settled in his palms.

“It’s going to hurt,” Sam warned. “Dean, help me bar the door. He might be loud.”

Dean rushed to him, skirting the woman on the floor, and jammed his foot against the door and leaned his weight on it as the last of the soul slipped into Castiel’s waiting hands and he moved them to a point over the supine Sam’s chest.

“Sammy,” John breathed.

Castiel looked at the brightness in his hands for a moment and then lowered them to Sam’s chest. Dean had seen it before, more than once, but the sight of Castiel’s arms shoving into flesh without spilling a drop of blood was still a shock. The Sam on the bed’s head flew back and the cords of his neck stood out but he didn’t make a sound. The scream that came from him was silent though no less horrifying. At his side, Dean’s own Sam shifted his weight and looked away.

Castiel’s hands pulled free and he stepped back. “It’s done.”

“Not quite,” Sam said. “You need to finish the trial.”

John pulled his sleeve down over the wound on his arm and stroked his son’s cheek. “Sammy, look at me. Open your eyes.”

“He probably won’t,” Dean said. “Sam was out for days after he got his soul back.”

“We need to move him,” Castiel said. “His body is wasted and weak. He needs to be healed, and I cannot do that. We should take him back to the other Castiel who can help him.”

John nodded and removed the tube from Sam’s hand and then pulled back the sheet and blanket then lifted Sam into his arms. He cradled him close, not even seeming to feel the weight, and his eyes were wet.

The Sam that Dean cared about most stepped away from the door and jerked his head at the woman on the floor. “Castiel, can you wipe what she saw?”

Castiel nodded and pressed his fingers to her temple again. “She will remember nothing over the last thirty minutes,” he said.

“Let’s go then,” Dean said. “We don’t want anyone coming in here looking for her and finding us.”

“I’ll stay here,” Sam said.

Dean frowned. “Why?”

Sam looked pointedly at the version of himself in John’s arms and said, “They need some kind of explanation for where he’s gone. I can cover it. I’ll catch up to you. Get him back to Jess and Dean.”

Dean stared at him, seeing the tight lines of his face and understood. Jessica was about to be reunited with the man she loved, and he didn’t want to see that. Dean wouldn’t want to if he was in his place either. It was better that Sam stay here and let himself have space instead of being witness to the emotional outpouring that would only hurt him.

“Okay,” John said curtly. “Let’s go.”

“You going to be okay, Sammy?” Dean asked.

Sam went to the locker by the bed and pulled out a folded pair of sweatpants the kind Sam was wearing and a t-shirt. “I’ll be fine. Go on. Get out of here. I’ve got to stage a miracle recovery.”

Dean nodded with understanding and said, “Okay, Castiel. Get us back to the bunker.”

In the moment before he felt the swoop in his stomach of angel flight, he saw the shadow of sadness appear on Sam’s face and knew what it meant.

The pain of losing Jessica, the pain that Dean had been scared of, had started for his brother, and he couldn’t stay to cushion the blow. 

Chapter Text

Castiel set them down in the library of the bunker where Jack and Dean’s Castiel were standing a little away from the table talking quietly.  Dean and Jessica were at a table, an empty glass in front of each of them and a half-full bottle of whiskey between them. They all looked around at the sound of their arrival, and Dean and Jessica jumped to their feet, a brief scream of surprise coming from Jessica and a groan of his brother’s name from the Dean of this world.

They ran at John and he took a step back, half turning to shield Sam from them. “Easy,” he cautioned.

Neither of the intended objects of his warning seemed to even notice his words. They both crowded the figure in his arms, hands reaching for him and tears painting their faces.

“Baby,” Jessica said, her fingers tracing the curve of Sam’s cheek. “I’m here.”

Dean smoothed back his brother’s hair and said, “Why isn’t he awake?”

“He’s in shock,” the Castiel of this world said. “And his body has undergone tremendous trauma of having the soul put back in.”

“The soul?” the other Dean asked. “What the hell do you mean soul?”

“Not now,” John growled, stepping back and holding his son closer in his arms. “Let’s get him comfortable then we’ll explain. We need him healed.”

Dean’s own Castiel nodded and said, “I can do that. We should settle him somewhere first. If he wakes, he’s going to need space.”

John walked away, still holding Sam close, and they all followed in what Dean tried not to think of as a funeral cortege. They came to the bedrooms, and Dean opened the door to the room that was Sam’s in their own world. John went in and laid him on the bed.

Despite Castiel’s softly spoken words about giving him space, Jessica climbed onto the bed beside him and stroked his hair, her eyes streaming tears and her mouth pressed into a line to conceal the sobs that made her chest heave. The Dean of this world positioned himself on his other side and John stood by the head of the bed, the only one who seemed to have heard Castiel’s advice.

“Go on,” the other Castiel urged his counterpart. “Heal him.”

Dean’s Castiel pressed his fingers to Sam’s forehead and a light glowed for a moment before he pulled back. Sam’s face flushed with color and the shadows under his eyes disappeared as they began to roll under their lids.

Castiel moved back and the Dean of this world and Jessica began to touch him again, smoothing his hair and stroking his cheek as they whispered his name.

“You really do need to give him space,” Dean’s Castiel warned.

Dean moved to stand beside Jack and nudged his arm. “You okay?”

Jack started to nod and then sighed and shook his head. “I know it’s not Sam, not our Sam, but it looks just like him. I don’t like seeing him like that. It feels wrong. I want to help him.”

Dean had the experience of seeing Sam like this before, and in worse states; he’d carried his dead body before. It never got any easier. He had to remind himself that this wasn’t his brother. His Sam was in Maryland, taking care of the cover story for this Sam’s disappearance, and giving himself the time and space he needed from what was happening here. 

“It is hard,” Castiel agreed, coming to stand with them as his counterpart of this world moved to stand beside John who looked like he was fighting some internal struggle, his hands reaching toward his son and then falling back to his sides.

Jack nodded. “I need to help.”

“You have helped as much as you can,” Dean said. “You made this possible by bringing us here. Now it’s down to John to finish it. And Sam. He’s going to need to be strong for this.”

He was referring to both versions of Sam: the one that was his, with his heart breaking, and the one that was lying on the bed with who knew what kind of trauma spiraling around in his head.

As if to add emphasis to what Dean was thinking, Sam began to moan and toss his head from side to side.

“Baby?” Jessica said, her hand falling from his cheek to clench on her lap.

“Come away,” John said. “Give him his space.”

It looked as though they were considering it, but before they could move, Sam’s eyes flew open and a scream of pain ripped from him that chilled Dean’s heart. The scream trailed off and Jessica and Dean both rushed into speech, speaking his name and comforting words.

“Stop,” John commanded. “Dean, give him space. Jess, talk to him, let him hear you.”

The Dean of this world made slow and reluctant movements to get from the bed and stand up, his eyes fixed on his brother and his need obvious in his eyes.

Dean understood how he felt. If he’d been told to be away from his brother and allow someone else to take care of him, it would be hell. He’d never been in a situation where there was someone as important to Sam as Jessica was, and he supposed that Dean had time to get used to it before Sam was taken, but it was still obviously a struggle for him.

“You’re okay, baby,” Jessica said softly, her hand tentatively reaching to touch his cheek as his eyes squeezed closed and he panted. “You not in Hell anymore. We got you back. We’re going to take care of you. Look at me.”

With what looked like a supreme effort, Sam’s eyes opened and fixed on her. His lips parted with shock and Dean could see the confusion and doubt as he had seen it before in his brother when he’d been struggling to differentiate between what he was seeing and what Lucifer was telling him about being in the Cage still.

“Tell him it’s real, Jess,” he murmured. “He’s not sure.”

“You’re really out, baby,” she said. “John got you out. He saved you. He’s here.” She glanced at John and gestured him closer. “Look, he’s here, and Dean.”

Dean and John approached the bed slowly and Sam looked at them, his eyes wide and disbelieving.

“It’s real, Sammy,” the other Dean said in the tone Dean himself used to sooth his brother when he needed it. “You’re out. She doesn’t have you anymore.”

Sam licked his lips and blinked up at his brother, some indefinable light in his eyes that was almost completely hidden by pain. “Dean… I… I’m really out?”

“Yes,” John said, stepping closer and picking up Sam’s hand. He cupped it between his own and said. “You’re free, Sam. And we have a way to stop her. She’s never going to hurt you again, I swear.”

Sam blinked and tears slipped down his cheeks. “It hurts, Dad,” he whispered. “It really hurts.”

“I know,” John said softly. “And we’re going to find a way to help with that, too. Just rest a while.”

Sam rolled to the side, burying his face in the pillow, and began to sob.

Dean touched Jack’s arm and said, “Let’s give them a little time. Come on, Cas. They don’t need us right now.”

They filed out of the room and Dean continued into the library. He picked up the bottle of whiskey and poured a measure into the glass Jessica had been using when they arrived. He took a sip, rolled it around in his mouth and then swallowed, feeling the heat warm his throat and then stomach. “Man, that was rough,” he said.

“It was,” Castiel agreed. “But that part is over.”

“Where’s Sam?” Jack asked. “Why didn’t he come back?”

“He needed a little space,” Dean said. “This whole… reunion… thing… Jess, is hard on him. He’s covering the story of this Sam waking up. He was in a nursing home in Maryland. I guess he could have just disappeared, this world sees enough crazy to accept it, but Sam wanted to take care of it.” He checked his watch. “I’ll send the other Castiel back there to check on him when things are settled here, see if he wants a ride back here on Angel Air.”

“I can go,” Jack said.

“I think it’s better you stay,” Dean said. “Billie said you should. We got that Sam out far too easy. He only had one demon guard. I’m thinking he might be broken. If he is, you’ve got to be here to stop him from getting to Lilith and Lilith getting to him. You’re the only one with a shot at it.”

“But you can’t kill her,” Castiel said fervently. “We must leave this world with Lilith trapped but alive. Otherwise, it won’t matter what happens to the demons; Lucifer will be free. I think…” He bit his lip.

“What, Cas?” Dean pressed. “What are you thinking?”

Castiel looked guilty. “If there’s a possibility that Sam has broken, that he’s ready to kill Lilith, I think we need to add more than Jack’s protection.”

Dean frowned. “How? Jack’s the best we’ve got.”

“I think we should allow Sam’s own mind to slow him down. He is in no position to go anywhere and kill anyone the way he is. If we wait before creating the wall…”

Dean sucked in a breath. “Leave him suffering like that?”

Castiel nodded. “I think it’s our best option. It’s cruel, I know, and I don’t want to do it to anyone, let alone a version of Sam, but it would negate the risk. Jack couldn’t stop Lilith if she came for him without killing her, and she might find a way to take Sam. It’s a huge risk…”

Dean raked a hand over his face. The idea was abhorrent. To leave anyone suffering like that was cruel, but this was Sam, maybe not his brother but a version of him, and he couldn’t do that to him.

“No, Cas,” he said. “I get what you’re saying, but we can’t do that to him or any of them. Imagine the kind of pain Sammy was in when you saw him in that mental hospital and add another dozen centuries worth of pain to it. We can’t do it. You have to put the wall up.”

Castiel looked at Jack, his eyes imploring him for agreement, “What do you think?”

Jack shook his head. “I didn’t see what happened to our Sam or what came after, but I know it’s not the right thing to do. I can stop him getting free and I can stop anyone that comes for him. You have to do it if Dean says.”

Dean crossed his arms over his chest. “And Dean does say.”

Castiel sighed but nodded and said, “I will do it. Or I will try. I’ve never done it successfully before. When I tried, the pieces of Sam were crushed to dust. I am not as powerful as Death.”

“You’ll be able to do it,” Dean said. “You have to.”

Castiel nodded and then they all turned to the door as John and the other Castiel entered. Dean poured John a whiskey and handed it to him. He took it, downed it in one and gasped, then said, “I need to finish the trial. It’s not over without the Enochian, right?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “It takes the spell to complete them, but it’s going to step up the symptoms. Sam said he felt the same until the next day, but after that, he got sick fast.”

“The first wasn’t so bad,” John said. “I’ll be fine.”

“It will be different,” Dean’s Castiel said as the other nodded. “Your body is changing.”

John shrugged. “As long as I’ve got enough left in me to finish the last trial, I don’t care.”

Having seen what the trials did to his brother, how bad it had been at the end, Dean thought John was underestimating what was coming for him, but there was no point trying to tell him. He wasn’t going to hear what he didn’t want to hear.

John took a scrap of paper from his pocket and glanced at it before clearing his throat and saying, “Kah Nah Om Dar.”

He grunted with pain that became a cry and his knees buckled. The muscles of his arms stood out as he clenched his fists and light glowed from his wrists to elbows. As his breaths calmed, he straightened and flexed his arms.

“It’s done,” he said, looking up at Dean.

Dean saw the blood that crept from the corner of John’s mouth and knew ‘done’ was the wrong word.

This wasn’t something ending. It was close to done, but there was still the hardest part to do, and John’s suffering was only going to get worse.

Chapter Text

Sam was sitting cross-legged on the bed with his hands in his lap and his expression carefully formed into the expected confusion, not revealing the impatience he was feeling.

It had seemed like a good idea to stay back at the nursing home to set the scene for the other Sam’s exit, but now he was regretting it. The fact that this world was rife with demons that occasionally stormed towns and killed or possessed people meant that they were going to be a little more open-minded about a man waking up from a coma that had lasted over a decade and disappearing.

He’d wanted space though, selfishly wanting to avoid the moment Jessica was reunited with her Sam and the joy that would bring her. He’d known this moment would come almost from the moment he’d first seen her in the library. He’d known there was a way to fix her world and that it meant giving her up, and he’d thought he was prepared for that. He couldn’t have been more wrong. His heart was breaking at the thought of what was happening in the bunker and what it meant for him—that he was no longer the Sam that she wanted to be with.

He had his moment in the sun with her, and it had been magical, but it was over now. Things were as they should be, the other Sam was free and reunited with his family. He had lost her.

It hurt.

He knew he had to face it though, to get back to them for the final trial, as John was going to need protection and support. He was the only one that would know what John was going through as he’d been through it himself. He’d even known he was going to die because of it. When the blood had first spattered his hand, he’d known that the light he saw at the end of the tunnel was a false one, and he’d accepted it.

The word that had left him when Dean had told him he was going to die, the fear in his eyes and disbelief so intense it hurt Sam to see—‘So?’—hadn’t been the result of depression or desperation; it was proof of what he had already known. He was going to die, but it would be over then. The world would be safe. His debt would be paid at last. He would have atoned for all the times he’d let his brother and the world down. He would be done.

Dean’s words had reached him, though, and he’d stopped. John wouldn’t stop. Nothing would reach him the way it had Sam because he was saving the world for his family. He’d be doing what he had always tried to do for them—He would be a hero.

Sam wanted to be there to guide him through that.

“Johnnie, do you know where you are?” the doctor asked, breaking into his thoughts.

“It’s Sam.”

“I’m sorry?”

“My name,” Sam said. “I’m not a John Doe. My name is Sam Smith.”

The doctor scribbled a note on his clipboard and said, “It’s good to have a real name for you at last. I do need you to answer the question though. Do you know where you are?”

Sam shrugged. “A hospital?”

The doctor shook his head slowly. “No, but the assumption is an easy one to make. This is The Manor Park Nursing Home. And you have been here…”—he hesitated—”…a long time.”

Sam knew that already, but he had to play his part so he asked, “How long?”

“Over ten years.”

Sam schooled his face into the appropriate amount of shock and said, “What happened to me?”

“We’re not sure of the circumstances, but you were badly beaten and left in a church in Ilchester. You were found by some teenagers that were using the place as a hangout. You were taken to the hospital and treated there for months before you were moved here.” He lowered his clipboard and said, “We have no explanation for how you are awake, Sam. The damage done to your body was catastrophic, brain activity was minimal. There was no hope of recovery. The fact you are awake now, sitting up and talking, is nothing short of miraculous. The muscle wastage alone should make movement impossible.” He tapped his pen against his chin. “What happened to you, Sam?”

Sam shrugged. “No idea. I just woke up with that nurse on the floor. Is she okay?”

“Yes. She merely suffered a fainting spell. She’s being taken care of now. It’s you that we are concerned with. We have contacted a neurologist at the hospital, and he would like you to be transferred to him for further testing.”

Sam shook his head. “I can’t do that. Look, I get that I’m a miracle or whatever, but I don’t care. I have a life to get back to, people who need me.”

The doctor’s face became solemn. “The world is not the place you knew, Sam. So much has changed since you have been unconscious. There are great dangers out there now that you need to be aware of. There are… demons.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Demons?”

“Actual monsters,” the doctor said. “They came around the same time you were admitted here. I know this is a shock, but until you have been informed of the threat they pose, you should stay here where it’s safe. There are ways to detect them, and you need to learn them. I admit that we were concerned you might be one, too, but you passed the tests that we’ve learned of. You need to know those tests if you’re…”

Sam held up his hand. “I know about demons. I was a hunter. I don’t know how or why they’re in the open, but you’re not telling me anything I don’t know about already.”

“You were a hunter?” A look of awe spread over his face, similar to the one the eye doctor had worn when she’d met him and Dean before.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “And if they’re in the open, it’s even more important that I get out of here.”

“Please… Just a few more days.”

“No can do,” Sam said. “I’ve got to go. I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me, I really am, but I can’t stay.”

He was grateful for what they had done for himself of this world. The fact he had been here instead of running around soulless was a huge relief, and he was glad for that version’s family that he’d been taken care of so well while he was unconscious.

The doctor sighed. “Very well. I will arrange for someone to bring you some clothes and shoes. As a hunter, there are arrangements that can be made for you, too. You will find travel and accommodation available as a mark of thanks for your kind.”

“Great,” Sam said. “Thanks.”

The doctor tucked his pen back into his pocket and rose to his feet. “Well, I wish you the best of luck, Sam.”

He turned and walked from the room, leaving Sam to breathe a sigh of relief. It had been easier for him to get out of the situation that he’d hoped, and he guessed that the fact he was a hunter had swung it for him.

He sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the clothes to be brought. He was annoyed that he would have to leave his own clothes behind, concealed in the locker, and he knew they were going to question them when they found them, but he wanted to play his part until he was out of here. He would get out and then call Jack for a ride back to the bunker and the others.

The door opened and an orderly came in with a pile of clothes and a pair of rubber clogs in his arms. He gave Sam a strange assessing look and said, “It’s our very own miracle.”

Sam forced a smile and said, “Yeah, miracle, that’s me.”

“But you are,” the man said. “You’re going to open the world us to us all, Sam.”

Sam frowned. “I’m what.”

The man dropped the clothes down onto the end of the bed and withdrew a syringe from his pocket. Sam jumped to his feet and swung out a fist, but the man caught his arm and twisted it behind his back as he pulled the sheath from the needle with his teeth and jabbed it into Sam’s upper arm.

Sam struggled but the drugs he’d been dosed with were already working on him, making his muscle loose and unwilling to obey his brain’s commands.

“What are you doing?” he slurred.

The man pushed him down onto the bed and leaned over him, his grey eyes turning black. “I’m doing my job,” he said. “We’ve got big plans for you, Winchester.”

Sam’s blinked blearily as his legs were lifted and he was positioned on the bed in the pose the other Sam had been in when they’d arrived.

He fixed his wavering gaze on the man as he took a phone from his pocket and dialed. It was obviously answered after only a moment as he said, “It’s done,” and then hung up and tucked it back in his pocket. 

There was the sound of the door clicking open and then a voice that chilled Sam’s heart spoke and his slow eyes moved to the woman that had entered. She was wearing the same meatsuit she had been all those years ago; the blonde hair and blue eyes painting a picture of innocence, though Sam knew she was one of the most dangerous and evil beings he’d ever encountered.

It was Lilith.

His lips moved, trying to form her name, but the words wouldn’t come. All he could do was call out in his mind and hope that it might be heard, “Jack, Lilith is here. Help me.”

Sam tried to move, but his body seemed held down by a heavy weight. He could barely move his head to follow her path towards the bed. She looked down at him and said, “Hello, Sam.”

Sam tried to speak, but his lips moved soundlessly, his tongue a useless weight behind his teeth.

“Hold the door,” she instructed the other demon. “We don’t want to be interrupted. It’s vital that no one sees this happening. He needs to merely relapse. If anyone sees, the hunters will hear about it, and two versions of Dean Winchester in one world will be a complication I don’t want to deal with. The story must maintain as long as it can, at least long enough for them to die.”

The other demon raised a hand and pointed it at the door, as Sam heard the click as it settled in its frame.

She looked around and sighed, “Angels. They always keep you waiting.”

Sam’s mind seemed sluggish and dull from the drugs he’d been given, her words reaching him but leaving no lasting meaning. He tried to force it to work, sure that there was a way to stop this if he could just think clearly, but they wouldn’t oblige.

There was a rustle and then another voice Sam knew and detested spoke, making his fear ratchet up another level. Zachariah.

“I wasn’t sure I believed it until I saw it,” he said. “But the differences are there. This one is a little more hardened in the features. The years he lived while our own abomination was sleeping have changed him.”

“Yes, he’s here,” Lilith said. “But he’s not so changed I won’t be able to bend him to my will. This version has already killed me once. It won’t take long to persuade him to do it again. And he’ll have more motivation than the other. He’ll have his brother’s suffering to end.”

Zachariah nodded. “You’ll have his brother for your use, but not the one from this world.  Dean Winchester must host Michael for the final battle, and Sam Winchester must host Lucifer. And we want the correct versions. Only those of this world must serve this world. Michael wants the doppelgangers killed as soon as their role is played.”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Lilith said. “Well, I will as long as you angels play your part. You know what they are trying to do, don’t you?”

“Close the gates of Hell,” Zachariah said. “We know. Why do you think Michael is taking a secondary vessel? He will stop them. We would do it ourselves, but the Nephilim will pose a problem. Michael will be able to deal with him. And then he will have the news of another Sam Winchester in hell to be broken. He will be pleased.”

Lilith chuckled. “So you haven’t told him you’re working with me? Don’t you think he’ll be pleased by your initiative?”

Zachariah shifted from foot to foot. “I think he will be pleased when it’s done, eventually, but he is a purist at heart. He would never stoop to working with a demon. When he has killed the doppelgangers and ended those ridiculous trials, I will tell him.”

“You might want to send Raphael after the other versions, too,” Lilith said. “Hannah said the Nephilim is more powerful than anything she ever felt before, didn’t she?”

Despite his slow mind, Sam felt the impact of the words and he sucked in a weak breath of shock. Hannah was a spy.

“It’s not my place to recommend anything,” Zachariah said. “Michael will know what to do.”

Lilith shrugged. “Shall we do it then? I want to get started on this one.”

Zachariah shot her an annoyed look but was obviously going to obey as he approached the bed and looked down at Sam with his hateful eyes. “This is going to hurt,” he warned. “But I don’t think you’re in a position to put up a fight.”

Sam glared at him and then his eyes widened as Zachariah laid a hand over his sternum and he realized what was about to happen.

With his free hand, Zachariah clamped Sam’s jaws together so no more than a groan of pain could leave him as his other hand drove into Sam’s chest, his fingers groping for something that was centered beside Sam’s heart. Though Sam’s mind was slow and his agony almost totally overwhelming, he knew was what coming and he was terrified.

He felt Zachariah’s fingers clench something and then slowly pull out of him, leaving Sam feeling empty and oddly calm.

As Zachariah withdrew his hand, Sam’s vision was occluded by the light of his own soul clutched above him. He stared at it with a dispassionate eye, seeing it and knowing what it was but feeling nothing more than mild interest.

He knew what the feeling meant but had no capacity to care.

He was soulless again.

The light withdrew as Zachariah placed it in a jar and handed it to Lilith. She held it close to her chest and said, “Thank you, Zachariah.”

Zachariah’s lips pressed into a thin line. Apparently receiving thanks for working with a demon was distasteful to him, despite its necessity. 

He reached for Sam’s temple and then stopped as a ringing came from the locker where Sam’s phone was tucked in the pocket of the jacket he’d been wearing.

Zachariah crossed the room and took it out and then smirked. “Dean. Perfect.” He connected the call and then spoke in a perfect imitation of Sam’s own voice, “Hey, Dean. How’s it going?” He listened for a moment then said. “Yeah, I’m on my way out now. No, don’t send anyone. I’m going to drive back.” His eyes settled on Sam and he winked. “I just need a little time. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He frowned and then said. “The third trial? Yeah, of course. Wait for me though. I want to be there for it. We have time, right?” He nodded eagerly. “Yeah, five days, I remember. I’ll be back long before she comes for us. I need to go. I’ll see you soon, Dean.” He ended the call and chuckled. “That’s the other Winchester distracted for a while and the trial delayed. Things are falling into place. He will have joined his brother in Hell and the trials will be stopped before he has a chance to realize what happened.”

“Perfect,” Lilith said. “You know what to do if you need me.”

“There’s only one thing we need from you,” Zachariah said. “And that’s your death.”

“It’ll happen,” Lilith said confidently. “Look at the state of his soul already. He’s suffered. He’ll be broken in no time.”

Zachariah nodded and pressed his fingers to Sam’s temple. “You can sleep now,” he said. “We have what we need from you.”

Sam felt sleep wash over him and his eyes fell closed. He understood what was happening, where his soul was going and why, but he didn’t care.

His soul was headed to Hell to be tortured and broken until he was willing to kill Lilith, but it didn’t matter.

Sam felt nothing.

Chapter Text

John had barely done more than get to his feet, wipe the blood that dripped to his chin, and drink the whiskey Dean had poured for him before a cry of pain coming from the bedrooms made him drop the glass down onto the table and run.

Dean caught the glass automatically before it could roll onto the floor and then set off after him.

They met the other Dean in the hall, his eyes wide and scared as he said. “Dad, he’s really bad.”

John didn’t acknowledge his words; he just sprinted away and a moment later, they heard his voice ordering Jessica away and then softening as he tried to soothe Sam.

Dean’s heart was in his throat and he went after him, at a slower pace. He was reluctant to see the now-awake Sam and what he was going through.

The horror inside the room was just as he’d feared. Sam was lying in the center of the bed, his head thrown back against the pillow and his teeth bared as he tried to breathe through pain. It was impossible for Dean to not see his Sam in that familiar face, and he felt sick as he locked his legs in place to stop himself from running to his side to help.

Jessica was on the bed, too, but sitting on the edge with her hand reaching toward Sam but resting on the blanket, not making contact. John was crouched beside the bed and his hands fisted in front of him. His voice was pitched low and calm as he said, “It’s okay, Sammy. We’re going to find a way to fix this. Just breathe. I know it’s hard, but you can handle it. We’re all here.” His voice broke. “I’m here.”

The other Dean looked at his Castiel desperately and said, “What the hell do we do, Cas? We can’t leave him like this. He’ll have a heart attack or go into shock.”

Dean thought it would be a slower end than that for Sam. He would be tormented into some kind of madness the way his Sam was, and it was his failing body as sleep deprivation sapped his strength that would be his end. But telling them that would reassure no one. And there was no need. They were going to fix this for Sam.

This world’s Castiel, still standing at the end of the bed, was focusing intently on Sam. His eyes obviously seeing more with his grace and angelic vision than Dean was able to. Without looking away from Sam’s anguished form, he said, “I don’t know. Even if I was able to heal, this isn’t something I could cure. I don’t have enough strength to take the memories even. I can modify something small like I did the nurse when we found him, but something like this, the pure trauma and depth of it, is out of my control.” He looked across the room to his counterpart who was standing at Dean’s side and watching the scene with worried eyes. “Can you help?”

“Yes,” Castiel said. “At least I think so. When our Sam went through something similar, a wall was created in his mind to bar those memories. It was created by Death, and he is immeasurably more powerful than any angel, but I can try to do it myself.”

John looked over his shoulder as Sam groaned in pain, and he snapped, “Then do it! Help him!”

“Please,” the other Dean said, the word sounding awkward on his tongue, as if he wasn’t used to using it in this world. “We can’t do anything.”

Dean knew how that felt as he had seen his Sam suffering while he was helpless, and he knew the pain that created, the fear and frustration that was like lava in his stomach.

Castiel glanced at Dean who nodded and then moved closer to the bed on the side Jessica sat. “I need space,” he said.

Jessica reluctantly climbed from the bed and moved to stand by Jack and the other Castiel at its foot.

Dean’s own Castiel sat on the edge of the bed and said, “Sam, you need to be calm. This might hurt, but it will be better after.”

“Hurt?” John snorted. “What do you think this is if not hurting? And how’s he supposed to be calm in this kind of pain.”

Castiel acknowledged his words with a nod and then pressed his fingers to Sam’s forehead and frowned in concentration.

No one in the room seemed to breathe apart from Sam who was panting, and all eyes were fixed on him and Castiel. Dean was willing it to work, willing his faith in Castiel’s abilities to not be misplaced, that he would be strong enough to do this.  He saw quickly that it had been as the light faltered and Sam cried out again. This time John reached for him and cupped his cheek as his soothing words resumed.

“What’s wrong?” Jessica asked. “Why isn’t be better?”

“I am not strong enough,” Castiel said. “He has been through so much and his mind is so confused. I can see the pieces I need to make the wall, but I can’t reach them through the turmoil.”

“Then what do we do?” the other Dean asked. “Can we get Death back?”

Though Dean thought she would be watching them still, he didn’t think she would help if she even answered. She wasn’t invested in this world or these people. Whatever connection there was between Dean and his family in their world didn’t exist in this one. 

“I need more power,” Castiel said.

“Hell,” the other Dean said with a sigh, “use the kid’s. He’s practically a nuclear reactor of power, right?”

Castiel looked up and at Jack with fervent eyes. “Yes. Jack, come here.”

Jack walked to him and then faltered as Sam’s low cries reached a new pitch. “What do I do?” he asked nervously.

“I need you to share your grace,” Castiel said.

Jack’s eyes widened. “You mean take it the way Lucifer did?”

“No,” Castiel said quickly. “I merely need you to send it to me so I can do this. Do you remember sharing your power with me before you were born?”

Jack shook his head, his eyes wide, “No!”

Castiel frowned and then said, “Concentrate on the way you feel when you kill an angel; that’s you sending your grace at them. I need the smallest portion of that.”

“But if I do it wrong, I’ll kill you,” Jack said desperately.

“Then don’t do it wrong,” the other Dean said coldly.

Castiel shot him a sharp look and then addressed Jack again. “You won’t hurt me. I trust you. Hold my arm and concentrate on what I need. Start with a little and increase it if I say. I will stop you before it becomes too much, I promise.” When Jack still looked unsure, he said, “Please, Jack I can’t do this without you. I need your help and I know you can do this. I trust you.”

Jack moved closer and laid a hand on Castiel’s upper arm as the angel touched Sam’s temple again and concentrated. The blue-white light of his grace glowed under his palm and faltered, but as he said, “A little more, Jack,” a golden hue added and it shone brighter.

“That’s it,” Dean breathed as he focused on this world’s Sam’s face as the light shone and become more and more golden. “You’ve got it.

Castiel nodded and said, “Just the smallest amount more, Jack, and I’ll be able to do it.”

The light glowed brighter and Sam’s breaths caught and stopped for a moment on a pained inhale. He flinched back against the pillow, but Castiel’s hand moved with him, keeping contact.

“That’s it,” Castiel said gently. “It’s almost there.”

The light shone so brightly that Dean’s hand flew up to cover his eyes as Sam cried out and then, the light faded and Sam’s cry stopped.

Dean lowered his arm and saw that Jessica, John and the other Dean were doing the same. They blinked rapidly and looked at Sam who looked peaceful now. His lips were slightly parted by the steady breaths that passed between them and his face was free of pain.

“Did it work?” Jessica asked.

“Yes,” Castiel said. “The wall is created. He’s protected.” He looked to Jack and smiled with pride shining in his eyes. “Thank you, Jack.”

Jessica laughed shakily and quickly climbed onto the bed again to curl herself at Sam’s side, completely unselfconscious of the other people in the room as she kissed his cheek and whispered his name.

“He will sleep deeply for a while,” Castiel said. “And when he wakes, he’s going to be confused and perhaps tender, but the memories will be gone.”

“Good,” John said, getting to his feet and coughing into his hand then quickly wiping a smear of blood onto his pants.

“He’s going to be very confused,” Dean said pointedly. “He just lost every memory of his life since… How much did you block, Cas?”

“Around the time he went to Lilith,” Castiel said. “I can’t be exact, but I imagine there will be hours or days around that time that will also be vague to him. It’s not an exact art. I tried to block the memories that I saw as traumatic.”

“And you can’t let him go looking for them,” Dean informed them, his eyes flickering between this world’s Dean, John, and Jessica. “If he does, the wall might come down. Death told Sam not to scratch at it, and Sam said that was how it felt. His wall came down, but that was a little different. If he leaves it alone, this one will hold, right, Cas?”

Castiel nodded. “With the use of Jack’s power and my own I was able to create a very strong barrier. If the experiences should start to bleed through, there is one more thing that can be done, but it comes with consequences.” He looked at the version of himself of this world and said. “Do you think you have enough power to shift an experience?”

The Castiel considered for a moment and said, “I don’t know. I would try though. With Hannah’s help, we might be able to.”

“Good,” the other Dean said. “He’s got double coverage. There’s a wall and there’s Cas. He’ll be fine.”

“What are the consequences?” Jessica asked.

Castiel opened his mouth to answer, but his counterpart spoke over him, “They are consequences that will only affect me, so they’re unimportant. Sam is protected.”

John patted Sam’s arm and then pushed himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the bed, and said, “We can start the last trial now then.”

Dean nodded but John’s own Dean spoke up. “Not yet, Dad. We know how that ends, and you can’t do that to Sam like this.”

John looked stunned. “I am doing these trials, Dean. I am doing them for Sam, you, and Jess. This is what will end this war. If you think I’d give up now just because we got him back, you’re—”

The other Dean held up his hand. “No, I get it. They’ve got to be done. I just mean you can’t leave Sam without talking to him. Wait for him to wake up, tell him what’s happening, then do it. He deserves a goodbye.”

Dean knew himself how hard a goodbye could be, but he also knew what it felt like to not have one. He’d never said a real goodbye to Sam before he’d dragged Lucifer into the Cage, but he’d had the words he’d spoken when Lucifer was beating him—I’m here, I’m not going to leave you—to cling to after he was gone.

Sam hadn’t needed a goodbye from Dean when he’d had those words. But hadn’t gotten any words or goodbye from his father. John had left his room after telling him to get some rest, and the next time he’d seen him, he’d been on a hospital bed as doctors and nurses fought and failed to save him.

He knew that Sam was going to suffer no matter how it happened, whether he said his goodbyes or not, but it was better if he had something first.

“He’s right, John,” Jessica said. “He’s going to need that.”

“But if they come for him…” John started.

“I’ll protect him,” Jack said. “I can protect him from anyone or anything that comes. We have time.”

John looked down at his son resting on the bed, his need clear, and then nodded and said, “Yeah, okay. I’ll wait until he wakes up.”

“You should get some rest until then,” Dean said. “You’re wrecked already, and the trials aftereffects are much rougher now, right?”

John shrugged off the question and said, “I’ll be next door. I want you to wake me up as soon as he does.”

“We will,” the other Dean said.

John strode from the room and Dean, Castiel, and Jack followed, leaving Sam with this world’s Castiel, his Dean, and Jessica.

Jack stopped outside the door and said, “I will stay here. I’ll hear anything that happens, but they’ll have some space with him. I think they need that.”

“They do,” John said, then gave a curt nod and walked to the next room along the hall and let himself inside, closing the door hard behind him.

“I’m going to check in with Sammy and then crash, too,” Dean said. “Wake me up if anything happens.”

They nodded their agreement and he continued down the hall and turned a corner to a room that was unoccupied in his world. He let himself in and clicked the door closed behind him before dropping down onto the end of the bed and pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. He was exhausted, drained, and stressed. He needed sleep and time to just think, but before that, he needed to talk to his brother.

He pulled the phone from his pocket and dialed Sam’s number. It was answered after a moment and Sam’s voice, sounding oddly bright, said, “Hey, Dean. How’s it going?”

“Hey, Sammy. It’s okay. Cas got the wall up with Jack’s help so Sam is okay, sleeping now, but okay. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m on my way out now.”

Dean was pleased that Sam had gotten out without obvious problems, and he was looking forward to seeing him, helping where he could. “You are? Want me to send someone to come get you?”

“No, don’t send anyone. I’m going to drive back. I just need a little time. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Dean frowned. It was a full day’s drive from Maryland back to the bunker, and Sam had to be as exhausted as he was. He understood Sam not wanting to be there with the other Sam and Jessica, but he knew they needed to do the trial.

“What about the third trial?” he said. “We need to get that done.”

Sam hesitated and then said. “The third trial? Yeah, of course. Wait for me though. I want to be there for it. We have time, right?”

Still frowning, Dean said, “We’ve got five days left on Billie’s clock.”

“Yeah, five days, I remember. I’ll be back long before she comes for us. I need to go. I’ll see you soon, Dean.”

Before Dean could say another word, the call had clicked off. He lowered his phone to his lap and stared at it. Sam sounded wrong, too happy, and he didn’t see a problem with them waiting a day to start the trial, even though he knew they’d gotten Sam out of Hell way too easily.

Dean rubbed a hand over his face. He thought he knew what was happening. Sam was hurting bad and trying to hide that by acting happy. He was giving himself time before coming back to protect himself, which Dean understood and wanted him to have, but he knew they wouldn’t’ be able to persuade John to wait for Sam to get back to start the trial unless his own Sam was still sleeping then.

Maybe it was better that Sam not be here for it at all. If they could get the trial done before he got back. With Hell closed, there was no reason for them to stay. They could get out of this world without Sam needing to see Jessica again at all.

And then he would find a way to get Sam through the pain he was going to be feeling after having to let the love of his life go again.

Chapter Text

Dean woke feeling rested and he checked his watch to see how long he’d slept. It had been eight hours which surprised him. He thought John would have been awake long before now, raring to go. The only explanation was that Sam was still sleeping, too, and therefore they’d left John to sleep.

He got out of bed and made his way straight to the bathroom where he relieved himself and then washed up, splashing his face with cool water and drying it with a rough towel. It felt strange to be in the ‘first’ version of the bunker again and to have all the same small differences to the one he lived in, like the towel; soon after they’d settled in, Sam had gone out and bought new towels and washcloths, saying he didn’t want to dry his face with a fifty-year-old towel that was last used by a dead man. Dean thought he was being stupid, precious, but he had to admit the new towels were softer and, after Sam started washing them with that fancy softener, they smelled much nicer.

They were all things this version of his family were going to need to do, though it would probably take them longer as they were going to be dealing with John’s death for a while.

He wondered how they were going to handle it. This version of Dean seemed so hard, a warrior in a way Dean hadn’t been since he’d had the Mark. Would he allow himself to grieve for his father, to feel it, or was he so accustomed to loss and death in this world that he could handle it?

Dean suspected that, if he did let himself feel it, he would bury it as much as possible to come out in nightmares and heavy drinking sessions.

That was what he would do if it was him.

Sam was an unknown. He hadn’t lived the same long years the way John, Dean and Jessica had. He’d been through worse, but he wouldn’t remember that. For him, he would be picking up from the moment he went to that church with Ruby to kill Lilith. He would be in a new world, though a more peaceful one when Hell was sealed, with the woman and brother he loved, but he would lose his father. If he was like Dean’s Sam, he was going to feel it and feel it hard and openly. Dean supposed Jessica would comfort him, but he didn’t think the other Dean would be much help.

He had never been able to help his Sam like that when it was needed.

He’d been useless after Jessica died.  He hadn’t been a support at all after John, all caught up and twisted by his own guilt and grief. When Bobby died, they both struggled but privately. Sam was also dealing with Lucifer in his head and Dean with the loss of Bobby and Castiel, and the constant worry about what was happening to his brother.

It was good that this Sam had Jessica to help him.

It was Dean’s own Sam that he was worried about. When they went back to their world, a more peaceful one than they’d ever had before with Michael dead, he was going back with the memory of having and losing the woman he loved. His only thought was that he could surround himself with family and friends, get Mary back to the bunker, and let the fact they were together do what it could for him.

He wandered out of the bathroom and went to the kitchen in search of coffee. The other Castiel was in the library, staring into the distance in a way that made Dean think he was tuned into angel radio. Dean nodded to him and then went to the kitchen where he found his own Castiel with Jack.

They both greeted him and answered his inquires of why Jack had left his post guarding Sam with a simple, “He’s awake.”

“Really? That’s great. How’s he doing?”

Jack shrugged. “He sounded okay, but I didn’t see him. He’s with John and Dean. Jessica has just taken them coffee. I didn’t stay to listen to them. Castiel and I will sense any attack coming and be able to defend him.”

“Defend us all,” Castiel said. “If they come for Sam, they might leave this world’s Dean alive as Michael’s vessel, but they will have no need for anyone else. None of us are safe apart from you, Jack.”

“Yeah,” Dean said thoughtfully. “That’s a good point. I didn’t think of that.”

He’d been more worried about getting the trial done before Billie dragged them away and his concern for his brother. He saw now that if the demons came for Sam, they were all in danger. Jack would defend them from regular demons, but Lilith would be a complication as they couldn’t let her die.

“I’ll protect everyone,” Jack said.

Dean acknowledged his words with a nod and then poured himself a mug of coffee and sipped it. It was bitter and he guessed it was the same stock he and Sam had found when they’d arrived here in their world. That meant there was no food either, and his stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten in days, though most of that time he’d been in Hell and Purgatory where hunger wasn’t an issue. He could get out now, head into town and get some supplies for them, but he thought it was better to be close when John was ready, and if Sam was awake now, that would be soon.

“Cas, can you head into town and get some stuff for us?” he asked. “We need food, decent coffee, and bathroom basics. Don’t go crazy with the food. None of us are going to stop to cook. Just some cereal and stuff like that. And get some fruit. If this Sam is as nuts as ours, he’d going to want that crap.”

Jack laughed softly and Castiel said, “Of course. I will go now.”

Dean topped up his coffee and said, “I’ll get you some money.”

He walked back into the library where he was surprised to see John sitting at a table. He was pale and his eyes shadowed. The damage from the trials had stepped up a notch in the night, just like they had when Sam had been doing them.

“Hey,” Dean said. “How are you feeling?”

John ignored the question and said, “We need to start.”

“We will,” Dean said, glancing over his shoulder as Castiel and Jack came in. “Cas needs some money though. He’s headed into town to get some supplies for us. The trial will take eight hours, and none of us have eaten in a while. You’re going to need to keep your strength up especially.”

John nodded and said, “Dean’s got most of the money we’ve got. I’ll get it off him when he gets here. He’s just cleaning up. Get whatever you need. Add in some fruit, apples and stuff, for Sammy. He’s not as big on road food as the rest of us.”

“How’s he doing?” Dean asked.

“He’s confused as all hell, freaked out by the fact he’s jumped ahead over ten years, struggling with the difference in us, and kinda weirded out that you guys are here.”

John looked over his shoulder and his grim face became a smile as footsteps came from behind them and Sam and Jessica came in followed by Dean dressed in fresh clothes. Sam was still in the sweats and t-shirt he’d been wearing in the hospital. This world’s Castiel followed in their wake, coming to a stop just inside the library as they entered deeper, making himself an observer, not a participant.

“Hey, Sam,” Dean said awkwardly, raising a hand in greeting. “Good to see you awake.”

Sam stared at him a moment, his brow furrowed. “Hearing about it and seeing it properly are not the same thing.” He looked between Dean and the version of his brother of this world and said, “It’s so weird.”

The other Dean rubbed at the skin below his eye patch and said, “At least you can tell us apart.”

Sam grimaced. “Yeah, and I hate that. You said this Cas can heal. Why haven’t you had him fix it yet?”

“I’ve offered,” Castiel said, coming into the room. “He refused.”

“Why?” Sam asked, and when his brother just shrugged, he said, “Do it, Dean. It’s bad enough that you all look so different to the way you should, but that’s just stupid. Don’t you want to see properly?”

“It really doesn’t matter, Sammy,” he replied.

“It does,” Sam said forcefully, a grit of the Sam Dean knew in his voice—he was pissed. “It was her that took it from you, I remember that much. Don’t carry part of what she did around with you.”

Dean sighed and looked at Castiel. “Go on then. Get it done with.”

Castiel walked forwards and raised a hand. Dean pulled back his head an inch and then forced himself to still as Castiel pressed his hand to his temple. There was a rush of light - Dean winced and then Castiel was stepping back. “It’s done.”

The other Dean slowly removed his patch, blinking rapidly and looking around, and then huffed a laugh. “That’s weird. I have peripheral vision again.”

Sam smiled. “Good.”

Dean tried to examine him without being obvious about it. He could see the differences in this Sam to his brother. This Sam seemed younger, even though his face was as aged as his own. It was the eyes. He was missing years that Dean’s Sam carried. All the things his Sam had seen were there in a shadow that showed unless he was laughing. This Sam’s darkness didn’t have the same depth. He didn’t have that same trauma in his memories; they had been walled away.

“Castiel needs money, Dean,” John said. “He’s going on a supply run.”

Dean took his wallet from his pocket and then hesitated before looking at John and saying, “Which one?”

“Me,” Dean’s Castiel said, raising a hand and then catching the wallet when Dean threw it to him.

“Anyone want anything special?” John asked.

Sam looked hopeful. “Maybe some apples. Can you get apples still?”

“Yes,” Jessica said, squeezing his hand. “Most things are the same, Sam. It’s just the demons’ presence and everyone’s awareness of them that are different.”

“And the people they massacre,” Sam murmured.

Her smile faded a moment, but when she looked back at Sam she smiled again. It seemed impossible for her to hide her joy at being with him again. Dean was glad his brother wasn’t there to see it. This was how she looked when she’d been with him in their world, and Dean knew what that had meant to Sam. If he saw this now, he was going to hurt even more. Though maybe he could already see it in his head and that was why he wasn’t here now.

“Apples then,” Sam said. 

Castiel nodded and made his way through the war room. Dean heard his footsteps on the stairs and then the creak and clang of the door opening and closing.

John got to his feet, wavered a moment and planted his hands on the table to steady himself, and then said, “Okay. It’s time. How do we do this cure?”

“We need a demon first,” Dean said.

“Ruby,” Jessica said, a growl in her voice.

Sam frowned. “Ruby’s still around? I figured she’d be dead after the whole…” he trailed off and then murmured, “…blood thing.”

“It came close,” John said. “But we decided to keep her around and use her.”

“Only it wasn’t us using her,” the other Dean growled, then seeing his brother’s blank look, he went on, “She’s been working for Lilith, Sammy, since the very beginning. She wants the apocalypse. She’s never been on our side.”

Sam gaped. “I can’t believe it.”

“I can,” Jessica said bitterly. “I don’t know why we didn’t see it before.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” John said. “We’ll get her here and she can be the one we cure. As soon as that’s done, you can all have your revenge on her. It’ll hurt a human much more than a demon.”

The other Dean crossed his arms over his chest. “We’ll make sure of it.”

John nodded and said, “What else do we need?”

“Blood,” Dean said. “We need to lock her down and you have to inject her with blood every hour for eight hours. When she’s had the last dose, you need to give her a bloody-fist sandwich to the mouth and say the right Latin. I’ll write it down for you.”

“Sounds simple enough,” John said.

“It is basically. Only other thing is that your blood has got to be purified first. You’ve got to confess.”

The other Dean huffed a laugh and John shot him a sharp look.

“I can do that,” John said darkly. “Do I have to do it with the full priest thing, or can I do it some other way? I don’t want to delay it.”

“No,” the other Castiel said. “A confession is a conversation between you and God. The priest is just the conduit for the prayer. You can do it anywhere at any time. Forgiveness will come.”

Dean could have pointed out the stupidity of that, the fact that God wasn’t paying a damn bit of attention or offering up forgiveness, but what was the point? They needed to believe this would work or the confession might not do the job. He thought it had only worked for Sam as he’d never really given up his faith when he’d confessed. He was still a believer, just in a God he knew wasn’t paying attention properly.

“I’ll go do that then,” John said. “Dean… Deans, I guess… get a demon summoning ready. Jess, prepare this place to lock down a demon.”

“We can do it in here,” Dean said, thinking that for them all to cram into the dungeon was going to make what was going to be an uncomfortable experience a whole lot worse. “We’ve got warded cuffs in the dungeon and there’s a devil’s trap there already. It’s the best place to do it. I’ll make sure it’s all there.” 

He wandered away, thinking that he would put a call into Sam when he was alone somewhere, just to check in, see how far he’d got and to remind him he needed to rest, too. To hopefully not need to discuss Jessica and what was happening here.

xXx

Dean walked into the library, carrying the box of supplies from the dungeon. He stopped as he recognized the raised voices from the center of the room.

John and Sam were standing a foot apart and arguing. John’s face was angry and he said, “No, Sam!”

“Yes!” Sam replied just as forcefully. “I’m staying.”

The other Dean walked into the room and positioned himself at Sam’s side, just as Dean would have if it had been his Sam, and said, “What’s going on?”

“Dad doesn’t want me here when Ruby comes,” Sam said.

“It’s not safe,” John said.

Sam laughed harshly. “When are our lives ever safe?”

“This is different,” John said. “You don’t remember what happened to you, but we do. Sammy, you were gone for years, and it’s partly because of that bitch. I don’t want you anywhere near her.”

“She can’t hurt me if she’s trapped,” Sam said, his tone reasonable at first then it became skeptical as he asked, “Or is this about what I might do? You think I might slip up and let her free to help me kill Lilith? You think I’ve been brainwashed?”

John didn’t speak which was an answer in itself.

The other Dean turned him slightly so he could look into his face, “Look, Sammy, none of us want to think it, but you were gone a long time. We don’t know everything that happened to you apart from the fact they tortured you.

“I don’t feel like I’ve been brainwashed,” Sam said.

Jessica straightened up and took his hand, “Baby, you wouldn’t know. I’m sorry, and it’s not that I don’t trust you, we all do, but anything could happen.”

Sam frowned. “That sounds like distrust to me.”

Her face fell. “No. It’s just we’re scared. And we don’t want you to have to be around the bitch that did all that damage. If she’d had her way, the apocalypse would have started. And if she knows what happened to you there, she might talk about it, taunt you. We don’t know how that wall works. Maybe the wrong word can make it crack.”

Dean cleared his throat. “She’s got a point, Sam. My Sam had a wall, too, protecting him from his own Hell, and we went to some place he’d been before and it triggered these memories. He was out about five minutes, but for him it felt like weeks. You don’t want that.”

Sam crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at his father. “This is going to kill you, Dad. I get that you have to do it and I understand why, but you can’t expect me to sit it out. I won’t leave you to die alone.”

“I won’t be alone,” John said, his tone kind and consoling in a way Dean had rarely heard from his own father.

“You won’t,” Sam agreed. “I’ll be with you.”

“How about this,” Dean said, processing the idea in his mind and deciding it was the best option. “Sam sits the cure out until the end. He can be there for the last dose and the spell. Ruby is going to be in no position to taunt by then, I promise. She’s going to be too screwed up. He can be there for what he needs, but he’s not there for the dangerous part of it.”

“Sounds fair,” Jessica said. “Right, Baby?”

Sam nodded stiffly. “Fine. But you make sure I’m there when I need to be.”

“I’ll make sure,” his own Dean said.

Sam stared at him for a moment, seeming to be searching for the lie, and then he said, “I guess I’ll be in my room then,” and stomped out.

It was a strangely familiar scene, Sam annoyed and acting like a teenager, and it made Dean smile.

“I’ll be with him,” Jessica said.

“I’ll come when I can,” the other Dean said.

She nodded and followed Sam along the hall.

“Jack,” Dean said. “Can you stay close to them? I’ll send Cas along when he gets back.”

“Okay,” Jack said.

When he was gone, Dean set the box down on the table and began to unpack the supplies he’d bought with him. He handed the cuffs to the other Castiel and said, “You’ll need to get these on her when she arrives.” He threw the ropes to the other Dean and said, “And tie her down tight.”

The other Dean nodded and carried a chair into the middle of the trap and set it down.

“You ready, John?” Dean asked.

“Yes. I did the confession thing.”

“Then let’s get ready,” Dean said.

They went to the dungeon where John went to the table and picked up the syringes Dean had brought from the lab and said, “How much blood?”

“Just one injection each hour but make it a good one. It’s the blood that does it as far as I can tell.” He was thinking of Crowley and how he’d dragged himself to near-humanity for the emotions of it when he’d been a junkie.

He tipped the required ingredients he’d gathered into the bowl and cut across his hand and dripped it into the bowl then said, “Be ready,” as he lit a match and held it over the bowl then dropped it in as he recited, “Ad construgendum ad ligandum eos pariter Et solvendum. Et ad congregantum eos coram me.” 

Fire and smoke rose from the bowl and then a very familiar voice said, “Thank you for finally thinking of… Hey! What are you doing?”

Castiel had pinned her and cuffed her hands in front of her and the other Dean was helping him to shove her into the chair and wrap the ropes around her chest.

“What are you… Dean? Your eye!”

Dean cleared his throat and said, “That’s Deans plural, bitch.”

She looked at them, turning from face to face, and Dean saw the spark of amusement in her eyes before she frowned and said, “I don’t understand. How is this possible? What are you doing?”

“You can give up the act,” John growled. “We know what you’re doing. You betrayed us.”

“Never!” Ruby said. “I’ve given up everything to help you.”

“Everything but Lilith, right?” the other Dean asked.

“Lilith? I have been trying to stop Lilith for years!”

“No,” Dean growled. “You haven’t. They know exactly what you’ve been doing thanks to me, and they’re going to make you pay for it. Well, John is. You ready?”

John nodded and clenched a fist and he jabbed the needle into the vein standing out on his arm and drew up the blood.

“What are you doing, John?” Ruby asked.

John didn’t answer at once. He slapped her cheek so her head snapped to the side and jammed the needle into the side of her neck and pressed down on the plunger. When the blood was gone, he pulled it out and threw the needle away then grabbed her chin and lifted it so she was looking directly at him.

“What I’m doing is curing you. And then, when you’re human, I’m going to save the world.”

Ruby's eyes were wide and afraid, but Dean still thought he saw something in them that didn’t match the way she was acting. She knew something. Perhaps she knew Sam was out and that there was another kidnap planned .

Whatever it was, it was going to fail. They had Jack to protect them and they had John to cure her and complete the trials.

In eight hours, it was all going to be over.

Chapter Text

Dean had quickly decided that he was going to play the role of Ruby’s guard during the curing, leaving John to move among his family, to spend time with them while he still could.

Though he didn’t have the exact same connection (hatred) for this version of Ruby as John, Dean, Sam, and Jess did, he still felt the loathing towards her.

It was different for him, since Ruby’s betrayal was years in the past for him. He’d killed her a long time ago and moved past it. The fact he was facing her again, seeing the face he loathed, was still hard to swallow but possible.

When John and the other Dean were there, he could see how hard it was for them to not attack her, kill her even, when they looked into her eyes. To them, her betrayal was closer and more intense.  Dean had never truly trusted her but they had for years. She’d fought alongside them all the time Sam was gone, perhaps pretending she cared for him, too.

He wanted to shield them from that so he carried a chair into the room and sat down in the corner with a book on his lap that he wasn’t really reading but wanted to show he wasn’t upset by her presence.

She spoke sometimes, asking how he was there and where he’d come from, but it had mostly died down after the third dose of blood when its combined effects and the fact he showed himself unshakeable made her efforts to engage pointless. 

He liked to imagine what she was feeling. Sam said Crowley suffered at the end as humanity lay heavier and heavier on him, and he was looking forward to that moment with her. He hoped that it would really hurt her when she saw the people she’d betrayed.

Sam said Crowley had asked him how he could find forgiveness for all the awful things he’d done. As Ruby’s had mostly been directed towards them, he thought it would be hard for her to face them at the very end, especially Sam when he came for the last moments of his father’s life.

The door in the file room that led into the dungeon creaked open and John and this world’s Dean came in.

“Time for another dose,” John said.

His voice was weaker than it had been before he’d left after the third dose. The effects of the trial were draining him. Dean hadn’t seen Sam through the last hours of the cure as he’d been with Castiel, unknowingly working towards the worst fate for the angels. He imagined Sam would have looked the same though, and it gave him a pang of guilt that he hadn’t been there to help him manage it.

If Sam had looked like this, moved with these careful movements as if each step hurt him, how had he faced Abaddon and lived?

His brother had even more strength than he’d given him credit for at the time. 

Ruby narrowed her eyes at him, and Dean saw that same glint of something more that made him uneasy. He’d been prepared for an attack since this had started, they all had, but she made him more and more sure it was coming when she looked like that. They were prepared, they had Jack and he could beat anything, but if Lilith came… 

He sucked in a breath. He had an idea.

The other Dean glanced at him and said, “Something on your mind?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “Let your dad dose her up and we can talk.”

John and Dean eyed him for a moment and then nodded.

John went to the table and rolled up his left sleeve to expose the vein. His son handed him a syringe and needle and John patted the vein and fisted his hand to bring it to the surface. When he had a clear line of it showing, he inserted the needle and drew up the blood. Dean noticed his hand was shaking as he rolled down his sleeve and approached Ruby.

“This isn’t going to work, you know,” Ruby said calmly.

John shrugged, his expression unconcerned though his eyes were hard. “There’s no harm in trying.”

“You can’t cure a demon,” she said. “It’s a myth. No amount of blood is going to make a difference.”

Dean coughed a laugh. “I know for a fact that’s wrong since I was cured myself.”

All eyes snapped to him and John said, “You were a demon?”

Dean nodded. “I was. Things were very different for us where we were. The hits kept coming,” He turned to Ruby. “It will work though, and I know what will happen to you after. I think there’s something pretty special coming for you when you’re human, all kinds of pain, but I promise that’ll be nothing compared to what you’re going to do to yourself. You’ve got centuries of evil that’s going to haunt you.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I wish I could stay to watch.”

“Got a hot date?” Ruby asked.

Dean grinned. “I’ve got something pretty good, yeah.”

John grabbed Ruby’s hair and yanked it to the side, then jabbed the needle into her neck and depressed the plunger, sending his own blood rushing into her veins.

Ruby hissed between her teeth and winced then took a breath and became menacing and calm again. “How’s Sam?” she asked.

The other Dean strode forward and punched her jaw.

Her head rocked to the side but she laughed. “Hit a nerve?” she asked. “Is he feeling a little delicate maybe?”

“He’s fine,” John said.

“I really doubt it,” Ruby said. “I saw what they did to him down there. He was a wreck. He stopped begging around the first century and stopped talking altogether during the second.” She grinned. “I heard his last words were your names. Sounded like he hoping you’d come for him until the very end though. Apparently, he was always looking around like you were going to appear.”

The other Dean launched himself at her, his fists flying, and John got his arms around him and tried to drag him back. He didn’t have enough strength left though, so Dean rushed to help him and they dragged him back through the file room and into the hall where Dean’s Castiel was standing.

They released Dean and he pressed fisted hands to his temples and growled with frustration.

“You’ve got to stow it, Dean,” John said. “She wants the reaction. She’s got nothing left but words. Don’t give her what she wants.”

“I know,” he snapped in return.

Dean cleared his throat. “Look, we need to prepare in case there is an attack. I know we’ve got Jack to kill backup demons, but we can’t risk him against Lilith. Me and Sammy faced a Knight of Hell called Abaddon once and we couldn’t kill her either—not until we had the right weapon—so we trapped her instead.”

“We know Abaddon,” the other Dean said darkly.

“Lilith isn’t going to walk into a devil’s trap,” John said.

“No, neither was Abaddon, but we did it.” He pulled out the gun from the back of his pants and ejected the clip. “Devil’s trap bullets. Carve it into the base and it’ll lock her down. She won’t be able to move or smoke out. We get one in her and she can stand and watch as we finish this thing. She’ll be dragged back with the rest of those bastards.”

John raised an eyebrow and huffed a laugh. “I can’t believe we’ve never thought of that.”

Dean fixed his eyes on him. “I didn’t come up with it alone. It was Henry that helped me.”

John shook his head jerkily and looked at his son, “Dean, get whatever ammunition we’ve got left in the trunk. I want them all carved. Get Sam and Jess to help. If that bitch comes, I want to have the right bullets on her from all angles.”

His son nodded in return and strode off along the hall. John watched him go and then opened the door to the file room again.

“You don’t have to come back,” Dean said. “We’ve got just under an hour until you’re needed again. Go help them with the bullets.”

John stared at him a moment and then turned and followed his son’s path along the hall. Dean took a breath and then went back into the dungeon.

xXx

Dean was sitting in the corner of the dungeon, turning pages of his book occasionally and pondering what was going on with Sam when he heard a distant thudding sound. He dropped his book and made for the door with Ruby’s amused voice making him stop and turn.

“I wonder who that could be.” She winked.

Dean was sure from her reaction that it was her expected rescue coming, and he hesitated a moment, torn between staying to guard and going to defend, before sprinting off along the hall, meeting Sam, Dean, Jess, John and the two angels in the library.

“They’re coming!” John said. “Ruby?”

“Still locked down,” Dean said as he grabbed the angel blades from the duffel on the table and threw them at John, Dean, Jess, and Sam. “Cas, go wait with Ruby. Kill anyone that comes for her; anyone but Lilith.” He slapped his gun into Castiel’s hand and said. “Shoot her if you see her.”

Castiel cast Jack a wary look before running in the direction Dean had come from.

Dean heard the thud again and recognized it as he’d heard it before. “They’re trying to get through the front door.”

“Can they?” John asked.

“I’m not sure,” Dean answered. “We got Crowley in, but he was still pretty much human when we did it. I’m not sure if the warding was effecting him then.”

“Asmodeus got in,” Jack said.

Dean sighed. “Yeah, and Lilith is up a level on him.”

“They can get in,” Jess stated, taking a step closer to Sam who was steely-eyed and angry.

There was another bang and Dean nudged Jack’s shoulder and said, “You ready, kid?”

Jack nodded and walked into the war room. They all followed him in and stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at the door on the balcony that was shaking.

John shifted from foot to foot, his gun raised and ready, and Dean lifted his own to aim at the door as it flew open.

His finger pulled the trigger as soon as the figure entered, knowing anyone that could make it through that door was a threat, and around him, more guns were fired.

He gasped as he recognized the man the bullets had hit and quickly grabbed John’s arm as he made to walk forward and hissed, “It’s not him.”

Adam Milligan, John’s son and Dean’s half-brother, stood on the balcony, his jacket torn where the bullets had hit. He looked down at them with an amused expression. Entering around him were more grey-suited men and women, one of them Dean recognized and growled his name, “Zachariah,” at the same moment Jack spoke the name of the archangel that had possessed Adam. “Michael.”

“Michael!” John said, his voice still weak with illness but his shock clear with it.

Michael walked down the stairs towards them, and Sam, Jess, and their Dean moved forward to position themselves at John’s sides, their Castiel moving a little in front of them.

“Dean Winchester,” Michael said, his eyes on Dean’s other self. “I have been looking forward to meeting you for a long time.” His eyes moved to Dean himself and he smiled slightly, “And there’s the spare.”

Jack stepped forward and held up a hand, making Michael smirk and the other angels draw their blades.

Michael held up a hand and they stopped moving, their blades gripped but not raised. “He’s no threat,” he said. “He doesn’t have the strength.”

“I killed you once,” Jack said.

Michael frowned but went on in a serene voice, “Perhaps you did, but that was not really me. I have the full power of Heaven behind me. I hear you can’t say the same for him. Didn’t he come from another world?”

Dean froze. How had he known that? The only people that did were in this room and Sam and he would never tell them. No. Someone else was missing.

His other self had the same revelation at the same moment and he snarled “Hannah!”

Michael chuckled. “Yes. Hannah.”

“No,” Castiel said, his shock evident. “She wouldn’t.”

Michael smiled. “You don’t think so? You never saw the truth? Hannah was never yours, Castiel. She belonged to Heaven all this time. We needed to know what you were doing and when, and we needed to add some protection against the demons for Dean here. We couldn’t have him getting killed. None of us wanted the bother of putting together a vessel for the battle, wasting time that he could spend honing his skills to hold me.”

“Vessel?” Sam said. “Dean’s a vessel.”

Zachariah laughed. “I see you haven’t been given the full story by your counterparts. Yes, Sam, you and Dean are vessels for the final battle. You belong to Lucifer, and your brother to me.”

Jack’s eyes snapped to him and Dean could sense his barely repressed anger. “Do it, Jack,” he said. “Kill the bastard.”

Jack’s hand started to fist and the angels that were still poised on the balcony above leaped over the banister and landed on the floor below in front of them, blades now raised and ready to strike.

The other Dean stepped in front of his brother and Jess, their guns tossed away and blades held high.

Jack hesitated a moment, his eyes darting between the angels and Michael, and Dean saw his indecision. He wasn’t sure whether to attack or defend.

“Stick with Michael, Jack,” Dean said. “We’ve got the others.”

The angels spread their stance, their eyes flickering to Michael as Jack’s power began to glow shown in golden light that poured from his hand. It hit  Michael, making him grunt and stagger back a step before he found his feet and sent his own blast of energy at Jack.

The angels and hunters moved at the same time, running forward and meeting with clashes of blades. Dean knew he had to concentrate on himself and his fight since being distracted by the others would slow him down. Sam was safe wherever he was, Castiel was with Ruby, hopefully staying there, and Jack could protect himself. The others weren’t his priority.

He met Zachariah at the edge of the table and managed to get a cut into his right arm before Zachariah’s blade punctured his shoulder. The wound burned and his left arm became numb, but he pushed aside the weakness that swept through him, drawing on his long-earned reserves of strength for the fight, and struck out again.

All around him were grunts of pain, clashes of blades meeting, and worried voices calling to each other, but he ignored them all and concentrated on killing the angel he hated.

Zachariah seemed amused by his attacks, but Dean fixed on the fact he’d killed him once before and knew he could do it again. He slashed and jabbed, getting a lucky strike on the wrist on the hand holding his blade.

“How dare you?” Zachariah said, his tone shocked but still menacing.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve made you bleed,” Dean said. “And I’m going to enjoy it a lot more this time.”

There was a blast behind him that knocked him forward a few steps, and the high-pitched whine of an angel’s dying grace. Zachariah’s eyes fixed on a point over his shoulder and he said, “Beriah!” in obvious shock.

Dean used his moment of distraction to charge forward, the blade extended, and drive it into Zachariah’s throat. In his death throes, Zachariah’s blade slashed the side of Dean’s chest and he felt a rush of warmth flooding down his shirt to his pants. It made his head swim and legs weaken, but he forced himself to stay standing as he turned to take in the room.

There were three dead angels on the floor and John and Sam were facing off against another pair, the last left standing. Both of them wounded but in better shape than Jessica, Dean, and Castiel who were clutching wounded stomachs and half lying on the floor. Jack and Michael were still locked in battle, throwing balls of energy at each other, but Dean thought Jack was winning. Michael looked unsteady whereas Jack was still standing strong.

Dean ran to the angel that Sam was facing and drove his blade into its back as Sam struck from the front. The angel was impaled on the two blades and stayed standing a moment before they withdrew them and it fell among its fellows, the ashes of its wings joining the others.

Sam rushed to Jessica’s side and dropped down beside her, his hands falling on the wound on her stomach, his voice reassuring her as he stared at his bleeding brother. Dean started towards the other Dean as John’s own opponent dropped with John’s blade in his heart, but his legs buckled and he dropped to his knees then fell forward and tried to roll onto his side. He shouted automatically for Castiel as Jack and Michael’s battle grew more violent and Michael staggered back a few steps.

“Do it, Jack,” he said, his voice weaker than he’d expected. “Kill him.”

Though Jack had obviously been trying already, Dean’s words seemed to reach something in him and he threw out both hands and a rush of golden light hit Michael in the chest, sending him sprawling back to land on the floor. Jack moved closer to him, pounding him with energy, and Michael writhed.

Dean heard voices around him, people giving and seeking reassurance, but his eyes were fixed on Jack and Michael as Jack pressed his hand to Michael’s forehead and the grace poured from his mouth as Michael lifted his blade and slashed at Jack’s throat. Though his intent had obviously been to kill, the cut was shallow and it wasn’t blood that spilled out.

“No!” Dean shouted.

Jack pressed a hand to the wound and it sealed, but the spilled grace was seeping down into Michael’s as they both merged and mixed.

With strength Dean didn’t know he could possess with the weight of his injuries and the trials weakening him, John staggered to them and snatched the blade from Michael’s hand. He lifted it in both hands, murmured an apology, and drove it into Michael’s chest over his heart.

Blinding light poured from him and John and Jack staggered back. Jack looked around as in a daze and then his eyes widened as he saw the injured people around him.

He rushed to Dean, his hand extended, and Dean tried to push it away. “Your grace.”

“I have enough,” Jack said,

“Do Jess,” Dean said.

“Shut up and stay still,” Jack snapped. His hand fell on Dean’s temple and Dean felt the rush of warmth and then a sting on his side and shoulder as the wounds knitted together. 

“Jack,” Sam said desperately. “Help.”

Jack moved to Jessica and repeated the healing process then moved to the other Dean and healed him. Sam helped Jessica to her feet and John helped his other son up.

Dean himself rolled onto his knees and got up, his head seeming lighter than usual from the blood loss that no amount of grace could replenish. 

“Jack, go check on Cas,” Dean said. “Make sure he’s okay. He didn’t come.”

“I can sense him,” Jack said. “He’s fine.”

“Then go find out why the hell he didn’t come.”

Jack jogged out of the room and Dean saw the other occupants embracing each other and checking the places where wounds had been.

As the other Dean pushed his father’s hands aside and growled, “I’m fine,” John stepped back and said, “I’m sorry.”

Dean had a feeling, from the way his eyes drifted to the corpse spread over the table, that he wasn’t talking to that son.

“Okay,” Dean said, clapping his hands together. “Sam, go get whatever sugar-loaded stuff you’ve got in the kitchen. The grace can’t fix the blood loss. Dean, Jess, you want to clean up?”

They both nodded and walked towards the bedrooms. Dean waited until they were gone and then grabbed John’s arm and turned him away from the table where he was staring with dark eyes.

“I know what you just did,” he said fervently, “and I know who you did it to. You had no choice.”

“You know about Adam?” John asked. 

“Yeah. Me and Sammy found out years ago. Your family don’t need to know though.” He shook John’s arm when his expression became mulish. “You have a few hours left with them before you die. Don’t screw that up by letting them know what you did years ago and what happened after. If you were the same kind of dad to Adam that ours was, you did the best for him and the best for us by hiding it. Keep hiding it.”

John nodded and wiped a hand over his face. “Yeah. You’re right.”

Dean checked his watch. “You’ve not got that long until the next dose. Go clean yourself up. I’ll meet you in the dungeon.”

“Okay.” He walked away and then turned at the top of the small flight of stairs and said, “Thank you, Dean.”

Dean nodded in response and then turned back to the bodies spread around the room. They couldn’t leave them there. They needed to be burned or buried. Adam would be burned. He wasn’t a hunter, but he’d lost his life to the fight, and he deserved a hunter’s funeral.

He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see a stricken Castiel coming towards him. “Dean! I didn’t hear. The dungeon is warded. I thought it was just demons. I was just watching her! Jack said it was Michael. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “I’m fine. Jack healed me up. But, Cas…” He frowned. “Michael wounded him and he lost some of Jack’s grace. He still had enough to heal, but I don’t know how much more.”

Castiel frowned. “But he could heal?”

“Yeah. What if it’s not enough to keep the balance? He could die.”

Castiel shook his head. “I don’t think so. If he could heal, he has a good amount left. That should maintain the balance.”

“And he’ll be able to get us home?” Dean asked.

“I… I don’t know,” Castiel said. “We would have to test it. But if he can’t, Billie will do it. She doesn’t want us here.”

Dean nodded, reassured by Castiel’s words. Billie would get them home. She had to. If she didn’t, Sam was going to be trapped in this world with the woman he loved and the version of himself that he’d lost her to.

Billie had to get them home.  

Chapter Text

Dean was in the dungeon with Ruby. Dean and both Castiels were outside, preparing a pyre big enough for all the bodies to be burned while Jack stayed with Sam and Jessica. They had faced the attack from the angels, but they weren’t going to let down their guard until the trial was done and Hell closed. There was still a chance Lilith would come.

John had been wary of Dean being outside in case they came, but his son had waved aside his concerns and told him they had the devil’s trap bullets. Dean thought he understood his counterpart’s motivation. He had two choices, he could sit around and wait for his father to die or he could do something useful and be distracted.

Eventually, John had decided to go out with them to help. Dean didn’t think he was going to be much help as he was so obviously weakened by the trials, but he figured John was taking all the time with his son that he could before the end. He’d spent two hours with Sam and Jess before.

The last dose was approaching and Ruby seemed no different to the monster John had given the first dose to. Dean didn’t understand it. She had to be feeling the encroaching humanity, but that same glint in her eyes told him she was still hiding something. He wished he knew the meaning behind it.

All he could think was that she expected to be rescued, but unless the angels were working with demons and that was part of the attack they’d aborted, there had been no sign of it. Dean didn’t think the angels would be working with the demons. Castiel said this version of the archangel would never stoop that low. Demons were Lucifer’s creation and Michael hated them as they were corrupt versions of his Father’s creation.

The clock was ticking down though, and her time was running out. Dean was going to enjoy the moment she was given the last dose and left to await her fate. He was sure she was going to suffer at the hands of the surviving Winchesters of this world.

Dean checked his watch. They had ten minutes left. John was going to need to come back soon to prepare the blood. The fact it was so close to being finished cheered Dean. They would be able to get back home, either through Jack or Billie, and could get back to their lives in their own world.

He pulled his cell from his pocket and sighed. He hadn’t called Sam as he’d not wanted to tell him they’d started the trial. He knew Sam was going to be pissed when he knew, and he’d not wanted to deal with that. He figured the time was right though. Sam would still be too far away to get back in time. Jack could take them to him when it was over and they could go without Sam needing to see Jessica again.

He dialed and brought it to his ear, turning away from Ruby’s gaze as she said, “Calling for pizza? Mine’s a large with extra pepperoni.”

It ran through to voicemail and Dean ended the call without leaving a message. Sam was probably sleeping somewhere. He’d had even less sleep than Dean the day before, and he’d been through all the same emotional and physical upheaval. More even. His emotions had been so much tougher to handle.

He tucked the phone back in his pocket and sighed.

“No one home?” Ruby asked. “Shame. He’s probably having a little me time.”

“Shut up, bitch,” Dean snapped.

She laughed. “Or he’s busy doing something else. What can that be?”

Dean’s heart sped slightly. She had that glint in her eyes that made him uncomfortable. “What do you know?” he asked.

She lifted her chin. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Dean picked up the angel blade from where he’d left it leaning against the chair and stalked towards her. “What do you know?” he asked again.

She grinned. “Hurt me all you like, I’m not telling you anything.”

Dean raised the blade to cut across her cheek, and then lowered it. Hurting her was just going to give her pleasure. If she’d been under Alastair on the rack, the pointless wounds he would give her weren’t going to scratch the surface of suffering. And they needed her whole for what came after she was cured. He wanted her to suffer her pain later as much as this world’s version of his family would suffer the loss of John.

He took a breath and calmed himself.

So Sam wasn’t answering his phone; he probably was sleeping. When Sam was really tired, he slept hard. And he would be exhausted. Ruby was just seeing his weakness and playing on it. She was the bitch that had helped to destroy his world and had helped to trap this world’s Sam in Hell. Screwing with Dean was the least of what she could do.

He put the blade down on the chair and took his own phone and loaded the app to track Sam’s cell location. He would find him and send this world’s Castiel to get him. He’d probably be faced with a bleary-eyed and hurting Sam when he saw Jessica with the Sam that belonged, and that would suck, but at least he would know where he was.

The app loaded but the location didn’t show. It said there was no signal. Sam wouldn’t turn his GPS off. He was way too careful for that. He knew as well as Dean did that sometimes things happened and they needed to be reachable at all times. The only times they couldn’t trace each other was when they were in the bunker. They were untraceable within twenty miles. But Sam couldn’t be there. He was driving back which meant he was still hours away. So why would Sam be untraceable?

He walked out to the hall to call for Castiel, to talk out his worry, and then stopped as he heard footsteps approaching. John, his sons, and Jessica, Jack and both angels were coming towards him.

“We’ve got a problem,” John said.

“Yeah, me too,” Dean said. “Sam’s not answering his phone and his GPS is switched off.”

Castiel held something out to Dean and said, “Zachariah. He had this!”

Dean took the phone and saw the missed call displayed on the screen from his own number. It was Sam’s. 

“What’s going on?” the other Dean asked. “Why would an angel need a phone?”

In the dungeon, Ruby howled with laughter, and the other Dean rushed past him and there was the sound of a blow landing and then Ruby fell silent.

“It’s Sam’s phone,” Dean said weakly, his heart now racing.

“How did they get it?” John asked.

Dean didn’t want to think of how, the idea was horrifying, but he forced himself to face it. The angels had been close to Sam to get it, and there was no way they would have left him unharmed if they’d been with him. Had they perhaps taken him so he could be prepared as Lucifer’s vessel? This world’s Sam had suffered centuries of torture without breaking. Did they think his Sam would be an easier target?

He turned to his friend and said, “Cas, you’ve got to find him.”

“I can’t,” Castiel said, his eyes wide and fearful. “I can’t sense him. You both have the rib sigils. And I can’t fly.”

Dean turned his eyes on the other Castiel and snapped. “You! Go find him! Now!”

“How?” he asked. “If he’s shielded from my senses, I would be searching the whole world for him.”

“Then do that!” Dean shouted. “Go!”

In answer, Castiel stared at him for a long moment and then disappeared.

“Dean,” his own Castiel said consolingly. “It doesn’t necessarily mean…”

“Of course it does!” Dean snapped. “Why else would they have it?”

John looked at him a moment and then walked past him into the dungeon, followed by Sam and Jessica. 

Dean raked a hand over his face. He felt helpless and scared. If the angels had Sam, he didn’t know how to get him back. How to find him even. He could be anywhere. He cursed himself for not having Castiel wipe the sigils. Why hadn’t they seen that they were a bad idea after the apocalypse was over? They should have made themselves traceable again for stuff like this.

From within the dungeon, Dean heard Ruby say, “It’s too late.”

“It’s too late for you,” John growled. “Time’s up. You’re going to be human now and then the pain will really start. Whatever rescue you think is coming for you, won’t be here to save you. As soon as you’re human, I’m finishing this thing. Hell will be closed forever. There will never be another black-eyed bastard on earth.”

Ruby laughed again and Dean turned automatically and went into the dungeon in time to see John jab the needle into her neck and push in the blood.

“Dad,” Sam said tentatively.

“I’ve got it,” John said, pulling the scrap of paper Dean had written the Latin. He read it and then dropped it onto the floor and used a knife to cut across his palm.

His attention only half in the room, the rest absorbed in his fear for his brother, Dean watched as John pressed his bloody palm, his arms lit with the power of the trials, to Ruby’s mouth and said, “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus... hanc animam redintegra... Lustra! Lustra!”

Light poured from Ruby and everyone but John, Castiel, and Jack took a step back and shielded their eyes.

When the light died, Dean lowered his arm from his eyes to see John step back and stare at Ruby as her black eyes faded to brown. She looked around the room, breathing hard, and then smiled again.

The demon they had seen cured in the video reel had been stricken after the cure, feeling the weight of his crimes, but Ruby seemed unconcerned. She winked and Dean and his hands fisted and he stalked towards her.

“Where’s my brother?” he snarled.

She laughed. “You’ll never find him.”

“Jack, make her tell me,” Dean snapped.

“No,” the other Dean shouted. “She’s ours.”

Jack ignored him completely and stalked towards Ruby, his hands raised and eyes hard.

“No!” Castiel said. “You’ll kill her, Jack. We need her to talk.”

“I’ll make her talk,” the other Dean growled.

“Let me finish first,” John said weakly, his face stark white and eyes sagging with tiredness. He touched Sam’s cheek and then pulled him into an embrace. Dean watched with a detached eye as John said his goodbyes to both his sons and Jessica and then held himself up on the back of Ruby’s chair.

“You’re going to regret this,” Ruby said.

“Shut up, bitch,” Sam growled.

John drew in a heaving breath and said, “Kah Nah Om…”

“He’s in Hell!” Ruby shrieked. “Sam’s in Hell!”

“John, stop!” Dean bellowed, crossing the room at a run to clap his hand over John’s mouth, but before he could reach him, John looked right at him and forced out the last word, “Dar,” before he collapsed.

Dean groaned in pain as realization settled over him. It was done. Hell was closed.

And Sam was trapped there.

xXx

Sam was bleeding.

He knew it wasn’t really his blood as it wasn’t his body, but it felt real as it dripped from his bare chest down to his stomach. The pain felt real, too. It was different from the kind of pain he’d felt topside, Dean had once said to him that it wasn’t the same, but it was hard to differentiate when his nerves were screaming as the razor sliced through his skin and exposed flesh.

He didn’t know how long he’d been there, perhaps only hours of time on earth, but it felt like months to him. It had been that way in the Cage at first. There’s was no way to gauge days in that unchanging place, but he’d had some idea of time passing. Once the months reached a year, it had been lost and it became an unending cycle of torture and waiting for torture.

There was no waiting here. When Lilith decided to take a break from the razor, another demon took her place. He was sliced into, exposed, his organs removed and placed in his bound hands until the last organ removed—always the heart—was held up to him and then he was remade and it started all over again. Not always over again with the same thing, not always the same way. Sometimes they did other things. But the screaming and pain were always the same.

Had he been told what was coming, he would have said he would handle it. These demons were in no way as imaginative or twisted as Lucifer and Michael, and his situation then had been hopeless; he’d always known there would be no rescue. This time he knew it wouldn’t last forever, and that made it harder when he was waiting for the rescue to come.

While the demon picked up and dropped tools, readying things for Lilith to begin, his eyes searched the cavernous room he was in for the blazing light of an angel coming for him, the door to burst open and his brother to stride in, for Jack to rip the ceiling apart and scoop him out.

There were so many ways for them to come for him. His own Castiel perhaps couldn’t make the trip without wings, but this world’s version had his still. Dean could find a reaper or bargain with Billie for a door into Purgatory again. Jack could crack Hell open and come for him.

So many ways, so what was taking them so long?

They had to know what had happened by now. Dean would know it wasn’t him on the phone. He was too smart to be fooled by Zachariah, no matter how good his impression was. No one knew Sam better than Dean; he would work it out. He would send the other Castiel or Jack to Maryland to find him, and there they would find his body. They would know. There were enough of them to solve the problem. He just had to wait.

He felt the searing agony as his ribs were pulled apart by Lilith’s bare hands and then the fingers grappling inside of him then the tug and emptiness of his heart being pulled from its rightful place, and his mind reeled. No matter how often it happened, how well he knew the sensation, it was horrific every time. He sometimes thought it would break his mind before it broke his soul to nothing—and it was already so damaged.

Lilith held it up in front of Sam’s eyes and said, “Look at it, Sam. It’s still beating.”

Sam averted his eyes. He wasn’t going to allow her to see the horror in him.

“Nothing to say?” she asked, and he heard the squelchy thud as his heart was dropped onto the stone floor. “The other Sam was so chatty at first. He would make the most delicious sounds, and that was when he wasn’t begging. It took so long for him to stop. He would cry for his family and his lover to save him.”

“He’s safe now,” Sam said.

“He is,” Lilith agreed. “But you’re not. Does it feel like a fair exchange? He gets freedom and you get doomed.”

Sam didn’t answer. Truthfully, it didn’t feel fair, and he knew that made him selfish. He and Dean risked their lives and freedom on a daily basis to help other people, and they’d both suffered Hell knowing what they were getting into, but Sam resented the fact he was here again. Perhaps if it was Jessica or Dean he had replaced, he could bear it, but it wasn’t. It was him. He couldn’t be brave for a version of himself.

“You don’t have to be doomed,” she went on. “You just have to give in. I can take you to earth again, set you free. All it will take is a promise. You kill me and you will be able to go back to your brother without a single more drop of blood being spilled. You can go back to your own world even. I hear that’s a better one than this.”

“Never,” Sam vowed.

“You’ll change your mind.”

She sighed and waved a hand at him. Sam felt the broken bones mending and flesh returning to form and skin healing over it. He was ready to start again.

Lilith pressed the razor to his cheek and cut into the corner of his eye, and then she stopped and stepped back as the floor on which they stood began to shake.

“What…”

They all, Sam, Lilith, and the congregated demons that had formed her audience, looked up as the ceiling split open and revealed a deep red rift open. Black and red clouds rolled like a stormy sky.

Sam’s heart leaped, they were coming, it was Jack, but it wasn’t his hand or golden grace that reached for Sam. It was a black cloud that poured in and swarmed in the air. The demons staggered and the smoke continued to come, accompanied by a howling sound like a tornado.

“What’s happening?” Lilith shouted. “Were you exorcised?”

One of the clouds of smoke funneled to the floor and formed into the shape of a woman that Sam could have pegged as someone’s grandma. “I wasn’t exorcised,” she said. “I was on the point of making a deal when I was ripped out of the meatsuit and dragged back here.”

Sam looked up at the rift above him, the fiery red obscured by so many demons, and understood with sudden gut chilling horror. This wasn’t a rescue; it was a trap. John had finished the last trial. This was Hell sealing closed.

And Sam was still trapped inside.

Chapter Text

The ground began to shake as if in the throes of an earthquake and rip opened in the floor, revealing a red chasm that glowed with a fiery red light.

Dean just stared at it, numb to everything, not moving when the rip reached his feet and his feet rocked, almost unbalancing him. He knew what they rip was and where it would lead, and for a moment, he thought about allowing himself to fall in. He would be in Hell again, and that was an old nightmare, but he would be with Sam. Didn’t his brother deserve him to come?

He tilted forwards and hands wrapped around his chest, dragging him back, and Jack’s voice spoke in his ear, “No, Dean!”

His heels scraped the floor as he was pulled to the very edge of the room, still trapped in Jack’s grip, and his eyes found the door as a high wind ripped through it and the black clouds of smoke funneled in and poured into the hole in the floor. There seemed to be a distant scream coming from them.

Around him people moved, voices shouted, calling to each other. The other Dean dragged his father’s body back from the hole and the other Castiel yanked Ruby’s chair against the wall when she shows signs of toppling inside, too. Sam shielded Jessica from the demons, though they showed no signs of moving out of the formation that poured into the hole.

Dean watched it all happened dispassionately, an emotionless observer.

After what felt like forever, the shaking on the floor seemed to slow, and the demons pouring past them thinned until they could see individual demons. The last to pour in was red smoke that Dean watched go with a twitch of his head: it was Crowley.

The hole didn’t seal slowly. As Crowley disappeared through it, it snapped shut and they perfect lines on the devil’s trap met unbroken again.

The first words to reach him were this world’s Sam’s, and he sounded stunned. “It’s over.”

“Yes,” his brother agreed, his voice heavy. “It’s done. He did it.” He lowered his father’s body tenderly to the floor and said, “We need to take care of Dad. A pyre.”

Red hot fury rushed through Dean’s veins, breaking through the merciful numbness, and his hands fisted. “A pyre? My brother is trapped in Hell and you’re thinking about a corpse! You saw what he did. He knew where Sam was when he finished it. He did that to Sam and you want to burn him now.”

“Dean,” Jessica said softly. “he was their father.”

“He was a bastard!” Dean bellowed.

The other Dean leaped to his feet and stalked towards him; his hands fisted. Dean welcomed him. Let him try to throw a punch. He would be battered and bleeding in second. He hadn’t been the one that did this, it had been John, but he was someone that Dean could vent his frustrations on, pour some of his anger into.

Jack released him and Dean took a step forward, but before his counterpart could reach him, Jack had thrown out his arms the other Dean, Sam, Jessica, and Castiel were thrown back by a blast of golden light that knocked them back to collide against the walls. Ruby, still bound to her chair, was knocked over her head hit the floor hard, though she still laughed.

The other Sam licked his lips and said, “He did what he had to do.”

“He trapped my brother in Hell!” Dean shouted. “He didn’t have to do that. He could have waited. We could have gotten Sammy out first. He was heartless, evil. He knew what he was doing, and he did it anyway. If he wasn’t already dead, I would kill him for it.

The other Dean tried to get to his feet and was knocked down again. He glowered and said, “You shut your mouth. My father was a damn hero.”

“He was a monster. My brother was a hero. He gave up everything to come here and help you and look what happened to him.”

“He was a hero,” Jessica agreed. “And we’ll never forget what he did for us, what you all did, but this isn’t anyone’s fault. John was doing what he needed to do.”

Dean pointed an accusatory finger at her. “This is your fault. You came to our world with your sob story and made him think he had to save you. If you hadn’t come, we would have been happy.”

Jessica’s chin jutted. “I didn’t choose to come.”

“But you did,” Castiel said, his tone curt. “And look what it cost us.”

Dean glared at her. “I hope this haunts you. I want you to look at him”—he pointed at the man sprawled on the floor beside her, his eyes narrowed—“and see my brother. I want you to feel guilty every time you touch him because you’re the reason my brother ended up in Hell.”

“That’s enough!” Sam snapped.

“No,” Castiel said darkly. “There is never enough for this. After everything we did for you, brought you back, helped with the trials, told you how to save your world, even killed Michael so your world can have true peace, John doomed Sam.”

“He’s not doomed,” Jack said. “I’ll get him back.” He looked at Dean. “Won’t I?”

“Yes,” Dean hissed.

“No!” the Castiel of this world gasped. “You can’t open Hell again.”

Dean snorted. “Because it’ll screw things up for you? You think we give a shit about that? Yes, Jack. You’ll get him back. And we’re doing it now. Come on.”

He strode to the door and along the hall into the library, Jack and Castiel following him. He had halfway crossed the room when a hand grabbed his shoulder and turned him, bringing him face to face with the Dean of this world.

“We won’t let you do this,” he growled.

Dean shoved him back and grabbed the gun he’d held in the back of his pants. It was loaded with devil’s trap bullets, which weren’t necessary, but would work as well as any other bullet to make this Dean bleed. He held it up, his finger poised over the trigger. “I will shoot,” he said.

Sam grabbed his brother and pulled him back, and Jessica stepped between them. “Don’t do this, Dean,” she said.

Dean adjusted his aim so it was pointed at her chest. “You think I won’t pull the trigger because it’s you? I will. I’d shoot you with more ease than anyone else here because you’re the reason this happened.”

Sam pulled his own gun and aimed it at Dean’s head. “I swear to god…” he started.

“That’s enough!” Dean’s Castiel shouted. “No one is shooting anyone.” He turned his attention to Dean. “This is not what Sam would want if he was here. He came here because he loved Jess and wanted her to be happy and safe. He did what he did for the same reason. If you hurt anyone now, you will be hurting him, too. Let’s just go now.”

Dean knew he was right, but it still burned him. He was so angry at them all, and only violence would sate that.

“Think what Sam would do,” Jack said, and the words seemed to hold a deeper meaning than Dean could decipher.

He took a deep breath and turned away, ignoring the gun that was still pointed at him. He tucked his gun away and then picked up the two duffels from the table with the weapons that remained. There were angel blades that weren’t in there, but he figured it didn’t matter if they left them behind. They had more in their world, and this version of his family might need the added protection someday. A cruel part of him hoped they would. The demons were gone, but the angels had just lost their leader and they’d be pissed. 

“We won’t let you do this,” the other Dean growled. “If you open Hell again…”

Before he could finish, Jack had thrown out an arm and knocked them to the floor again. This time they lay still. Dean didn’t know whether he had knocked them unconscious with the fall or if they were just sleeping, but he didn’t care.

He strode through the war room with Jack and Castiel and out of the door—which was open and the hinges buckled—without looking back over his shoulder at the people that lie motionless on the floor. He was done with them.

When he got outside, he took a breath of the fresh air and made for the field that lay behind the powerplant that sat above the bunker.

“Wait, Dean,” Castiel called.

Dean stopped and turned, frowning. “What? You’re not seriously going to try to stop me doing this, are you?”

“No,” Castiel said quickly. “But we should be sure Sam is gone before we risk this world again. Ruby could be lying. She would want to hurt us. We should check.”

“Check how?” Dean asked.

“If they took his soul the way they did this world’s Sam, his body would need to be kept somewhere. They might have left him in Maryland. We should check.”

“Yeah,” Dean said dully. He didn’t believe Ruby was lying, and he felt no hope that he would find anything but the shell of Sam in that Maryland nursing home, but they did need to be sure. “Jack, take us to Manor Park Nursing Home.” 

Jack nodded and a moment later Dean’s feet it the floor in the same room he had been in before when they had found this world’s Sam. The scene was the same as before, though there were slight differences in the Sam that lay in the bed this time. There was a small scar on his forearm that Dean knew came from a kitsune hunt earlier that year. It was his Sam, and he was unconscious and still as the other version had been.

“Sammy,” he sighed.

“He’s definitely gone then,” Jack said.

Castiel rolled up the sleeve of his coat and unbuttoned his cuff. “There’s only one way to be sure,” he said.

Dean cursed. It wasn’t really Sam, he was sure, his soul was gone, but this was still going to hurt. Even with the high pain threshold Sam had without his soul, having a fist shoved through his chest was going to hurt like Hell.

“Block the door, Jack,” he said. “This might be loud.”

Jack moved to the door and held a hand against it with a concentrated look on his face and his eyes fixed on Sam.

Castiel murmured an apology as he pressed the tips of his fingers to a point just below Sam’s sternum. “Cover his mouth, Dean,” he instructed, and when Dean obeyed, he took a breath and began to push his hand into Sam’s chest.

Sam’s head flew back, pressing into the pillow, and his mouth flew open, though no sound came out. His scream was as silent as this the Sam of this world’s had been. Dean moved his hand from Sam’s mouth to his forehead and murmured reassurance that couldn’t be heard by his intended subject.

Castiel slowly removed his hand and rolled down his sleeve. “His soul is gone,” he said heavily.

Dean had known it, but his heart still sank. “Then we go get him out,” he said. “You ready, Jack?”

“Yes,” Jack said.

“Not here,” Castiel said. “We don’t want to open a way into Hell in a building full of people. We need space.”

Jack moved back to stand between them and then Dean found himself standing in the middle of a dark forest. It was night, wherever it was, though it had been evening when they’d left Maryland. He didn’t ask Jack where they were, he didn’t care.

“Go on, Jack,” he said. “Do it.”

Jack drew in a deep breath and held his hand palm down above the leaf and twig strewn ground.

“Wait,” Castiel said. “How are we going to do this? We can open a rift, yes, and I suppose we can dive into Hell, but how do we get Sam out again?”

“Purgatory,” Dean said.

He’d already spotted the problem but he wasn’t worried. They would get Sam and find their way back to Purgatory. The same exit that had let him and Benny out before would open again when it sensed him, and he could carry Castiel out along with Sam’s soul the way he had planned to do it before. Jack, half human, could surely pass through alone.

 “I’ll be the soul train again,” he went on.

Castiel considered a moment and then said, “That should work.”

“It will work,” Dean said confidently. “Do it, Jack.”

Jack didn’t hesitate. He narrowed his eyes and light began to pulse from his hands to the ground. Dean held his breath, preparing himself to take the dive, but no hole opened. He had seen Jack do it when Asmodeus had tricked him into trying to release the shedim, but it felt different now. He could see Jack’s power, but it just bounced off the ground.

“I don’t think…” Jack started, his voice strained.

“Keep trying!” Dean snapped.

Jack nodded and the light pouring from his hands increased its intensity, but still nothing happened. Jack staggered back and pressed a hand to his head. “It’s not working,” he said. “I don’t think I have enough grace left to do it. It won’t open.”

“No!” Dean said. “It has to work! He’s trapped there!”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said desolately. “I wanted to do it.”

Dean turned away and swiped at his face to clear it of the tears that were falling. He drew a breath, sniffed, and cleared his throat. “Okay. It doesn’t’ matter. We’ll find another way.”

“What other way?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know,” Dean said. “But we’ve got to.”

Castiel was silent a long moment and then his eyes widened. “Perhaps Jack can’t do it, his grace will need to be replenished over time, but we can wait.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Dean said. “Billie is coming for us. We need something else.” He gasped. “The Colt! We need to find it. That’s how Jake opened the Devil’s Gate in Wyoming. We can go back there and do that.”

“We have no idea where the Colt is in this world,” Castiel said. “I don’t think the Winchesters of this world will tell us the story of its passage here.”

“I’m not giving them a choice,” Dean said. “I’ll make them tell us.”

“You’re going to torture them?” Jack asked. He didn’t sound disapproving or ever shocked. His tone was merely curious. 

“Not them,” Dean said. “I’m torturing Jess. Neither of them are going to keep quiet if she’s hurting.”

“Dean,” Castiel said heavily. “Sam would never…”

Dean cut him off. “No? You forgetting all the things Sam had done for me? Where the Darkness came from? You really think he’d stop at torture to get me back if the situation was reversed? He did it to enough demons when I was running around with Crowley as a demon.”

“But it’s Jessica,” Castiel said.

Dean shrugged. “Then he can hate me. He can do what he wants to me. If this means he never forgives me, I’ll deal with it. As long as he’s not trapped in Hell, I can take it.” He would lose his brother if he did this, he knew, but Sam would be alive and free. And Jessica would heal. “Jack, take us back to the bunker.”

Jack nodded but before he could act, a bright streak of light appeared behind him and he spun around.

“No!” Dean shouted, knowing what the light was and what it meant. “Not yet!”

Jack started away from the light, but before he could get more than a few paces, a streak of it reached for him and he was dragged through it with a cry of shock.

“Run, Cas!” Dean shouted, sprinting away through the trees.

He heard Castiel’s footsteps pounding behind him, and he pushed himself harder.

“It’s too… No!” Castiel shouted.

Dean glanced over his shoulder and saw the light touch Castiel’s arm and drag him back through it. Determined not to be taken, too, Dean raced on, his heart pounding and only the need to escape, to save his brother, giving him the strength to keep going in his torment. He was alone in this now, he had no backup, but he wasn’t going to be taken back without Sam.

Then a warm touch settled on the back of his neck, like fingers, and he felt his feet leave the ground. He cried out in protest, his brother’s name ripping from him, but he had no defense against the force that pulled at him, dragging him back.

The light blinded him and when his vision cleared, he was on his knees in the library of his own bunker with Castiel and Jack standing opposite him.

He looked back over his shoulder in time to see the rift shrink into nothing and close, and a howl bubbled up his throat and poured from his mouth as his head flew back and his eyes squeezed closed.

“Dean!” he heard the shocked voice and footsteps running towards him, and then warm hands were touching his face. “What’s wrong? Talk to me.”

Dean opened his eyes and saw his mother’s face close to his as she bent over him. She looked scared.

“We shouldn’t have gone,” he moaned.

“Gone where?” Mary sucked in a breath as she straightened and looked around. “Where’s Sam?”

Dean bowed his head, unable to answer. It was Castiel that found the words, his voice heavy with sadness.

“Sam is gone.”

Chapter Text

“Sam is gone.”

“He’s dead?” Mary clapped a hand over her mouth as the words left her. She stood wide-eyed for a moment and then shook her head. “No. He can’t be dead. He can’t.”

Dean began to cry, tears streaking down his cheeks and his chest juddering. “He’s worse than dead.”

Mary looked at him blankly. “What’s worse than dead?”

“Hell,” Castiel said. “He is trapped there.”

Unable to bear seeing the devastation in his mother’s face, Dean turned away, wiping at the tears on his face that were quickly replaced by new ones. He felt raw and exposed. His pain was a physical thing. He couldn’t believe it had happened. It felt more like a nightmare than life.

Sam was trapped in Hell and he was never getting out.

“What happened?” Mary asked.

“Jack was trying to help Sam feel better,” Castiel said. “He brought Jessica here from another world, a world which was a nightmare, overrun by demons, and Sam wanted to go back to save her Sam for her and to save the desperate people of that place. There was a version of Sam and Dean there. Their Sam was in Hell and had been for years. Sam thought that we could rescue him and perform the trials that were never finished here to close hell. We got that Sam out, but then we were separated. We didn’t know what was happening until it was too late. Somehow Sam had been taken to Hell and the trials were finished with Sam trapped inside by John. He was the one that did the trials.”

Mary made a moaning sound in her throat. “How do we get him back?” 

“I don’t think we can,” Castiel said. “We were dragged back here when we were trying. I believe it was Billie. I don’t think she’ll let us open another rift to go back.”

“But we can’t leave him there!” Mary said.

Something broke through Dean’s fresh grief and he looked up. Someone was knocking at the outer door of the bunker. He considered going to see who it was for a moment, but he couldn’t find the will. He didn’t care who was out there or what they wanted.

He walked to the cabinet where they kept the liquor and poured himself a glass of whiskey. He drained it and gasped as it burned his throat. It was still burning when he poured a second glass.

The knocking came again, more insistent now, and Jack made to the war room to answer it.

“Leave it,” Dean said dully.

Jack hesitated and then continued away from him. Dean had no will to call him back again, but he didn’t want to stay and see whoever had decided to break into their grief. He filled the glass to the top and made for his bedroom, coming to a dead stop when he heard Jack’s awed voice.

“Sam?”

There was a chuckle in response that made Dean’s fingers slacken and the glass fall from his hand and smash on the floor. He took a breath and then heard the cry of shock from his mother that made him sprint back across the library and into the war room.

Sam stood at the top of the stairs, Jack behind him, shocked and speechless. Sam was looking down at Dean with a smile.

Dean started towards the stairs at the same moment Sam started walking down them. Dean was almost at him when Castiel caught his arm and said, “Be careful, Dean. His soul…”

Dean stopped and looked at Sam who was standing at the bottom of the stairs with a quirked eyebrow.

“Is it really you?” he breathed. 

“Yes. Doesn’t it seem like me?” Sam asked.

Dean wanted to say yes, and he thought he saw some emotion flickering in his eyes that wouldn’t have been there if he’d been soulless, but his feet were frozen to the floor by the possibility it wasn’t him. 

“It’s him,” a female voice said. “And he’s fine.”

Dean spun and saw Amara standing behind him. She was smiling and looking between Sam and Dean with an expectant look.

“Amara?”

She smiled warmly. “Hello, Dean.”

“You brought him back to us? You saved him?” Mary asked.

“Not me,” Amara replied. “It was my brother.”

“I figured I owed you one,” Chuck said, and all eyes moved to the top of the stairs where he stood, looking down at them with an amused look in his eyes. “It’s really him, Dean. Soul and mind intact.”

Dean’s eyes moved back to Sam who nodded and half-raised his hands. Dean’s feet unfroze from the floor and he took an unsteady step forward.

With a small smile, Sam strode towards him and caught him as Dean lurched at him. Sam wrapped his arms around him, supporting him as Dean’s legs weakened.

“Sammy,” he whispered, his eyes squeezing shut.

“I’m here,” Sam said. “I’m okay.”

Dean felt new arms joining them and then Mary’s voice spoke and he knew it was her, “Sam…”

They clung to each other for a long time and then Dean released Sam and looked up at Chuck. “Thank you. Seriously, thank you so much.”

Chuck smiled. “I couldn’t let it end there, not like that.”

Sam cleared his throat and said, his voice tense, “Jessica?”

“She’s fine,” Chuck said. “They were all a little… shaken… but they are taking care of what they need to in their world. Things will be better for them now.”

Sam nodded, his tense shoulders relaxing. “Good,” he said, his voice heavy with relief.

“Are you going to tell them about Sam?” Dean asked.

As angry as he had been, as willing as he’d been to hurt them before, he didn’t want Jessica tormenting herself forever about what had happened to his Sam.

“Already done,” Chuck said. “That was quite the conversation. Their Dean had a lot to say to me when he knew who I was.”

Dean huffed a laugh. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

“But they’re okay,” Chuck said. “Their world really will be a better one now. They will settle into an even better kind of peace than you have here now. This world still has demons.”

“Peace,” Sam said with a sound of longing. “That'd be good.”

“It will,” Mary said, taking Sam’s hand and squeezing it.

Dean nodded. He’d been scared of what would happen when they came back to this world and Sam was left to grieve Jessica again, but he seemed happy. Perhaps knowing that Jessica would be happy too was enough for him.

It was enough for Dean. They’d done what they went there to do, and now they were all back and together. They had the most peaceful world they’d ever had.

He thought things might be good enough now to actually rest awhile.