Heart's Desire - Chapter 4
Fandom: Supernatural
Title: Heart’s Desire
Chapter: 4/23
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Author's Notes: Thanks to VegasGranny and Ncsupnatfan for pre-reading.
Summary: Jack wants to help Sam after overhearing a nightmare which results in a rift being opened. Jessica is brought from a world in which Lilith was never killed and now she and the demons reign while they work to break Sam in Hell. Unable to leave her to that life and pain, Sam and his family go to her world to save it.
Chapter Four
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 enjoying 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. Losing you haunted me all over again. 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’s not happened before.” 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.
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 his 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-the real Sam would never do it. A version of himself was suffering unimaginably in her world, and Sam wasn’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 one Sam that would be destroyed. Dean’s 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 to ask 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 from the breakfast he enjoyed but had now 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 probably right. He knew his brother.
Title: Heart’s Desire
Chapter: 4/23
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Author's Notes: Thanks to VegasGranny and Ncsupnatfan for pre-reading.
Summary: Jack wants to help Sam after overhearing a nightmare which results in a rift being opened. Jessica is brought from a world in which Lilith was never killed and now she and the demons reign while they work to break Sam in Hell. Unable to leave her to that life and pain, Sam and his family go to her world to save it.
Chapter Four
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 enjoying 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. Losing you haunted me all over again. 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’s not happened before.” 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.
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 his 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-the real Sam would never do it. A version of himself was suffering unimaginably in her world, and Sam wasn’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 one Sam that would be destroyed. Dean’s 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 to ask 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 from the breakfast he enjoyed but had now 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 probably right. He knew his brother.