SN/FF Crossover: Hunter's Moon, Part 3/3
x-posted
Title: Hunter’s Moon
Author: Trystan
Rating: Teen; language
Category: Crossover: Supernatural (Timeshifter AU Canon)/Firefly
Timeline: SN/Timeshifter: after “ A Detour in Time”/Firefly: before “Heart of Gold”
Spoilers: Timeshifter series, Firefly
Word Count: Pt 3 - 3,042 words
Notable Credits: thanks to a conversation I had with roguem, in which the plot bunny finally hopped on by. Title inspired by jediprincessdsv. Wonderful beta work, plot pieces and suggestions by acostilow, diamondback158, jediprinessdsv, and lia_van_helsing. The crew of Serenity, Sam, and Dean are not mine, although goddess knows I wish Dean was.
Tagline: On a haunted moon, in a distant part of the ‘verse, two unlikely heroes are trying to make a living as best they can. Amid the spirited moon and a spaceship that might be haunted, will they ever make it home?
( Part I )
( Part II )
~*~
Dean went to the cockpit to give the captain his news. The good part of it was that Captain Reynolds was not going insane, Dean thought. The bad news was that Serenity was, in fact, carrying an ethereal passenger.
Sam had returned to their rooms to drop off their equipment and headed back to help Dean tell the captain their findings. While he was going through the Common Area, he passed a young woman with stringy brown hair. She was almost as tall as Dean, and her eyes seemed very old, much older than she looked. Sam was just about to enter the cargo bay, when the girl stopped him.
She said his name.
“Sam Winchester.”
When he turned back to her, she was right behind him.
“How - do you know - ?” Sam started. She smiled at him, her eyes suddenly filled with a clarity that even Sam could not comprehend.
“You’re River,” he realized out loud.
“I have to tell you something,” she said, leading him by his hand over to a couch along the wall. She sat down, Sam sat on the next cushion and turned towards her.
“Ok,” he said, ready for her to tell him anything.
“They think I’m crazy, but I saw it,” she leaned into him and spoke in a hushed voice.
“Saw what?” Sam asked.
“The thing that burns people on the ceiling. It almost got Simon.”
“The thing that - ” Sam started to repeat what she said, and then realized what her words were. “Oh my god,” he said instead, and sat there for a moment. Then he asked, “Simon?”
“My brother. He watched me - protected me - when Mom and Dad were out. Which was all the time.”
“Simon,” Sam said, and suddenly realized Simon was the man who had glared at him when Kaylee was showing them to their rooms.
“Simon was more than just a brother, just like mine,” Sam said, more to himself, remembering all the times John had left on an assignment, leaving Dean to watch over his little brother. Protect his little brother. Simon protected his little sister.
“The fire was on the ceiling. I woke up in my crib screaming. Simon saved me that night,” River said. Sam just stared. This had to be more than a coincidence.
“It has gold eyes. I see them at night sometimes,” she said.
“I do too,” Sam admitted softly. His brow furrowed at something River said - she was in a crib when the fire broke out. He was six months old when his mother was killed by the Demon.
“River,” Sam asked, “how old were you when this happened?” But even before she answered, he knew, and he got a chill from the goosebumps that seemed to creep up his back.
“I was six months old. But Simon doesn’t believe that I remember it. Or in the Demon.” The last word just hung there, in the air. Neither of them had referred to it as the Demon before now. It was what Sam and Dean had called it, but Sam had never told it to River.
Suddenly, River turned back to Sam, and fixed him with an intent stare.
“You’re not supposed to be here, Sam,” she said.
“Tell me about it,” Sam agreed.
“A shift in time,” she said, reaching out towards his cheek, to cradle it in her hand. His hand circled her wrist and held it for a moment.
“Why are you here?” she asked, and Sam knew the answer wasn’t to get rid of the ghost on Serenity, but he offered the answer he gave most people.
“It’s what we do.”
“But why you? And Dean?” she asked. Sam shouldn’t have been so surprised she knew his brother’s name, but he was.
“I was six months old too,” he started. As he told River his story, he was unaware someone else was overhearing, sheltered by the corridors that led around to the Medical Bay. Simon stood in the doorway of the infirmary, where he could hear every word this Sam Winchester told his sister.
“Our mom was killed in the fire,” he was telling River. “And this Timeshifter had sent us back into time - back to when it happened. What else could we do? We had to try to save her. We knew the history, and we were ready for it. And in the end, it was all for nothing!” Sam’s voice rose in anger at the Timeshifter. River only smiled, and caressed his cheek reassuringly.
Suddenly Simon understood why River was remembering events from so long ago, and what exactly Mal had meant when he told Simon about the “passengers who witnessed something very similar, just as if it happened yesterday.”
“We were hunting the Timeshifter, and found another demon. We’d taken aim to shoot it full of rock salt, when it flung us against the door. Actually, through the door. As we were falling, the Timeshifter must have taken us and dropped us on the moon.”
“Hunter’s Moon,” River said cryptically.
“I’m sorry?”
“Hunter’s Moon. That’s what they’ll be calling it soon.”
Sam was puzzled. “Uhm, all right,” he agreed. She held his cheek a moment longer, then leaned forward and kissed his forehead.
“I like you, Sam Winchester. You should go back to school.” And with that, she took her hand from his cheek, stood up, and moved - with ethereal grace - out of site from the Common Area, either back to her room or to the med bay.
River creeped him out, scared him more than any of the demons or spirits they’d ever fought. She was more unnerving than Missouri. For the first time since the Timeshifter dumped them on Hunter’s Moon, Sam realized he was homesick. He leaned back on the couch, put his head against the back, looked up and the ceiling, signed, and wished for home.
~*~
Mal was relieved at Dean’s report, which proved he wasn’t insane. And as Dean had predicted, the spirit was active when the ship was in space. Mal should have been relieved at this news as well, but for some reason, he wasn’t.
“I’m working on a plan, sir,” Dean said, as he followed Mal from the cockpit to the dining room. Mal was more at home talking somewhere comfortable, and this time was the dining room. He leaned back in a chair, put his boots on the table, and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Tell me about your plan.”
Dean didn’t have a plan, really. He was headed back to the rooms Kaylee showed them, and was going to talk to Sam about it all, see if he had any thoughts on how to tackle the spirit. Now, he stood facing Mal at the table.
“All we know right now is that it’s a child-like spirit, just playing around for now. If there was some way to get it out into space…” Dean mused, looking at Mal hopefully. Mal just raised his eyebrows.
“Was hoping you could do me a favor?” Mal asked.
“I can try, sir,” Dean said, sitting back in a chair, and crossing his arms over his chest, but not putting his boots on the table.
“How did the Timeshifter come to send you here?”
“I’m still trying to figure that all out. Sam and I were on the trail of another demon, this one had telekinetic powers, and blasted us against the door. When we fell and dusted ourselves off, we found we were on the moon. And if I ever get back there, that Timeshifter - ”
“What makes you think the Timeshifter didn’t follow you? If it's been toyin’ with you for as long as you say, wouldn’t surprise me in the least if it’s here.”
“Huh. ’Course, knowing the Timeshifter, it followed us here to return us at the least convenient moment,” Dean returned.
“Yep,” Mal said, putting his feet back on the floor and standing up. Dean followed the captain. “There is that.”
“Damned Timeshifter,” Dean muttered.
“That too,” Mal agreed.
Dean went down the stairs that led him to the cargo bay, so he could get to his room to talk to Sam about a plan. Maybe College Boy had something in mind. In the cargo bay, Dean saw Jayne cleaning a very large weapon. Dean had seen the look on Jayne’s face, as he’d seen it on his own, and his father’s. This was a very special weapon.
Dean watched Jayne for a few minutes before the Serenity crew member looked up.
“Nice gun,” Dean said, his voice full of sincerity.
“This here is no ordinary gun. This is a Callahan Fullbore Autolock. It’s got a customized hair-trigger and double-cartridge thorough gauge, and can pierce armor.” He looked at it and lovingly stroked it. “I call her Vera,” he said passionately.
Dean smiled at the appreciation of a fine weapon.
“We just have an assortment of handguns and rifles,” Dean said, “but nothing as fine as your Vera.”
“She is mighty fine,” Jayne agreed. “Hey,” he said after a moment, “how’s that ‘ghost-huntin’ thing comin’?”
“It’s coming. I didn’t realize it was your thing?”
“It’s not. I’m jus’ not real keen on stallin’ in space, where we’re dead in the water, know what I mean?”
Dean nodded. He hated being vulnerable. Jayne leaned forward.
“Reavers,” he whispered, as if saying their name too loud would bring them. Dean had heard of them, but didn’t know that much about them. And from the way Mal had mentioned them a few days ago, and Jayne now, he was glad he’d never heard of them before.
“Well, my brother and I are working on a plan to get the spirit off your ship and out into space, so it doesn’t bother you anymore,” Dean said.
“I know what I would do if someone on Serenity was bothering me and I wanted them off the ship,” Jayne said. Dean crouched down next to the man still stroking his big gun. Maybe they could use a suggestion here.
“We’d love you hear your suggestion,” Dean encouraged.
“Shove ‘em out the airlock,” Jayne growled, and Dean pulled backwards. He held his hands up in the air.
“I get the idea. That - ” Dean thought about it for a moment. “That’s a great idea. Can you show me the airlock?”
Jayne glanced up in surprise.
“Just show me this side of it. I’m not ready for a spacewalk, or whatever they’re called,” Dean smiled.
Jayne stood and gently placed Vera where he’d been sitting. Both men, eyeing each other suspiciously, went over to the door along the side of the cargo bay, to check out the airlock.
~*~
“What, are you nuts?” Sam had asked Dean when he first told him the plan.
“Yeah, maybe a little. But Jayne showed me the airlock. We get this spirit in there somehow, and now it’s trapped in this little room, with only the door it came in through, and a door that leads to space. Once it’s in the room, we open the door to space, and poof, it’s gone.” Dean smiled, proud of himself.
“Poof?” Sam asked.
“Poof.” Dean made a hand motion of indicating things dissipating, disappearing.
And now, Dean was back in the dining room with Mal, and Sam and Wash, relaying the plan to the captain and the pilot.
“I think you’re nuts, truth be told,” Mal said.
“Yeah, I said the same thing,” Sam said.
“I don’t know,” Wash said. “It’s so crazy, it just might work.”
“The trick is,” Dean said, “getting just the spirit in the airlock.”
“You two should have on EVA suits just in case you have to go in there with it,” Wash said.
“EVA suits?” Sam said in recognition of the abbreviation for an Extravehicular Activity suit astronauts used on spacewalks. “No thanks, no outer space for me.”
“Yeah, me too, I’m planning on staying ship-bound. I have enough trouble with airplanes,” Dean admitted. No way was he going in space. He had every plan of staying inside the cargo bay and watching the thing “poof” into space.
“So, how do you get it in to the airlock?” Mal asked.
“If we shot at it with this rock salt we’ve been using, we can direct it into the airlock that way.”
“Rock salt?” Wash asked.
“It slows down the spirits, makes it manifest sometimes,” Dean explained. “Doesn’t kill them, but it pisses them off. And if they do manifest solid, then we can shoot it or stake it, and kill it permanently.”
Wash and Mal looked at each other. Dean looked at Sam, and both brothers looked at the captain and his pilot.
“It sounds like it’ll work,” Wash said.
“I still think they should wear the EVA suits,” Mal said, bringing up Wash’s earlier suggestion. The brothers exchanged looks again. Dean sighed.
“I’ll wear it, but I’m staying in this side of the airlock,” Dean said, and Sam agreed.
Kaylee let the brothers prowl around the engine room with their readers, detectors and other equipment, but when Dean got out his shotgun, Kaylee almost freaked out.
“Just a little rock salt, babe,” Dean explained.
“I’m not your babe,” she retorted.
“Yeah, whatever,” Dean mumbled, and took a shot at thin air. The air rippled into to a form that everyone could see, and Kaylee gasped and almost staggered backwards.
“There - there’s somethin’ there!”
“You got that right, babe,” Dean replied, and shot at it again.
Kaylee let the “babe” slide time, and she watched in curious horror as Dean and Sam kept shooting rock salt at the mass of whatever it was, out of the engine room, and out of her sight.
They coaxed the spirit down to the cargo bay as planned. Dean grudgingly got into his EVA suit while Sam kept firing at the spirit to direct it into the airlock. It seemed to have become immune to the rock salt, as it was refusing to go anywhere over the threshold in the cargo bay.
Dean had the same amount of success as Sam did, while Sam donned his EVA suit. Firing at the spirit simultaneously had only one effect. The spirit telepathically grabbed the brothers and hurled all three of them into the airlock, and sealed the door between them and Serenity.
“Oh shit,” Dean said.
“I agree there,” Sam replied.
“This thing is strong, Sammy,” Dean said over the microphone. Another voice came over his headset. It was Mal.
“If you guys end up in space, we’ll scoop you up before we fly,” he reassured them.
Dean chuckled. “Thanks, we’ll need the lift.” Truth was, he was nervous as hell, and the spirit wasn’t ready to go willingly into the night.
“Wash?” Dean called over the microphone. He forced himself to breathe. Looking at his brother, Dean only saw calm collectedness in Sam’s face. He didn’t have time to ponder that, or what he was doing, before Wash replied.
“I’m here.”
“Ready when you are,” Dean said, even though he was far from ready for any of this. He just had to bite the bullet and do it, or he’d never be ready.
Wash opened the airlock doors. It was silent and calm out in the black. But Dean had no intention of going out there. Just as he had no intention of going into the airlock, right? he chided himself.
Sam’s face was set, determination in his expression.
“Let’s do this, Dean,” Sam said, and holding on to the side of the ship, he fired a test round at the spirit. It swirled black and tried to manifest again, but didn’t. That same telekinetic energy that flung them into the airlock now flung them into space, the spirit finally manifesting as a swirling black cloud between them.
And it giggled.
Wash sealed the airlock, and opened the cargo bay doors. He was taking a chance that the spirit could find its way back on board, but after Serenity had picked up the two EVA suits, Kaylee had used Dean’s EMF reader and found Serenity to be clean.
The most puzzling thing was the empty EVA suits they’d picked up. Dean and Sam were in them when they’d left the airlock, but they certainly weren’t anymore.
“Well, I’ll be da - ” Jayne murmured in astonishment. A look from Kaylee cut him off.
“I hope they’re all right, wherever they are. They were mighty fine characters,” Mal said, just as puzzled as Jayne.
“Not wherever,” said a voice from the upper level of the cargo deck, and Mal, Jayne and Kaylee looked up to see River sitting there, her feet hanging over the side of the walkway.
“Whenever,” she clarified. “Timeshifter.”
Mal, Jayne and Kaylee looked at each other.
~*~
They were falling. Dean should have known better. He hated airplanes, and now spaceships was one more mode of transportation to add to the list. Not that he would ever get to enjoy the fear of any of them every again. He was falling in space, in a vacuum. He slowly turned his head towards his brother, who was falling with him. Hell of a way to die, he thought.
In the future, plucked out of time with no one to know where they were. And leaving their father in the past… that was Dean’s regret. The last time they spoke, they yelled about Timeshifters. The last time they met, Dean and Sam were in the past trying to save their mother. John would never know who…
… Dean landed with a whump on a very uncomfortable pile of wood. His back hurt like hell, and it felt like he’d been tossed through a door.
Through a door? Painfully, he turned his head, first to the right, and there was nothing. Turning to the left, he saw Sam landing on the same pile of wood. He looked down towards where the door would have been, and saw the angry demon-form that flung them into the door coming through the doorway after them.
“The rock salt, Sammy!” Dean yelled, scrambling out of the way. Sam shot first, then Dean, until the demon manifested itself. Dean had snagged a rocket launcher at the beginning of this expedition, and that’s what ended it.
I’d do my best to find an answer for you,
But first I must wait till I’m set free
And I don’t know how long that’s gonna be
‘Cause I'm a man with a whole lot on his mind
Just out there somewhere traveling in time…
***
Supernatural Fan Fiction
For entertainment only
© 2006 by Caren Franco
Only the Timeshifter is original. Beta-read by Athena, Lia Van Helsing, JediPrincess, Aphrodite, Diamondback, and Terra. Terra and Diamondback offered suggestions, and wrote a few lines; Athena wrote a few lines as well. Lia and PhoenixRising69 offeredsuggestions. Backstory and connections suggested by Diamondback and Athena. Dean, Sam, John and Mary Winchester were created by Eric Kripke, Robert Singer, Kripke Enterprises Scrap Metal and Entertainment; Warner Brothers and the CW. The Alliance, Mr. Universe, Independents, Mal Reynolds, River Tam, Shepherd Book, Jayne Cobb, Kaylee Frye, Zoe (Alleyne) Washburn, Simon Tam, Hoban “Wash”burne, gorram, the Reavers, and Serenity were created by Joss Whedon, Tim Minear, Mutant Enemy, Inc., and Twentieth Century Fox. Main Title Theme written by Joss Whedon, performed by Sonny Rhodes, ©2002. Part of the Prologue paragraphs, and Serenity’s specs from Firefly Wiki. The Wizard of Oz, ©1910 by L. Frank Baum. Marvin the Paranoid Android” from TheHitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, ©1979 by Douglas Adams. “Traveller in Time” from “Demons & Wizards” by Uriah Heep, ©1972.
Title: Hunter’s Moon
Author: Trystan
Rating: Teen; language
Category: Crossover: Supernatural (Timeshifter AU Canon)/Firefly
Timeline: SN/Timeshifter: after “ A Detour in Time”/Firefly: before “Heart of Gold”
Spoilers: Timeshifter series, Firefly
Word Count: Pt 3 - 3,042 words
Notable Credits: thanks to a conversation I had with roguem, in which the plot bunny finally hopped on by. Title inspired by jediprincessdsv. Wonderful beta work, plot pieces and suggestions by acostilow, diamondback158, jediprinessdsv, and lia_van_helsing. The crew of Serenity, Sam, and Dean are not mine, although goddess knows I wish Dean was.
Tagline: On a haunted moon, in a distant part of the ‘verse, two unlikely heroes are trying to make a living as best they can. Amid the spirited moon and a spaceship that might be haunted, will they ever make it home?
( Part I )
( Part II )
~*~
Dean went to the cockpit to give the captain his news. The good part of it was that Captain Reynolds was not going insane, Dean thought. The bad news was that Serenity was, in fact, carrying an ethereal passenger.
Sam had returned to their rooms to drop off their equipment and headed back to help Dean tell the captain their findings. While he was going through the Common Area, he passed a young woman with stringy brown hair. She was almost as tall as Dean, and her eyes seemed very old, much older than she looked. Sam was just about to enter the cargo bay, when the girl stopped him.
She said his name.
“Sam Winchester.”
When he turned back to her, she was right behind him.
“How - do you know - ?” Sam started. She smiled at him, her eyes suddenly filled with a clarity that even Sam could not comprehend.
“You’re River,” he realized out loud.
“I have to tell you something,” she said, leading him by his hand over to a couch along the wall. She sat down, Sam sat on the next cushion and turned towards her.
“Ok,” he said, ready for her to tell him anything.
“They think I’m crazy, but I saw it,” she leaned into him and spoke in a hushed voice.
“Saw what?” Sam asked.
“The thing that burns people on the ceiling. It almost got Simon.”
“The thing that - ” Sam started to repeat what she said, and then realized what her words were. “Oh my god,” he said instead, and sat there for a moment. Then he asked, “Simon?”
“My brother. He watched me - protected me - when Mom and Dad were out. Which was all the time.”
“Simon,” Sam said, and suddenly realized Simon was the man who had glared at him when Kaylee was showing them to their rooms.
“Simon was more than just a brother, just like mine,” Sam said, more to himself, remembering all the times John had left on an assignment, leaving Dean to watch over his little brother. Protect his little brother. Simon protected his little sister.
“The fire was on the ceiling. I woke up in my crib screaming. Simon saved me that night,” River said. Sam just stared. This had to be more than a coincidence.
“It has gold eyes. I see them at night sometimes,” she said.
“I do too,” Sam admitted softly. His brow furrowed at something River said - she was in a crib when the fire broke out. He was six months old when his mother was killed by the Demon.
“River,” Sam asked, “how old were you when this happened?” But even before she answered, he knew, and he got a chill from the goosebumps that seemed to creep up his back.
“I was six months old. But Simon doesn’t believe that I remember it. Or in the Demon.” The last word just hung there, in the air. Neither of them had referred to it as the Demon before now. It was what Sam and Dean had called it, but Sam had never told it to River.
Suddenly, River turned back to Sam, and fixed him with an intent stare.
“You’re not supposed to be here, Sam,” she said.
“Tell me about it,” Sam agreed.
“A shift in time,” she said, reaching out towards his cheek, to cradle it in her hand. His hand circled her wrist and held it for a moment.
“Why are you here?” she asked, and Sam knew the answer wasn’t to get rid of the ghost on Serenity, but he offered the answer he gave most people.
“It’s what we do.”
“But why you? And Dean?” she asked. Sam shouldn’t have been so surprised she knew his brother’s name, but he was.
“I was six months old too,” he started. As he told River his story, he was unaware someone else was overhearing, sheltered by the corridors that led around to the Medical Bay. Simon stood in the doorway of the infirmary, where he could hear every word this Sam Winchester told his sister.
“Our mom was killed in the fire,” he was telling River. “And this Timeshifter had sent us back into time - back to when it happened. What else could we do? We had to try to save her. We knew the history, and we were ready for it. And in the end, it was all for nothing!” Sam’s voice rose in anger at the Timeshifter. River only smiled, and caressed his cheek reassuringly.
Suddenly Simon understood why River was remembering events from so long ago, and what exactly Mal had meant when he told Simon about the “passengers who witnessed something very similar, just as if it happened yesterday.”
“We were hunting the Timeshifter, and found another demon. We’d taken aim to shoot it full of rock salt, when it flung us against the door. Actually, through the door. As we were falling, the Timeshifter must have taken us and dropped us on the moon.”
“Hunter’s Moon,” River said cryptically.
“I’m sorry?”
“Hunter’s Moon. That’s what they’ll be calling it soon.”
Sam was puzzled. “Uhm, all right,” he agreed. She held his cheek a moment longer, then leaned forward and kissed his forehead.
“I like you, Sam Winchester. You should go back to school.” And with that, she took her hand from his cheek, stood up, and moved - with ethereal grace - out of site from the Common Area, either back to her room or to the med bay.
River creeped him out, scared him more than any of the demons or spirits they’d ever fought. She was more unnerving than Missouri. For the first time since the Timeshifter dumped them on Hunter’s Moon, Sam realized he was homesick. He leaned back on the couch, put his head against the back, looked up and the ceiling, signed, and wished for home.
~*~
Mal was relieved at Dean’s report, which proved he wasn’t insane. And as Dean had predicted, the spirit was active when the ship was in space. Mal should have been relieved at this news as well, but for some reason, he wasn’t.
“I’m working on a plan, sir,” Dean said, as he followed Mal from the cockpit to the dining room. Mal was more at home talking somewhere comfortable, and this time was the dining room. He leaned back in a chair, put his boots on the table, and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Tell me about your plan.”
Dean didn’t have a plan, really. He was headed back to the rooms Kaylee showed them, and was going to talk to Sam about it all, see if he had any thoughts on how to tackle the spirit. Now, he stood facing Mal at the table.
“All we know right now is that it’s a child-like spirit, just playing around for now. If there was some way to get it out into space…” Dean mused, looking at Mal hopefully. Mal just raised his eyebrows.
“Was hoping you could do me a favor?” Mal asked.
“I can try, sir,” Dean said, sitting back in a chair, and crossing his arms over his chest, but not putting his boots on the table.
“How did the Timeshifter come to send you here?”
“I’m still trying to figure that all out. Sam and I were on the trail of another demon, this one had telekinetic powers, and blasted us against the door. When we fell and dusted ourselves off, we found we were on the moon. And if I ever get back there, that Timeshifter - ”
“What makes you think the Timeshifter didn’t follow you? If it's been toyin’ with you for as long as you say, wouldn’t surprise me in the least if it’s here.”
“Huh. ’Course, knowing the Timeshifter, it followed us here to return us at the least convenient moment,” Dean returned.
“Yep,” Mal said, putting his feet back on the floor and standing up. Dean followed the captain. “There is that.”
“Damned Timeshifter,” Dean muttered.
“That too,” Mal agreed.
Dean went down the stairs that led him to the cargo bay, so he could get to his room to talk to Sam about a plan. Maybe College Boy had something in mind. In the cargo bay, Dean saw Jayne cleaning a very large weapon. Dean had seen the look on Jayne’s face, as he’d seen it on his own, and his father’s. This was a very special weapon.
Dean watched Jayne for a few minutes before the Serenity crew member looked up.
“Nice gun,” Dean said, his voice full of sincerity.
“This here is no ordinary gun. This is a Callahan Fullbore Autolock. It’s got a customized hair-trigger and double-cartridge thorough gauge, and can pierce armor.” He looked at it and lovingly stroked it. “I call her Vera,” he said passionately.
Dean smiled at the appreciation of a fine weapon.
“We just have an assortment of handguns and rifles,” Dean said, “but nothing as fine as your Vera.”
“She is mighty fine,” Jayne agreed. “Hey,” he said after a moment, “how’s that ‘ghost-huntin’ thing comin’?”
“It’s coming. I didn’t realize it was your thing?”
“It’s not. I’m jus’ not real keen on stallin’ in space, where we’re dead in the water, know what I mean?”
Dean nodded. He hated being vulnerable. Jayne leaned forward.
“Reavers,” he whispered, as if saying their name too loud would bring them. Dean had heard of them, but didn’t know that much about them. And from the way Mal had mentioned them a few days ago, and Jayne now, he was glad he’d never heard of them before.
“Well, my brother and I are working on a plan to get the spirit off your ship and out into space, so it doesn’t bother you anymore,” Dean said.
“I know what I would do if someone on Serenity was bothering me and I wanted them off the ship,” Jayne said. Dean crouched down next to the man still stroking his big gun. Maybe they could use a suggestion here.
“We’d love you hear your suggestion,” Dean encouraged.
“Shove ‘em out the airlock,” Jayne growled, and Dean pulled backwards. He held his hands up in the air.
“I get the idea. That - ” Dean thought about it for a moment. “That’s a great idea. Can you show me the airlock?”
Jayne glanced up in surprise.
“Just show me this side of it. I’m not ready for a spacewalk, or whatever they’re called,” Dean smiled.
Jayne stood and gently placed Vera where he’d been sitting. Both men, eyeing each other suspiciously, went over to the door along the side of the cargo bay, to check out the airlock.
~*~
“What, are you nuts?” Sam had asked Dean when he first told him the plan.
“Yeah, maybe a little. But Jayne showed me the airlock. We get this spirit in there somehow, and now it’s trapped in this little room, with only the door it came in through, and a door that leads to space. Once it’s in the room, we open the door to space, and poof, it’s gone.” Dean smiled, proud of himself.
“Poof?” Sam asked.
“Poof.” Dean made a hand motion of indicating things dissipating, disappearing.
And now, Dean was back in the dining room with Mal, and Sam and Wash, relaying the plan to the captain and the pilot.
“I think you’re nuts, truth be told,” Mal said.
“Yeah, I said the same thing,” Sam said.
“I don’t know,” Wash said. “It’s so crazy, it just might work.”
“The trick is,” Dean said, “getting just the spirit in the airlock.”
“You two should have on EVA suits just in case you have to go in there with it,” Wash said.
“EVA suits?” Sam said in recognition of the abbreviation for an Extravehicular Activity suit astronauts used on spacewalks. “No thanks, no outer space for me.”
“Yeah, me too, I’m planning on staying ship-bound. I have enough trouble with airplanes,” Dean admitted. No way was he going in space. He had every plan of staying inside the cargo bay and watching the thing “poof” into space.
“So, how do you get it in to the airlock?” Mal asked.
“If we shot at it with this rock salt we’ve been using, we can direct it into the airlock that way.”
“Rock salt?” Wash asked.
“It slows down the spirits, makes it manifest sometimes,” Dean explained. “Doesn’t kill them, but it pisses them off. And if they do manifest solid, then we can shoot it or stake it, and kill it permanently.”
Wash and Mal looked at each other. Dean looked at Sam, and both brothers looked at the captain and his pilot.
“It sounds like it’ll work,” Wash said.
“I still think they should wear the EVA suits,” Mal said, bringing up Wash’s earlier suggestion. The brothers exchanged looks again. Dean sighed.
“I’ll wear it, but I’m staying in this side of the airlock,” Dean said, and Sam agreed.
Kaylee let the brothers prowl around the engine room with their readers, detectors and other equipment, but when Dean got out his shotgun, Kaylee almost freaked out.
“Just a little rock salt, babe,” Dean explained.
“I’m not your babe,” she retorted.
“Yeah, whatever,” Dean mumbled, and took a shot at thin air. The air rippled into to a form that everyone could see, and Kaylee gasped and almost staggered backwards.
“There - there’s somethin’ there!”
“You got that right, babe,” Dean replied, and shot at it again.
Kaylee let the “babe” slide time, and she watched in curious horror as Dean and Sam kept shooting rock salt at the mass of whatever it was, out of the engine room, and out of her sight.
They coaxed the spirit down to the cargo bay as planned. Dean grudgingly got into his EVA suit while Sam kept firing at the spirit to direct it into the airlock. It seemed to have become immune to the rock salt, as it was refusing to go anywhere over the threshold in the cargo bay.
Dean had the same amount of success as Sam did, while Sam donned his EVA suit. Firing at the spirit simultaneously had only one effect. The spirit telepathically grabbed the brothers and hurled all three of them into the airlock, and sealed the door between them and Serenity.
“Oh shit,” Dean said.
“I agree there,” Sam replied.
“This thing is strong, Sammy,” Dean said over the microphone. Another voice came over his headset. It was Mal.
“If you guys end up in space, we’ll scoop you up before we fly,” he reassured them.
Dean chuckled. “Thanks, we’ll need the lift.” Truth was, he was nervous as hell, and the spirit wasn’t ready to go willingly into the night.
“Wash?” Dean called over the microphone. He forced himself to breathe. Looking at his brother, Dean only saw calm collectedness in Sam’s face. He didn’t have time to ponder that, or what he was doing, before Wash replied.
“I’m here.”
“Ready when you are,” Dean said, even though he was far from ready for any of this. He just had to bite the bullet and do it, or he’d never be ready.
Wash opened the airlock doors. It was silent and calm out in the black. But Dean had no intention of going out there. Just as he had no intention of going into the airlock, right? he chided himself.
Sam’s face was set, determination in his expression.
“Let’s do this, Dean,” Sam said, and holding on to the side of the ship, he fired a test round at the spirit. It swirled black and tried to manifest again, but didn’t. That same telekinetic energy that flung them into the airlock now flung them into space, the spirit finally manifesting as a swirling black cloud between them.
And it giggled.
Wash sealed the airlock, and opened the cargo bay doors. He was taking a chance that the spirit could find its way back on board, but after Serenity had picked up the two EVA suits, Kaylee had used Dean’s EMF reader and found Serenity to be clean.
The most puzzling thing was the empty EVA suits they’d picked up. Dean and Sam were in them when they’d left the airlock, but they certainly weren’t anymore.
“Well, I’ll be da - ” Jayne murmured in astonishment. A look from Kaylee cut him off.
“I hope they’re all right, wherever they are. They were mighty fine characters,” Mal said, just as puzzled as Jayne.
“Not wherever,” said a voice from the upper level of the cargo deck, and Mal, Jayne and Kaylee looked up to see River sitting there, her feet hanging over the side of the walkway.
“Whenever,” she clarified. “Timeshifter.”
Mal, Jayne and Kaylee looked at each other.
~*~
They were falling. Dean should have known better. He hated airplanes, and now spaceships was one more mode of transportation to add to the list. Not that he would ever get to enjoy the fear of any of them every again. He was falling in space, in a vacuum. He slowly turned his head towards his brother, who was falling with him. Hell of a way to die, he thought.
In the future, plucked out of time with no one to know where they were. And leaving their father in the past… that was Dean’s regret. The last time they spoke, they yelled about Timeshifters. The last time they met, Dean and Sam were in the past trying to save their mother. John would never know who…
… Dean landed with a whump on a very uncomfortable pile of wood. His back hurt like hell, and it felt like he’d been tossed through a door.
Through a door? Painfully, he turned his head, first to the right, and there was nothing. Turning to the left, he saw Sam landing on the same pile of wood. He looked down towards where the door would have been, and saw the angry demon-form that flung them into the door coming through the doorway after them.
“The rock salt, Sammy!” Dean yelled, scrambling out of the way. Sam shot first, then Dean, until the demon manifested itself. Dean had snagged a rocket launcher at the beginning of this expedition, and that’s what ended it.
I’d do my best to find an answer for you,
But first I must wait till I’m set free
And I don’t know how long that’s gonna be
‘Cause I'm a man with a whole lot on his mind
Just out there somewhere traveling in time…
***
Supernatural Fan Fiction
For entertainment only
© 2006 by Caren Franco
Only the Timeshifter is original. Beta-read by Athena, Lia Van Helsing, JediPrincess, Aphrodite, Diamondback, and Terra. Terra and Diamondback offered suggestions, and wrote a few lines; Athena wrote a few lines as well. Lia and PhoenixRising69 offeredsuggestions. Backstory and connections suggested by Diamondback and Athena. Dean, Sam, John and Mary Winchester were created by Eric Kripke, Robert Singer, Kripke Enterprises Scrap Metal and Entertainment; Warner Brothers and the CW. The Alliance, Mr. Universe, Independents, Mal Reynolds, River Tam, Shepherd Book, Jayne Cobb, Kaylee Frye, Zoe (Alleyne) Washburn, Simon Tam, Hoban “Wash”burne, gorram, the Reavers, and Serenity were created by Joss Whedon, Tim Minear, Mutant Enemy, Inc., and Twentieth Century Fox. Main Title Theme written by Joss Whedon, performed by Sonny Rhodes, ©2002. Part of the Prologue paragraphs, and Serenity’s specs from Firefly Wiki. The Wizard of Oz, ©1910 by L. Frank Baum. Marvin the Paranoid Android” from TheHitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, ©1979 by Douglas Adams. “Traveller in Time” from “Demons & Wizards” by Uriah Heep, ©1972.