Crusaders 3 2/7
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Chapter 1
Another Fine Mess
June 4, 2005
“So we’re meeting Sam and Jess at the campground?” Gabriel asked as he and Dean left their hotel in South Lake Tahoe after breakfast.
“Yeah,” Dean confirmed, “Sammy didn’t think they could afford the extra night at the hotel. The events don’t really start until 10, and it’s only three and a half hours from Palo Alto, so they left around 6. Should give ’em time to change when they get there.”
Gabriel nodded and stifled a chuckle. The Dean he’d known in another timeline had secretly loved wearing cool costumes and playing pretend but never had the time, money, or familial support to indulge his interest once he was old enough to start hunting with John more often than not. This Dean not only loved reenacting but had managed to rook Sam, Jess, and his wife Amanda into going to forts and Renaissance fairs with him. In fact, the only reason Amanda wasn’t with them for the Valhalla Faire this year was that she was very pregnant with their third child and didn’t think she could fit into her usual dress or corral four-year-old Johnny and two-year-old Bobbi Jo for two days. Dean had already bought two tickets when she’d come to that conclusion, so Gabriel had offered to go instead.
He hadn’t told anyone but Castiel that he had a sneaking suspicion he’d be needed.
“Actually,” Dean said once they were in the Impala and on the road, “since we have some time, I’ve been meaning to get your advice on something.”
Gabriel shrugged. “Shoot.”
“My hitch is up at the end of the month, and I can’t decide whether or not to re-up. I mean, I love what I do, and we are at war, and it’s not like I have another job lined up. But I never get to see the kids, and after that scare with Dad’s heart last month... I just... I dunno what I should do.”
Gabriel, Castiel suddenly called.
Hold up, Gabriel thought back. “That’s a tough call, Deano. Family’s important, but you do need a job to provide-”
Gabriel, I’m TRAPPED!
Gabriel stopped in mid-sentence, his mouth left open and the color draining from his face. What kind of trap?
Holy oil.
Gabriel cursed mentally. I’ll be there in five-gotta ditch the kids.
Dean frowned. “Uncle Gabe?”
Gabriel....
I will be there as fast as I can, Castiel. Hold tight.
“Uncle Gabe, are you okay?”
Gabriel forced his eyes to focus on Dean again. “Yeah, sure, just-need to find a restroom when we get there.”
“O-kay....”
“Dean, listen. Your family’s going to need you soon. Don’t re-up, and be prepared not to find a job in San Diego.”
Dean’s frown deepened. “You think we should move back to Lawrence?”
“I don’t know yet. That might not be safe, either.”
“Uncle Gabe-”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know, Dean. What I can tell you is this: there’s another war coming that’s got nothing to do with what’s happening in the Middle East. And you mooks are going to be smack dab in the middle of it.”
“Me and Amanda?”
“You and Sam.”
Dean’s hands tightened on the wheel as he nudged the car to five miles an hour above the speed limit. If there was one thing that killing Azazel in 1148 hadn’t changed in this day, it was the fierce love and loyalty that marked the brotherly bond between Dean and Sam.
Sam and Jess weren’t waiting for them in the parking lot when they arrived, so Gabriel checked in at the gate with Dean and then excused himself to find a restroom. As soon as he found a convenient tent to duck behind, however, he took off for Castiel’s location, which turned out to be the chapel of St. Mary’s Convent in Ilchester, MD. The sisters, he sensed quickly, were alive and well and going about their daily business, but poor Castiel was trapped in a circle of holy fire in front of the altar. He had placed an alarm in the chapel in ’72 to alert him if a demon entered; since he’d caught and killed Alastair four years earlier, they’d been playing cat-and-mouse with Meg, never quite managing to get off a shot with the Colt before she fled. This time it looked like she’d come better prepared.
“What took so long?” Castiel snapped as soon as Gabriel appeared.
“I couldn’t blow cover yet, bub,” Gabriel shot back and snapped a fire extinguisher into his hand. “Cover your eyes.”
Castiel did so, and Gabriel put out the fire as quickly as he could.
“We have no time to lose,” Castiel stated as soon as he was free. “The demon plans to use a busload of schoolchildren as her sacrifice to contact Lucifer; she believes the virginity matters more than the vocation.”
“Where?”
“Stull Cemetery.”
Gabriel swore. Then he sent his thoughts back toward Lake Tahoe and swore again. “Go stop that bus, brother mine. I gotta get back to Dean.”
Castiel frowned. “Why?”
“He’s about to run into the wrong Sam!”
Well, this was certainly not the way Dean of Winchester had thought his visit to Rievaulx in October of 1150 would go when he bade farewell to his wife Joanna, mother-in-law Ellen, and housemate Brother Asce in Oxenford.
He and Samuel had been chatting merrily in the abbey’s guesthouse when a male figure in strange garb had appeared, grabbed each brother by the shoulder, and pulled them away in a burst of red light without so much as a by-your-leave. When the light had faded, the person had pressed a piece of parchment into Dean’s hand, said “Me paenitet huius,” [1] and vanished, leaving the brothers staring about in shock at the strange forest where they’d been stranded. Dean had no idea where they were, only that the evergreens around them were mostly types of pine that he did not know well and that unfamiliar mountain peaks stood near enough to be seen through the trees. He thought he could see a lake in the distance as well. The temperature was already on the warm side of pleasant, though it seemed to be only mid-morning.
“Look thou,” Samuel said suddenly and pointed.
Dean looked where his brother was pointing and saw a number of tents standing not far away, and people milling about among them, almost like... “A fair, think thou?”
“May be.”
“Ought we to go see?”
“I know not. What sayeth that parchment?”
Dean looked down at it and frowned. “‘Meg Ma-Mæst-ers, June 4, 2005, Stull Ch-Chemet-’ blast. I wit this word not. Canst make out aught?”
Samuel took the parchment. “‘Stull Ch-’ nay, ’tis some Englished form of cemeterium. ‘Lawrence, Kan-sas. Con-tak-ting’-some form of contactus, perchance?-‘L-Lucifer’?!”
Dean blinked. “Lucifer-as in the Devil?!”
“Aye.” Samuel handed the parchment back, his eyes wide.
Dean swore. “Well, this is a gamenwað. [2] We’re in a place we don’t know with a note we can’t read about someone doing something with the Devil in some churchyard on a day I deem is over 850 years after our own. What the devil do we do now?”
Samuel sighed and shrugged. “Go to the fair, I deem. Perchance someone there will know aught.”
Dean likewise sighed and tucked the parchment into his tunic. “Not even a good fighting weapon have I; my sword is still at Rievaulx.”
“’Tis a fair, thou goose. Buy aught.” And Samuel started off toward the clearing.
Grumbling, Dean followed.
Once they reached the fair, however, it quickly became clear that they were further out of their depth than they had deemed at first. Few of the fairgoers were dressed in garb that looked even slightly familiar, and a number of the women were-ahem-more scantily clad than a monk and a wedded man should be near. Some, indeed, openly named themselves courtesans, a word Dean knew not but could understand well enough from the amount of red in their garments. Many of the fairgoers seemed foreign, too-Moors, Spaniards, Italians, and Danes he knew, and a handful of Turks and Arabs, but there were a great many yellow- and brown-skinned people he could not place. It was not long before he began to feel wholly lost.
And shortly after that, he found that he’d lost Samuel.
Cursing quietly, Dean started looking around more carefully. It ought to have been easy to find a tall monk in Cistercian white even in a throng like this, but unlike at most of the fairs they had been to, Samuel was not the tallest person here; indeed, he was almost average, even among the women. Dean couldn’t think where he could have left Samuel behind. There had been a booth selling books, he thought, or perchance the scarlet women had grabbed him-
“Dean!”
Relieved, Dean turned... and found himself staring at a face out of a showing.
Meanwhile, still pondering Uncle Gabe’s cryptic advice, Dean Winchester finished browsing the selection at the swordsmith’s booth with a dissatisfied sigh and concluded that none of the blades currently on display were ones he needed to add to Sam’s collection. The fact that Uncle Gabe wasn’t back yet worried him, as did the fact that he hadn’t found Sam and Jess. He and Gabe hadn’t brought their cell phones, and Sam hadn’t said what he’d be wearing when they spoke last.
Sighing again, he turned and spotted a familiar figure in a white monk’s habit poring over the books at the bookseller’s tent.
Dean laughed in relief and crossed to the other tent. “Hey, Brother Sammy! No wonder you wouldn’t tell me what you were wearing!”
The monk jumped and stared at Dean in shock.
“What’s the matter, you shrink or something?” Dean teased further. “Where’s Jess?”
“Hwæt?”
The smile fell off Dean’s face. The guy in the monk’s costume was a dead ringer for Sam, but the accent of that question was all wrong, and he was definitely about five inches shorter than he should have been. The moles on his face were in the wrong place, too, Dean realized belatedly. “Uh, sorry, I thought-”
“Dean!” Jess called, and as Dean turned, he thought he caught the monk crossing himself.
“Jess!” he called back. “Where’ve you guys been?”
“We’ve got a problem!” She waved him over.
Dean turned back to the monk. “Uh, ’scuse-”
But the monk was headed toward Jess at just short of a run. Frowning, Dean jogged after him, following Jess behind a tent-
-and came face to face with a shorter, bearded version of... himself, circa the mid-twelfth century.
And there was Sammy, his Sammy, in a blue outfit that probably dated from 1450, staring at the monk and swearing in the same kind of shock Dean seemed to be feeling.
“Hwæt þe deofol, Samuel?” Dean’s double asked the monk in a surprised near-squeak.
“Ic nat, Denu,” the monk replied, sounding panicked. “He findaþ me-”
“Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa,” Dean interrupted. “Your names are Sam and Dean, too?”
The doubles looked at each other for a moment, lost, before Denu ventured, “Ay?”
“Latine loquitis?” asked Brother Samuel with an awkwardly hopeful smile.
“What?” Sam and Dean asked at the same time.
“Sam, what’s going on?” Jess asked.
And before anyone else could ask anything else, they were all interrupted by a groan of, “Oh, great.”
“Gabriel!” cried Denu and Brother Samuel at the same time Sam and Dean cried, “Uncle Gabe!”-and with the same level of relief, too, which was weird.
Uncle Gabe held up his hands. “Not here.”
“Ac, Gabriel-” Denu objected, reaching into his shirt.
“Ic sagaþ, na her,” Uncle Gabe replied.
Brother Samuel burst into a torrent of Latin as Denu pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Uncle Gabe, who sighed and took it.
Uncle Gabe then looked at the paper and grimaced. “Thanks for the payback, Chronos,” he muttered.
“What?!” everyone else exclaimed.
Uncle Gabe rolled his eyes and folded up the paper to stick in his money pouch. “Not. Here. I’ll explain at the hotel. Sam, Jess, go get us some coffee and doughnuts; this could take a while. Denu, Samuel, cumaþ yeow wið us.”
Dean frowned. “I almost understood that.”
Uncle Gabe huffed. “You should. It’s Old English.”
Sam and Dean both opened their mouths to ask a question-probably the same question-but shut them again when Uncle Gabe glared at them. “Not here,” Sam repeated. “Right. Gotcha. So, Jess, doughnuts?”
“Doughnuts, yes, doughnuts,” Jess agreed a little too hastily. “Uh, same hotel as last time, Dean?”
“Right, yeah,” Dean replied with a nod. “We’ll... we’ll see you guys there.”
As Sam and Jess beat a hasty retreat, Denu nudged Brother Samuel and whispered something that made Brother Samuel turn bright red and reply, “Deeenuuu....”
“Some things never change,” Uncle Gabe murmured.
Dean sighed. “Okay. Uh, cometh with us, guys.” And he and Uncle Gabe led Denu and Brother Samuel out of the fairgrounds and to the parking area.
The doubles didn’t say much on the way out, but as soon as they spotted the Impala, they both gasped. Uncle Gabe said something Dean didn’t catch, but while Brother Samuel looked kind of nervous as they walked up to the car, Denu was staring in open-mouthed wonder and put a hand almost reverently on the hood while Dean unlocked the doors.
“Like I said,” Uncle Gabe sighed, opening the back passenger door for Brother Samuel. “Some things never change.”
“Denu,” Brother Samuel called, and Denu snapped out of it and hurried past Dean, who opened the door for him and let him climb into the back seat.
Once the back doors were closed, Dean looked across the car at Uncle Gabe. “Is this....”
Uncle Gabe grimaced. “No, but it’s related.”
Dean nodded his understanding-at least as much as he could understand-and got in.
This was real. That was the only thought Samuel could get his head around as Young Dean steered the horseless wain (!!!) onto the road at a high gallop. It was different from the vision Castiel had given them-killing Azazel had made some changes, it seemed-but still... saints above, this was real.
And there were dozens of the things everywhere, especially in the town, on the road and stopped around them beside buildings that looked nothing like anything Samuel had ever seen. Some, he guessed, were houses, but others had writing on them or signs in the (concrete!) yard nearer the road, and those he took to be shops. Some might have been taverns, but he couldn’t tell for sure. Most of the words were unfamiliar, and they passed too quickly for Samuel to read many of them. However, two words appeared frequently enough that he thought they might be the name of the place where they found themselves.
“Any clues?” Dean whispered to him after a few minutes.
“A name, I deem,” Samuel whispered back. “Lah-keh Tah-hoh-eh?”
“Layk Tah-ho,” Young Dean supplied, looking at them in the mirror.
“Oh. My thanks.” Well, they knew what a lac was; only the spelling differed. He had never heard of a tahoe, though.
They were silent for the rest of the journey, though Dean tapped Samuel’s knee and pointed out the window as they rounded a bend and the lake itself came into view, stretching away out of sight until it met the tall mountains beyond. He did not recognize it from any of the travelers’ tales they had heard growing up or anything that had been described in any of the books he’d read. The height of the mountains made him think perchance they were in the Alps, but that make little sense with what he remembered of their visions of Young Samuel and Young Dean.
Samuel had just about given up on figuring out anything when the wain slowed and turned in at a blue sign that bore a red crown and the words Best Western Plus. That made no sense, and it was bad heraldic form as well, but Young Dean steered the wain around the building that stood nearest the road and stopped in a space marked with white lines in front of another building, this one two stories tall, quite long, with rough-hewn shingles on the roof rather than thatch, and the front wall filled with doors and with windows fitted with glass. Then the rumbling noise ceased, and Young Dean got out.
“Inn,” Dean concluded as Young Dean opened the back door on his side. “This must be an inn.”
Samuel hummed thoughtfully and got out when Gabriel opened his door for him. Together they followed Young Dean to a door with a slot above the handle; Young Dean slid a thin, rectangular piece of... something into the slot, and the door clicked as some mechanism unlocked it. Young Dean then opened the door and stood aside to let the others enter the room.
And such a room it was! Had Samuel any choice in the matter, he might have been breaking his vows to stay in such a place. The air was cool and fresh. The walls were plastered and whitewashed and bore framed paintings here and there; tapestries hung in front of the window, and another covered the floor from wall to wall. There were two beds, richly covered and each with five bolsters at the head, along with two cushioned chairs covered in a cloth that felt like soft leather and another cushioned chair on wheels. There were lanterns that came on when Young Dean raised a small lever near the door, a mirror above a short wooden chest that held two sets of drawers, a wooden wardrobe, and another mirror, lighted from above, that hung above a stone shelf in which was set a basin and what turned out to be a tap for hot and cold running water. And beside that stood a door that led into a private bathing room, lined with marble and brass and gleaming glazed tiles and a tub built into the wall with two taps of running water, one of which sprayed like a waterfall!
“What’s this?” Dean asked Gabriel, pointing to another, covered device that stood beside the tub and looked big enough to sit upon but clearly was not a chair. “Chamber pot?”
“Same purpose,” Gabriel replied, “but it’s called a toilet. Once you’ve used it, you take some paper from that roll on the wall to clean yourself with, drop it in the basin. Then you push that down”-here he pointed toward the silver lever that stood on what looked like some sort of cistern above the seat-“and it empties and cleans itself.”
“Huh!” both brothers exclaimed at once.
“Wash your hands when you’re done,” Gabriel added, pointing to the washbasin that stood near the toilet, likewise furnished with a water tap. “You should also wash your hands before and after you eat, and most people bathe at least once a day. If we stay here tonight, you’ll have time to get the hang of it. There’s a bar of soap in there, along with a soft soap you can use on your hair; and we can get you each your own flannel to wash with and your own towel to dry with. Plus, Dean, you’re going to need some new clothes; Samuel, I’ll find you a second robe so we can wash this one.”
Samuel shook his head in bewilderment. “Gabriel, this... this is....”
Gabriel nodded. “I know. Welcome to middle-class life in the Year of Our Lord 2005.”
“Two thousand and five?!” Samuel and Dean yelped, the tiled walls making their voices echo badly.
Young Dean called something Samuel didn’t catch, and Gabriel called something back before turning back to Samuel and Dean. “I’ll explain as soon as Sam and Jess get here. Come on.”
Dean made a small overwhelmed noise and followed Gabriel out of the bathing room. Samuel took one last look around, shook his head, and followed as well.
Gabriel had just gotten Dean and Samuel seated on one of the beds-which was not stuffed with straw, but rather was made of some kind of cushioning around a set of springs that creaked a bit when they sat down-when Young Samuel arrived with his... wife? Betrothed? Sweetheart? Samuel knew not, but her name seemed to be Jess, and she was carrying a box of pastries, while Young Sam had a tray full of six cups of some fragrant drink Samuel could not place. Jess had a stack of parchment squares, too, one of which she used to lift one of the pastries out of the box to hand to Samuel. Young Sam followed with one of the cups, which he handed to Samuel with what sounded like a word of caution. Samuel guessed its meaning as soon as he took hold of the cup; though the walls were of some thick material he had never seen before, he could still feel the heat of the drink through them. He nodded his thanks, and Sam nodded back and moved on to Dean.
Samuel looked from the pastry to the drink and back, weighing which to taste first. Finally, he blew a bit on the hot drink to try to cool it, then took a careful sip. Not only was it hot, it was strong and bitter, though there was cream in it and some kind of sweetener and another taste he couldn’t place. He could not keep a surprised cough from escaping. Then he took another small sip to wet his mouth enough to try the pastry, which was very sweet and sticky and seemed to consist mainly of fried dough. Another mouthful of the drink helped wash the pastry down better than expected... but the combination triggered a sensation that was rather the opposite of getting drunk. He suddenly felt wide awake, almost restless. It did not seem to have the same effect on Young Dean or Sam, though; they and Jess were sitting in the chairs and drinking the stuff as if they had it every day.
Suddenly there was another knock at the door. Gabriel answered, and Castiel entered, talking to Gabriel in a low tone. Young Dean and Sam looked confused, and Young Dean asked Castiel something that Samuel almost caught. But before Castiel could answer, Gabriel said something and locked the door while Castiel drew the tapestries together to cover the window. Then Gabriel pressed a hand against the wall beside the door, releasing a burst of light and angelic power that Samuel sensed racing along the walls around them. Young Dean, Sam, and Jess looked even more confused.
And then Gabriel snapped his fingers. Samuel’s ears popped-and he understood when Young Dean asked, “Uncle Gabe? What... what did you just do?”
Dean gasped. “I understood that.”
Young Dean stared at him. “And I understood you.”
“One thing at a time,” Gabriel interrupted. “There’s no way to sugar-coat this, so we’ll have to go slow-and no comments on wasting time, Castiel. Yes, I removed the language barrier-temporarily. When I get these two back home, everything will go back to normal as far as that goes. I also warded this room so we can talk without anyone, human or otherwise, listening in. Now, your next question”-here he looked at Young Dean-“is how in the world I can do that. You know we’ve been calling ourselves your guardian angels pretty much all your life. And that’s been the truth.”
Young Dean’s mouth worked before he stammered, “Y-y-you mean....”
There was a flash like lightning, and the shadows of the angels’ wings appeared on the wall behind them. Samuel couldn’t keep from setting down his pastry and crossing himself, and neither could Dean; though they’d known all along who Gabriel and Castiel were, they’d never seen the wings before. Sam and Jess were clinging to each other, wide-eyed.
And Young Dean looked ready to faint. “I-you-I’ve... been....”
The light faded, and Gabriel smiled fondly. “Save it, Deano. We’re not like our brothers.”
“Gabriel,” Sam asked quietly, “why are you telling us this now? What’s going on?”
And while Samuel and Dean ate slowly, Gabriel explained the whole horrible history of the Apocalypse that might have been, of the Crusade, of the ways they had changed the future by killing Azazel. “But the problem with derailing something like this,” he continued, “is that there’s always someone looking to put it back on the rails. For the last four years, we’ve been working overtime trying to keep one of Azazel’s children from getting through to Lucifer through the hellmouth Azazel would have used. Seems today she decided to try a different tactic: she trapped Castiel in Ilchester while she buzzed off to perform the ritual at another hellmouth.”
“That parchment,” Dean breathed.
Gabriel sighed. “Yeeeah. Seems Chronos decided we needed a hand here.”
“Chronos?” Jess repeated. “Father Time?”
“Yup. Note’s in his handwriting. He and the Fates are the only gods who seem to even know anything’s changed, and they also seem just as happy to keep things the way they are now. Guess he got the lowdown on these two from Atropos and decided to drop ’em here so they’d run into you muttonheads and get word to somebody that the demon’s in Lawrence.”
“Lawrence,” Sam gasped. “No-not-not Stull Cemetery! I thought that was a myth!”
“Newsflash, Horatio,” Young Dean snapped, grabbing for something that sat on the table beside him. “Our godfather’s an archangel, and we’re goin’ to Lawrence as soon as I get leave.” With that, he started pressing a pattern on the face of the device and raised it to his ear.
Sam scrabbled in his clothes and came out with a similar device. “I’ll call the bookstore,” he told Jess. “You don’t have to come.”
“Are you kidding?” Jess returned, reaching into her own purse. “After that story? No way am I going back to Stanford. I’m safer with you.”
“Yeah, Mac?” Young Dean said into his device. “Winchester. Got a family emergency here....”
Gabriel turned to Castiel. “Get Amanda and the kids to a safe house. I don’t care whose, I don’t care how, just hide ’em well.”
“Bobby’s,” Castiel declared and vanished.
“But wait,” said Samuel, his voice sounding odd to his own ears. “What day is it?”
Gabriel stepped around the bed as Young Dean continued his one-sided conversation and Sam and Jess began speaking into their own devices as well. “It’s June 4, all right,” he said quietly. “We would have needed that note from Chronos if you’d gotten here sooner or if Castiel hadn’t called me away from here to get him out of the trap. As it is, he did stop Meg from being able to collect the sacrifice she needs to open a line to Lucifer’s Cage-at least for today. Tomorrow’s a Sunday; she won’t be able to use the same method, and we can make sure she can’t try a similar one. Monday’s the new moon. If she can kill eight virgins over the hellmouth in Stull Cemetery on that night, there’s an even better chance she’ll get through to Lucifer. And she probably knows I’m due back there on Tuesday, so even if she thinks she’s still got Castiel trapped or thrown off her trail, she’ll be betting everything on Monday night.”
Dean nodded. “What of the gun?”
“We still have it.”
“Good. Can we reach the place in time?”
“Yeah. That’s not the tricky part. There’s always the chance something could go wrong. And that’s why I think Chronos grabbed both of you.”
“Because of what happened in Bethlehem?”
“No. Well, yes, partly, there and Griff, but that’s not the main reason. If this were just about hunting experience, there are plenty of other hunters in this generation who could help us out. But you two... you’re an awful lot like this Sam and Dean. Enough alike that Meg won’t be able to tell easily which of you is which. Throwing that monkey wrench in the works means that even if we can’t stop Meg from reaching Lucifer, and even if he’s more specific now than he was last time around, she can’t attack the right target right away. That should give us time to stop her before anything can shift back toward the old timeline.”
Samuel looked over at Young Dean and had... not so much a showing as a feeling. “Some things still will, though, won’t they? Some things were meant to be, and not as part of Lucifer’s plan.”
Gabriel sighed and looked at Young Dean, too. “Maybe so. But if they choose to hunt, it won’t be for revenge this time. ‘Saving people’ will always come before ‘hunting things’ in Dean’s book; same with Sam. And Dean’s a Marine. He’s been to war. Picking up this war... might actually help. But now he’s got children; he won’t go taking stupid risks.”
Samuel nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, he will do better now.”
“Ama-Aman-Amanda, calm down,” Young Dean was saying into his device now. “Just go with Uncle Cas, all right? ... You’ve met Uncle Bobby, remember? At-at the wedding.... It’s classified, sweetheart.... Yes, I’m fine. I can’t tell you any more about it, but I’ll call you when it’s safe.... A-man-da. Just go.” He paused, and his stern look shifted to a smile. “Love you, too. Bye.” He pulled the device away from his ear, pressed a button, and sighed.
“What is that thing?” Dean asked, nodding at the device.
“Telephone,” Sam replied at the same time Young Dean said, “Complicated.”
“Everything okay?” Jess asked Young Dean.
Young Dean sighed again. “Yeah, she’s just freaked. And I get it, I do. It’s just... how do you tell your wife you’re going to stop a demon from starting the Apocalypse?”
“You don’t,” Gabriel answered. “Everything else squared away?” When the others nodded, he snapped his fingers again, and suddenly everyone but Samuel was dressed more like Sam and Young Dean had been in the visions.
The others looked down at themselves in shock, and then Young Dean pointed a trembling finger at Gabriel. “We’re driving.”
Gabriel shrugged. “Fine by me. Two cars or one?”
“One. That way we can switch off, drive straight through.”
Gabriel looked at Sam, who nodded, and snapped his fingers yet again. “Car #2 is back in Palo Alto, and everyone’s bags are in the Impala. Let’s go.”
As Jess gathered up the remains of the pastries and Young Dean went to inform the innkeeper that they were leaving, Sam asked, “Uh, Gabriel, are you gonna-”
“I’ll ride with you,” Gabriel said with a shrug. “Just because I can fly doesn’t mean I always want to, and you’ll need another driver. Besides, somebody needs to keep these muttonheads in line,” he added with a mischievous grin, clapping a hand on the back of Samuel’s neck and giving him a playful jostle.
Somehow that warmed Samuel down to his toes.
Next
[1] Sorry about this.
[2] merry journey
Chapter 1
Another Fine Mess
June 4, 2005
“So we’re meeting Sam and Jess at the campground?” Gabriel asked as he and Dean left their hotel in South Lake Tahoe after breakfast.
“Yeah,” Dean confirmed, “Sammy didn’t think they could afford the extra night at the hotel. The events don’t really start until 10, and it’s only three and a half hours from Palo Alto, so they left around 6. Should give ’em time to change when they get there.”
Gabriel nodded and stifled a chuckle. The Dean he’d known in another timeline had secretly loved wearing cool costumes and playing pretend but never had the time, money, or familial support to indulge his interest once he was old enough to start hunting with John more often than not. This Dean not only loved reenacting but had managed to rook Sam, Jess, and his wife Amanda into going to forts and Renaissance fairs with him. In fact, the only reason Amanda wasn’t with them for the Valhalla Faire this year was that she was very pregnant with their third child and didn’t think she could fit into her usual dress or corral four-year-old Johnny and two-year-old Bobbi Jo for two days. Dean had already bought two tickets when she’d come to that conclusion, so Gabriel had offered to go instead.
He hadn’t told anyone but Castiel that he had a sneaking suspicion he’d be needed.
“Actually,” Dean said once they were in the Impala and on the road, “since we have some time, I’ve been meaning to get your advice on something.”
Gabriel shrugged. “Shoot.”
“My hitch is up at the end of the month, and I can’t decide whether or not to re-up. I mean, I love what I do, and we are at war, and it’s not like I have another job lined up. But I never get to see the kids, and after that scare with Dad’s heart last month... I just... I dunno what I should do.”
Gabriel, Castiel suddenly called.
Hold up, Gabriel thought back. “That’s a tough call, Deano. Family’s important, but you do need a job to provide-”
Gabriel, I’m TRAPPED!
Gabriel stopped in mid-sentence, his mouth left open and the color draining from his face. What kind of trap?
Holy oil.
Gabriel cursed mentally. I’ll be there in five-gotta ditch the kids.
Dean frowned. “Uncle Gabe?”
Gabriel....
I will be there as fast as I can, Castiel. Hold tight.
“Uncle Gabe, are you okay?”
Gabriel forced his eyes to focus on Dean again. “Yeah, sure, just-need to find a restroom when we get there.”
“O-kay....”
“Dean, listen. Your family’s going to need you soon. Don’t re-up, and be prepared not to find a job in San Diego.”
Dean’s frown deepened. “You think we should move back to Lawrence?”
“I don’t know yet. That might not be safe, either.”
“Uncle Gabe-”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know, Dean. What I can tell you is this: there’s another war coming that’s got nothing to do with what’s happening in the Middle East. And you mooks are going to be smack dab in the middle of it.”
“Me and Amanda?”
“You and Sam.”
Dean’s hands tightened on the wheel as he nudged the car to five miles an hour above the speed limit. If there was one thing that killing Azazel in 1148 hadn’t changed in this day, it was the fierce love and loyalty that marked the brotherly bond between Dean and Sam.
Sam and Jess weren’t waiting for them in the parking lot when they arrived, so Gabriel checked in at the gate with Dean and then excused himself to find a restroom. As soon as he found a convenient tent to duck behind, however, he took off for Castiel’s location, which turned out to be the chapel of St. Mary’s Convent in Ilchester, MD. The sisters, he sensed quickly, were alive and well and going about their daily business, but poor Castiel was trapped in a circle of holy fire in front of the altar. He had placed an alarm in the chapel in ’72 to alert him if a demon entered; since he’d caught and killed Alastair four years earlier, they’d been playing cat-and-mouse with Meg, never quite managing to get off a shot with the Colt before she fled. This time it looked like she’d come better prepared.
“What took so long?” Castiel snapped as soon as Gabriel appeared.
“I couldn’t blow cover yet, bub,” Gabriel shot back and snapped a fire extinguisher into his hand. “Cover your eyes.”
Castiel did so, and Gabriel put out the fire as quickly as he could.
“We have no time to lose,” Castiel stated as soon as he was free. “The demon plans to use a busload of schoolchildren as her sacrifice to contact Lucifer; she believes the virginity matters more than the vocation.”
“Where?”
“Stull Cemetery.”
Gabriel swore. Then he sent his thoughts back toward Lake Tahoe and swore again. “Go stop that bus, brother mine. I gotta get back to Dean.”
Castiel frowned. “Why?”
“He’s about to run into the wrong Sam!”
Well, this was certainly not the way Dean of Winchester had thought his visit to Rievaulx in October of 1150 would go when he bade farewell to his wife Joanna, mother-in-law Ellen, and housemate Brother Asce in Oxenford.
He and Samuel had been chatting merrily in the abbey’s guesthouse when a male figure in strange garb had appeared, grabbed each brother by the shoulder, and pulled them away in a burst of red light without so much as a by-your-leave. When the light had faded, the person had pressed a piece of parchment into Dean’s hand, said “Me paenitet huius,” [1] and vanished, leaving the brothers staring about in shock at the strange forest where they’d been stranded. Dean had no idea where they were, only that the evergreens around them were mostly types of pine that he did not know well and that unfamiliar mountain peaks stood near enough to be seen through the trees. He thought he could see a lake in the distance as well. The temperature was already on the warm side of pleasant, though it seemed to be only mid-morning.
“Look thou,” Samuel said suddenly and pointed.
Dean looked where his brother was pointing and saw a number of tents standing not far away, and people milling about among them, almost like... “A fair, think thou?”
“May be.”
“Ought we to go see?”
“I know not. What sayeth that parchment?”
Dean looked down at it and frowned. “‘Meg Ma-Mæst-ers, June 4, 2005, Stull Ch-Chemet-’ blast. I wit this word not. Canst make out aught?”
Samuel took the parchment. “‘Stull Ch-’ nay, ’tis some Englished form of cemeterium. ‘Lawrence, Kan-sas. Con-tak-ting’-some form of contactus, perchance?-‘L-Lucifer’?!”
Dean blinked. “Lucifer-as in the Devil?!”
“Aye.” Samuel handed the parchment back, his eyes wide.
Dean swore. “Well, this is a gamenwað. [2] We’re in a place we don’t know with a note we can’t read about someone doing something with the Devil in some churchyard on a day I deem is over 850 years after our own. What the devil do we do now?”
Samuel sighed and shrugged. “Go to the fair, I deem. Perchance someone there will know aught.”
Dean likewise sighed and tucked the parchment into his tunic. “Not even a good fighting weapon have I; my sword is still at Rievaulx.”
“’Tis a fair, thou goose. Buy aught.” And Samuel started off toward the clearing.
Grumbling, Dean followed.
Once they reached the fair, however, it quickly became clear that they were further out of their depth than they had deemed at first. Few of the fairgoers were dressed in garb that looked even slightly familiar, and a number of the women were-ahem-more scantily clad than a monk and a wedded man should be near. Some, indeed, openly named themselves courtesans, a word Dean knew not but could understand well enough from the amount of red in their garments. Many of the fairgoers seemed foreign, too-Moors, Spaniards, Italians, and Danes he knew, and a handful of Turks and Arabs, but there were a great many yellow- and brown-skinned people he could not place. It was not long before he began to feel wholly lost.
And shortly after that, he found that he’d lost Samuel.
Cursing quietly, Dean started looking around more carefully. It ought to have been easy to find a tall monk in Cistercian white even in a throng like this, but unlike at most of the fairs they had been to, Samuel was not the tallest person here; indeed, he was almost average, even among the women. Dean couldn’t think where he could have left Samuel behind. There had been a booth selling books, he thought, or perchance the scarlet women had grabbed him-
“Dean!”
Relieved, Dean turned... and found himself staring at a face out of a showing.
Meanwhile, still pondering Uncle Gabe’s cryptic advice, Dean Winchester finished browsing the selection at the swordsmith’s booth with a dissatisfied sigh and concluded that none of the blades currently on display were ones he needed to add to Sam’s collection. The fact that Uncle Gabe wasn’t back yet worried him, as did the fact that he hadn’t found Sam and Jess. He and Gabe hadn’t brought their cell phones, and Sam hadn’t said what he’d be wearing when they spoke last.
Sighing again, he turned and spotted a familiar figure in a white monk’s habit poring over the books at the bookseller’s tent.
Dean laughed in relief and crossed to the other tent. “Hey, Brother Sammy! No wonder you wouldn’t tell me what you were wearing!”
The monk jumped and stared at Dean in shock.
“What’s the matter, you shrink or something?” Dean teased further. “Where’s Jess?”
“Hwæt?”
The smile fell off Dean’s face. The guy in the monk’s costume was a dead ringer for Sam, but the accent of that question was all wrong, and he was definitely about five inches shorter than he should have been. The moles on his face were in the wrong place, too, Dean realized belatedly. “Uh, sorry, I thought-”
“Dean!” Jess called, and as Dean turned, he thought he caught the monk crossing himself.
“Jess!” he called back. “Where’ve you guys been?”
“We’ve got a problem!” She waved him over.
Dean turned back to the monk. “Uh, ’scuse-”
But the monk was headed toward Jess at just short of a run. Frowning, Dean jogged after him, following Jess behind a tent-
-and came face to face with a shorter, bearded version of... himself, circa the mid-twelfth century.
And there was Sammy, his Sammy, in a blue outfit that probably dated from 1450, staring at the monk and swearing in the same kind of shock Dean seemed to be feeling.
“Hwæt þe deofol, Samuel?” Dean’s double asked the monk in a surprised near-squeak.
“Ic nat, Denu,” the monk replied, sounding panicked. “He findaþ me-”
“Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa,” Dean interrupted. “Your names are Sam and Dean, too?”
The doubles looked at each other for a moment, lost, before Denu ventured, “Ay?”
“Latine loquitis?” asked Brother Samuel with an awkwardly hopeful smile.
“What?” Sam and Dean asked at the same time.
“Sam, what’s going on?” Jess asked.
And before anyone else could ask anything else, they were all interrupted by a groan of, “Oh, great.”
“Gabriel!” cried Denu and Brother Samuel at the same time Sam and Dean cried, “Uncle Gabe!”-and with the same level of relief, too, which was weird.
Uncle Gabe held up his hands. “Not here.”
“Ac, Gabriel-” Denu objected, reaching into his shirt.
“Ic sagaþ, na her,” Uncle Gabe replied.
Brother Samuel burst into a torrent of Latin as Denu pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Uncle Gabe, who sighed and took it.
Uncle Gabe then looked at the paper and grimaced. “Thanks for the payback, Chronos,” he muttered.
“What?!” everyone else exclaimed.
Uncle Gabe rolled his eyes and folded up the paper to stick in his money pouch. “Not. Here. I’ll explain at the hotel. Sam, Jess, go get us some coffee and doughnuts; this could take a while. Denu, Samuel, cumaþ yeow wið us.”
Dean frowned. “I almost understood that.”
Uncle Gabe huffed. “You should. It’s Old English.”
Sam and Dean both opened their mouths to ask a question-probably the same question-but shut them again when Uncle Gabe glared at them. “Not here,” Sam repeated. “Right. Gotcha. So, Jess, doughnuts?”
“Doughnuts, yes, doughnuts,” Jess agreed a little too hastily. “Uh, same hotel as last time, Dean?”
“Right, yeah,” Dean replied with a nod. “We’ll... we’ll see you guys there.”
As Sam and Jess beat a hasty retreat, Denu nudged Brother Samuel and whispered something that made Brother Samuel turn bright red and reply, “Deeenuuu....”
“Some things never change,” Uncle Gabe murmured.
Dean sighed. “Okay. Uh, cometh with us, guys.” And he and Uncle Gabe led Denu and Brother Samuel out of the fairgrounds and to the parking area.
The doubles didn’t say much on the way out, but as soon as they spotted the Impala, they both gasped. Uncle Gabe said something Dean didn’t catch, but while Brother Samuel looked kind of nervous as they walked up to the car, Denu was staring in open-mouthed wonder and put a hand almost reverently on the hood while Dean unlocked the doors.
“Like I said,” Uncle Gabe sighed, opening the back passenger door for Brother Samuel. “Some things never change.”
“Denu,” Brother Samuel called, and Denu snapped out of it and hurried past Dean, who opened the door for him and let him climb into the back seat.
Once the back doors were closed, Dean looked across the car at Uncle Gabe. “Is this....”
Uncle Gabe grimaced. “No, but it’s related.”
Dean nodded his understanding-at least as much as he could understand-and got in.
This was real. That was the only thought Samuel could get his head around as Young Dean steered the horseless wain (!!!) onto the road at a high gallop. It was different from the vision Castiel had given them-killing Azazel had made some changes, it seemed-but still... saints above, this was real.
And there were dozens of the things everywhere, especially in the town, on the road and stopped around them beside buildings that looked nothing like anything Samuel had ever seen. Some, he guessed, were houses, but others had writing on them or signs in the (concrete!) yard nearer the road, and those he took to be shops. Some might have been taverns, but he couldn’t tell for sure. Most of the words were unfamiliar, and they passed too quickly for Samuel to read many of them. However, two words appeared frequently enough that he thought they might be the name of the place where they found themselves.
“Any clues?” Dean whispered to him after a few minutes.
“A name, I deem,” Samuel whispered back. “Lah-keh Tah-hoh-eh?”
“Layk Tah-ho,” Young Dean supplied, looking at them in the mirror.
“Oh. My thanks.” Well, they knew what a lac was; only the spelling differed. He had never heard of a tahoe, though.
They were silent for the rest of the journey, though Dean tapped Samuel’s knee and pointed out the window as they rounded a bend and the lake itself came into view, stretching away out of sight until it met the tall mountains beyond. He did not recognize it from any of the travelers’ tales they had heard growing up or anything that had been described in any of the books he’d read. The height of the mountains made him think perchance they were in the Alps, but that make little sense with what he remembered of their visions of Young Samuel and Young Dean.
Samuel had just about given up on figuring out anything when the wain slowed and turned in at a blue sign that bore a red crown and the words Best Western Plus. That made no sense, and it was bad heraldic form as well, but Young Dean steered the wain around the building that stood nearest the road and stopped in a space marked with white lines in front of another building, this one two stories tall, quite long, with rough-hewn shingles on the roof rather than thatch, and the front wall filled with doors and with windows fitted with glass. Then the rumbling noise ceased, and Young Dean got out.
“Inn,” Dean concluded as Young Dean opened the back door on his side. “This must be an inn.”
Samuel hummed thoughtfully and got out when Gabriel opened his door for him. Together they followed Young Dean to a door with a slot above the handle; Young Dean slid a thin, rectangular piece of... something into the slot, and the door clicked as some mechanism unlocked it. Young Dean then opened the door and stood aside to let the others enter the room.
And such a room it was! Had Samuel any choice in the matter, he might have been breaking his vows to stay in such a place. The air was cool and fresh. The walls were plastered and whitewashed and bore framed paintings here and there; tapestries hung in front of the window, and another covered the floor from wall to wall. There were two beds, richly covered and each with five bolsters at the head, along with two cushioned chairs covered in a cloth that felt like soft leather and another cushioned chair on wheels. There were lanterns that came on when Young Dean raised a small lever near the door, a mirror above a short wooden chest that held two sets of drawers, a wooden wardrobe, and another mirror, lighted from above, that hung above a stone shelf in which was set a basin and what turned out to be a tap for hot and cold running water. And beside that stood a door that led into a private bathing room, lined with marble and brass and gleaming glazed tiles and a tub built into the wall with two taps of running water, one of which sprayed like a waterfall!
“What’s this?” Dean asked Gabriel, pointing to another, covered device that stood beside the tub and looked big enough to sit upon but clearly was not a chair. “Chamber pot?”
“Same purpose,” Gabriel replied, “but it’s called a toilet. Once you’ve used it, you take some paper from that roll on the wall to clean yourself with, drop it in the basin. Then you push that down”-here he pointed toward the silver lever that stood on what looked like some sort of cistern above the seat-“and it empties and cleans itself.”
“Huh!” both brothers exclaimed at once.
“Wash your hands when you’re done,” Gabriel added, pointing to the washbasin that stood near the toilet, likewise furnished with a water tap. “You should also wash your hands before and after you eat, and most people bathe at least once a day. If we stay here tonight, you’ll have time to get the hang of it. There’s a bar of soap in there, along with a soft soap you can use on your hair; and we can get you each your own flannel to wash with and your own towel to dry with. Plus, Dean, you’re going to need some new clothes; Samuel, I’ll find you a second robe so we can wash this one.”
Samuel shook his head in bewilderment. “Gabriel, this... this is....”
Gabriel nodded. “I know. Welcome to middle-class life in the Year of Our Lord 2005.”
“Two thousand and five?!” Samuel and Dean yelped, the tiled walls making their voices echo badly.
Young Dean called something Samuel didn’t catch, and Gabriel called something back before turning back to Samuel and Dean. “I’ll explain as soon as Sam and Jess get here. Come on.”
Dean made a small overwhelmed noise and followed Gabriel out of the bathing room. Samuel took one last look around, shook his head, and followed as well.
Gabriel had just gotten Dean and Samuel seated on one of the beds-which was not stuffed with straw, but rather was made of some kind of cushioning around a set of springs that creaked a bit when they sat down-when Young Samuel arrived with his... wife? Betrothed? Sweetheart? Samuel knew not, but her name seemed to be Jess, and she was carrying a box of pastries, while Young Sam had a tray full of six cups of some fragrant drink Samuel could not place. Jess had a stack of parchment squares, too, one of which she used to lift one of the pastries out of the box to hand to Samuel. Young Sam followed with one of the cups, which he handed to Samuel with what sounded like a word of caution. Samuel guessed its meaning as soon as he took hold of the cup; though the walls were of some thick material he had never seen before, he could still feel the heat of the drink through them. He nodded his thanks, and Sam nodded back and moved on to Dean.
Samuel looked from the pastry to the drink and back, weighing which to taste first. Finally, he blew a bit on the hot drink to try to cool it, then took a careful sip. Not only was it hot, it was strong and bitter, though there was cream in it and some kind of sweetener and another taste he couldn’t place. He could not keep a surprised cough from escaping. Then he took another small sip to wet his mouth enough to try the pastry, which was very sweet and sticky and seemed to consist mainly of fried dough. Another mouthful of the drink helped wash the pastry down better than expected... but the combination triggered a sensation that was rather the opposite of getting drunk. He suddenly felt wide awake, almost restless. It did not seem to have the same effect on Young Dean or Sam, though; they and Jess were sitting in the chairs and drinking the stuff as if they had it every day.
Suddenly there was another knock at the door. Gabriel answered, and Castiel entered, talking to Gabriel in a low tone. Young Dean and Sam looked confused, and Young Dean asked Castiel something that Samuel almost caught. But before Castiel could answer, Gabriel said something and locked the door while Castiel drew the tapestries together to cover the window. Then Gabriel pressed a hand against the wall beside the door, releasing a burst of light and angelic power that Samuel sensed racing along the walls around them. Young Dean, Sam, and Jess looked even more confused.
And then Gabriel snapped his fingers. Samuel’s ears popped-and he understood when Young Dean asked, “Uncle Gabe? What... what did you just do?”
Dean gasped. “I understood that.”
Young Dean stared at him. “And I understood you.”
“One thing at a time,” Gabriel interrupted. “There’s no way to sugar-coat this, so we’ll have to go slow-and no comments on wasting time, Castiel. Yes, I removed the language barrier-temporarily. When I get these two back home, everything will go back to normal as far as that goes. I also warded this room so we can talk without anyone, human or otherwise, listening in. Now, your next question”-here he looked at Young Dean-“is how in the world I can do that. You know we’ve been calling ourselves your guardian angels pretty much all your life. And that’s been the truth.”
Young Dean’s mouth worked before he stammered, “Y-y-you mean....”
There was a flash like lightning, and the shadows of the angels’ wings appeared on the wall behind them. Samuel couldn’t keep from setting down his pastry and crossing himself, and neither could Dean; though they’d known all along who Gabriel and Castiel were, they’d never seen the wings before. Sam and Jess were clinging to each other, wide-eyed.
And Young Dean looked ready to faint. “I-you-I’ve... been....”
The light faded, and Gabriel smiled fondly. “Save it, Deano. We’re not like our brothers.”
“Gabriel,” Sam asked quietly, “why are you telling us this now? What’s going on?”
And while Samuel and Dean ate slowly, Gabriel explained the whole horrible history of the Apocalypse that might have been, of the Crusade, of the ways they had changed the future by killing Azazel. “But the problem with derailing something like this,” he continued, “is that there’s always someone looking to put it back on the rails. For the last four years, we’ve been working overtime trying to keep one of Azazel’s children from getting through to Lucifer through the hellmouth Azazel would have used. Seems today she decided to try a different tactic: she trapped Castiel in Ilchester while she buzzed off to perform the ritual at another hellmouth.”
“That parchment,” Dean breathed.
Gabriel sighed. “Yeeeah. Seems Chronos decided we needed a hand here.”
“Chronos?” Jess repeated. “Father Time?”
“Yup. Note’s in his handwriting. He and the Fates are the only gods who seem to even know anything’s changed, and they also seem just as happy to keep things the way they are now. Guess he got the lowdown on these two from Atropos and decided to drop ’em here so they’d run into you muttonheads and get word to somebody that the demon’s in Lawrence.”
“Lawrence,” Sam gasped. “No-not-not Stull Cemetery! I thought that was a myth!”
“Newsflash, Horatio,” Young Dean snapped, grabbing for something that sat on the table beside him. “Our godfather’s an archangel, and we’re goin’ to Lawrence as soon as I get leave.” With that, he started pressing a pattern on the face of the device and raised it to his ear.
Sam scrabbled in his clothes and came out with a similar device. “I’ll call the bookstore,” he told Jess. “You don’t have to come.”
“Are you kidding?” Jess returned, reaching into her own purse. “After that story? No way am I going back to Stanford. I’m safer with you.”
“Yeah, Mac?” Young Dean said into his device. “Winchester. Got a family emergency here....”
Gabriel turned to Castiel. “Get Amanda and the kids to a safe house. I don’t care whose, I don’t care how, just hide ’em well.”
“Bobby’s,” Castiel declared and vanished.
“But wait,” said Samuel, his voice sounding odd to his own ears. “What day is it?”
Gabriel stepped around the bed as Young Dean continued his one-sided conversation and Sam and Jess began speaking into their own devices as well. “It’s June 4, all right,” he said quietly. “We would have needed that note from Chronos if you’d gotten here sooner or if Castiel hadn’t called me away from here to get him out of the trap. As it is, he did stop Meg from being able to collect the sacrifice she needs to open a line to Lucifer’s Cage-at least for today. Tomorrow’s a Sunday; she won’t be able to use the same method, and we can make sure she can’t try a similar one. Monday’s the new moon. If she can kill eight virgins over the hellmouth in Stull Cemetery on that night, there’s an even better chance she’ll get through to Lucifer. And she probably knows I’m due back there on Tuesday, so even if she thinks she’s still got Castiel trapped or thrown off her trail, she’ll be betting everything on Monday night.”
Dean nodded. “What of the gun?”
“We still have it.”
“Good. Can we reach the place in time?”
“Yeah. That’s not the tricky part. There’s always the chance something could go wrong. And that’s why I think Chronos grabbed both of you.”
“Because of what happened in Bethlehem?”
“No. Well, yes, partly, there and Griff, but that’s not the main reason. If this were just about hunting experience, there are plenty of other hunters in this generation who could help us out. But you two... you’re an awful lot like this Sam and Dean. Enough alike that Meg won’t be able to tell easily which of you is which. Throwing that monkey wrench in the works means that even if we can’t stop Meg from reaching Lucifer, and even if he’s more specific now than he was last time around, she can’t attack the right target right away. That should give us time to stop her before anything can shift back toward the old timeline.”
Samuel looked over at Young Dean and had... not so much a showing as a feeling. “Some things still will, though, won’t they? Some things were meant to be, and not as part of Lucifer’s plan.”
Gabriel sighed and looked at Young Dean, too. “Maybe so. But if they choose to hunt, it won’t be for revenge this time. ‘Saving people’ will always come before ‘hunting things’ in Dean’s book; same with Sam. And Dean’s a Marine. He’s been to war. Picking up this war... might actually help. But now he’s got children; he won’t go taking stupid risks.”
Samuel nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, he will do better now.”
“Ama-Aman-Amanda, calm down,” Young Dean was saying into his device now. “Just go with Uncle Cas, all right? ... You’ve met Uncle Bobby, remember? At-at the wedding.... It’s classified, sweetheart.... Yes, I’m fine. I can’t tell you any more about it, but I’ll call you when it’s safe.... A-man-da. Just go.” He paused, and his stern look shifted to a smile. “Love you, too. Bye.” He pulled the device away from his ear, pressed a button, and sighed.
“What is that thing?” Dean asked, nodding at the device.
“Telephone,” Sam replied at the same time Young Dean said, “Complicated.”
“Everything okay?” Jess asked Young Dean.
Young Dean sighed again. “Yeah, she’s just freaked. And I get it, I do. It’s just... how do you tell your wife you’re going to stop a demon from starting the Apocalypse?”
“You don’t,” Gabriel answered. “Everything else squared away?” When the others nodded, he snapped his fingers again, and suddenly everyone but Samuel was dressed more like Sam and Young Dean had been in the visions.
The others looked down at themselves in shock, and then Young Dean pointed a trembling finger at Gabriel. “We’re driving.”
Gabriel shrugged. “Fine by me. Two cars or one?”
“One. That way we can switch off, drive straight through.”
Gabriel looked at Sam, who nodded, and snapped his fingers yet again. “Car #2 is back in Palo Alto, and everyone’s bags are in the Impala. Let’s go.”
As Jess gathered up the remains of the pastries and Young Dean went to inform the innkeeper that they were leaving, Sam asked, “Uh, Gabriel, are you gonna-”
“I’ll ride with you,” Gabriel said with a shrug. “Just because I can fly doesn’t mean I always want to, and you’ll need another driver. Besides, somebody needs to keep these muttonheads in line,” he added with a mischievous grin, clapping a hand on the back of Samuel’s neck and giving him a playful jostle.
Somehow that warmed Samuel down to his toes.
Next
[1] Sorry about this.
[2] merry journey