Everything else set after "Hollywood Babylon" season 2.
Companion poem to story:
"If I Was your Armor."
If I was your armor I would protect you...
If I was your sword I would avenge you...
If I was your shield I would defend you...
If I was your steed I would carry you...
If I was your jester I would amuse you...
If I was your musician I would soothe you...
If I was your castle I would shelter you...
If I was your lady I would love you...
Please Enjoy the story!
Year 2010 ...Thursday
"What did you just say?" Dean stared blankly at Castiel, not sure if he heard him right.
"I have found a way to end the Apocalypse." Cas stated simply.
"And you're just telling us this now?" Dean fumed.
"I was not certain that it would work until now, it still may not work. But it may be our last chance."
"So what's the plan?" Sam asked impatiently.
As Castiel explained what must be done, and what would happen as a result, Sam looked at Castiel like he had lobsters coming out of his ears. Dean laughed and said Cas had officially lost it.
"We cannot do this ourselves Dean. We have tried." The angel placed an ancient tome on the rickety motel room table.
"No one in this universe can help us now. It's time to look elsewhere."
The Winchester brothers looked at each other. They had both been through so much, it was hard to hold onto any kind of hope.
They both nodded silently. Dean turned wearily to Castiel. "Do it."
Christine Dawson was sitting in her room that night, watching episodes of her favorite tv show.
It was late, around 2 a.m., but for some nagging reason she just could not get to sleep. So she sat there on her bed, quietly staring at the tv.
She began to feel a strange pulling sensation within her. The feeling grew in intensity until it was downright painful. Fearing it was a heart attack, or maybe appendicitis, she reached for the phone to dial 911.
Before her fingers could touch the receiver, she doubled over in pain as her world slowly went black.
Year 2006 ...Thursday
Dean Winchester awoke around 8 a.m. that morning. Groggy, slow, and still sore from last night's hunt, he trudged his way to the bathroom. Sam tossed around on his bed, trying to untangle himself from the knots the sheets had tied around him as he slept.
Each went through their own routine as they packed up everything into their duffel bags. Both men eager to get some coffee in their systems before hitting the road.
It was a pretty normal morning for the boys. Well, as normal as can be expected for the Winchester brothers. They packed their bags in the trunk of Dean's '67 Chevy Impala before getting in. That's when things got a little odd.
They heard a distinctly feminine yelp as they sat down inside the car, then a panicked voice yelling at them. "Get off me! Get off me! Where am I and WhatTheHellIsGoingOn!"
Both brothers immediately jumped out of the car. Sam looked at his baffled brother. "Dude, did your car just...talk?"
As the siblings stared blankly at each other for a second, the shrill shrieking had lessened to a series of quiet sobs. With each sound, the entire car seemed to shake with exertion and the washer fluid for the front windshield started to splatter everywhere. In short, the car was not only talking, it was crying.
Dean quickly grabbed holy water and his father's journal from his jacket pockets. He and Sam stood at a slight distance as Dean splashed holy water on the Impala while Sam chanted the Latin exorcism. True to Winchester luck, nothing happened. The car continued to whimper.
"Stop splashing me! What are you doing? Please, don't hurt me." The car went into reverse slightly, backing away from the boys.
"Wait!" Sam moved forward slowly, careful not to upset the Impala any further. ~Ok...That is the weirdest thought I've ever had.~ Sam mused.
"We aren't going to hurt you. Who are you?" He spoke quietly, gently. His face a mask of patience and concern.
The car stopped, halfway out of the parking space. The windshield wipers came on, as if the car were rubbing away its tears.
"I'm Chr-Chris." the car stuttered. "Ok Chris." said Sam patiently, "What are you doing in Dean's car?"
"My car is possessed...my baby...my freakin car is possessed!" Dean paced the motel room angrily.
Sam sat at the table, searching his laptop for anything that might explain this strange turn of events.
Dean gave up pacing for a moment to stare out into the parking lot at his beloved Impala. Correction: His beloved possessed Impala.
"Sammy, why the hell didn't that exorcism work? It should have worked dammit."
Sam glanced up at his brother, gave a ~how the heck should I know? ~ shrug, then continued with his research.
Dean grabbed his jacket, intending to hit the nearest bar on foot. Out of habit, he grabbed the keys to the Impala and put them in his pocket, along with his cell. After a quick nod to Sam, he stepped out into the parking lot.
The parking lot where his possessed car was.
He glared at it like it was vile, vicious hell-beast. How dare some spirit possess His car. His Impala.
He had grown up in that car! He had slept, ate, and done pretty much everything else in it. It belonged to HIM.
Deans' anger grew to the point where he knew a few drinks were not gonna calm him down. He wanted to kill something. Preferably the thing that had stolen his car...his home, from him.
He walked up to the car and looked it over. No visible traces of sulfur, no traces of ectoplasm, nothing that could tell him exactly what he was dealing with. Only the strange sound of air moving through the cars engine.
Dean guessed that the car was breathing.
He reached out to touch the door handle, only to have the entire car jerk away just as his fingers touched the metal.
Dean blinked. Did the car just...flinch?
"Please...Please don't hurt me." came the fragile feminine voice from before. "Please. I just wanna wake up. I'm not supposed to be here. This isn't real. Please..." The "breathing" noise from the car became labored, erratic. Dean recognized it immediately. That was the sound of panic.
"Oh it's real sweetheart." Dean replied coldly. "Now get the hell outta my car."
Chris always thought of herself as a rather reasonable person. She was never quick to anger. She wasn't very good at dealing with fear, but then again she knew very few people who were.
So she knew she was panicking. That was ok. I mean...who wouldn't panic if they were suddenly turned into a car from a tv show and surrounded by people that were not supposed to exist?
Any second now, she expected one of three things to happen.
One: She would wake up from this nightmare and everything would be ok.
Two: She would find out she had completely lost her mind. She really hoped that wasn't the case.
Three: This would somehow prove to be some elaborate joke, like one of those reality prank shows. This scenario seemed the least likely.
She was scared. She had waited in the parking lot for god knows how long. She was tired and more stressed out than she had ever been in her life. Then, to top it off, Dean, (or was he Jensen?) came outside and started treating her like she was one of those evil things he hunted on the show.
Chris had never been quick to anger...but a girl could only take so much.
"Get the hell outta your car? Well, sorry pretty boy. That's not very likely at this point. Do you even think for a second that I actually want to be your freakin Metallicar? Hell no! So why don't you just go back to your room and drink beer or research or whatever. You want me out? Then you find a way to do it yourself! In the meantime I'm just gonna sit here in this damn parking lot, bored outta my skull and just waiting for this all to turn into some big joke at my expense!"
She continued her rant for a few more minutes, yelling strange things about television cameras and some guy named Jensen Ackles. Dean had no idea what she was talking about.
Until she mentioned hunting.
"What did you just say?" Dean slammed his hand onto the hood of the car.
"Ow! That hurt you jerk! I said I'm not some monster to be hunted! I'm a real person! I'm not a spirit or a demon or anything else like that. I have no freakin clue how I got here and IDoNotWantToBeACar!"
That was when the radiator overheated.
As steam started streaming from the under the Impala's hood, Chris tried to take deep breaths to calm herself.
Dean on the other hand...
"You bitch! If you messed up my car I'm gonna rip you apart!" The look in Dean's eyes was one of pure hate. He wanted this...girl...out of his car right the hell now.
Sam, having heard the ever increasing shouting, was grateful that the motel they had chosen was pretty much empty. He did not want to explain to the neighbors why his brother was arguing with an automobile.
He searched web-page after web-page. He called Bobby. He searched through his Dad's journal. He went through every supernatural being he could think of that was capable of this. Fairies...not in this part of the country. Trickster...possible, but unlikely. Witches...no discernible motive. It wasn't a spirit. The exorcism would have worked if it was.
It wasn't a demon. The holy water proved that much.
So what was it?
Dean stormed back into the room, looking like he wanted to do something very violent...and messy.
"What the hell Sam? My car has gone femme Knight Rider on me and now she's overheating! If she burns out the engine then I am gonna do worse than kill her. I'm...grrah!"
Dean took long deep breaths, trying to calm himself. He flopped down onto his bed and placed his arm over his eyes. Then he tried to comfort himself by thinking of as many torture methods as he could to use on this evil car possessing nut case.
"She's crazy, Sam, totally wacky. She keeps calling me Jensen or something like that. The weirdest thing? She knows about hunting. She knows about demons and ghosts and all that crap but she doesn't seem to think she's a part of it. She doesn't think any of this is real."
Sam glanced at this brother. "Did you ask her why she thought that? Or did you just yell at her to get out of your car?"
"Shut up Sammy."
"I was just askin'."
"It's my car! She doesn't belong in it!"
"I think she knows that Dean. I think she's scared. She doesn't seem to have any more clue as to how this happened than we do."
"Fine, you wanna go talk to her? Be my guest. I've had enough. I'm going to bed."
With that, Dean stripped down to his t-shirt and boxers, pulled the threadbare sheets up to his shoulders and closed his eyes.
Sam rolled his eyes and closed his laptop. He got up, grabbed his hoodie, then went outside. Perhaps Dean had a good idea after all. He was a little too freaked about the car right now. Maybe a cooler head could get more information from their new traveling companion.
Chris listened to the sounds of the night outside, the passing cars, the occasional insect buzzing by.
She watched carefully as Sam left the motel room and approached her. ~Maybe I could talk to him.~ She thought to herself. ~If this is real, if he really is Sam, then he might understand. He might help me understand.~
She watched as Sam sat down on the curb next to where she was parked. He looked at her in what seemed to be a mix of curiousity and cautious suspicion. She waited a moment...then another.
When it seemed evident that Sam would do nothing more than stare at her, she spoke.
"What is happening to me?"
"Don't you know?" replied Sam.
"No. I'm scared out of my mind. I'm not even sure where I am."
"Where do you think you are?"
"Someplace impossible." She laughed ruefully. "This is crazy. It's just a TV show. It's not supposed to be real."
"A TV show? What are you talking about?" Sam was becoming more confused by the second.
"I was in my room. I was watching one of my Supernatural dvds from season 4. It's a show about you and Dean and how you guys hunt down ghosts and everything. It's been on for 5 years but so far only the first 4 seasons are on dvd. The 5th season is still being aired. Anyway, I was just sitting there when I got this really bad pain in my chest. I thought I was gonna die. Then, all of a sudden...I'm a car. Not just any car, either. I'm the freakin Metallicar."
"Metallicar?"
"That's what all the show's fans call Dean's Impala. It's got it's own name, like the Batmobile."
Sam couldn't help but laugh at that. "Ok...let me see if I got this straight. You watch a TV show about me and Dean. That explains how you could know so much about us I guess. But why do you keep calling Dean Jensen?"
"Thats the name of the actor that plays him on the show, Jensen Ackles. Jared Padalecki plays you. When I first got here I didn't think it was possible for you guys to actually be Dean and Sam."
"Ok." said Sam. "That is officially the weirdest thing I've ever heard."
"Oh come on Sam, it can't be weirder than Carver Edlund's books or the apocalypse or anything else you guys have faced in the past few years."
"Huh?"
"Hellooooo? Carver Edlund? The prophet that writes all those books about you guys? And what about Castiel?"
~Light bulb!~ Chris thought.
"You should call Cas! He might be able to get me outta this!"
The excitement of both meeting the angel and perhaps being human again caused her engine to rev slightly. That is, until Sam spoke again.
"Who is Cas?"
If Chris had a jaw at that point, it would have dropped. She knew that was how the story went. She had seen every episode! Most of them more than once. Unless...
"What year is it?"
Sam's brow furrowed in confusion. "It's April...2007" he replied.
"What was the last hunt you guys went on?"
"Why do you wanna know?"
"Please Sam, just answer me."
"Ok...We were in LA, dealing with some ghosts that had been summoned by some screen writer."
"Hollywood Babylon."
"Huh?"
"That was the name of the episode. You and Dean pretended to be P.A.'s in order to walk around the set. Plus there was that actress that Dean really liked."
"Yeah...so?"
"But...that was season two."
Sam thought for a moment. "When exactly did the show start?"
"First season started in 2005. The pilot episode featured your brother picking you up from Stanford and then hunting the woman in white."
Sam turned every detail she had told him over in his head. Something still didn't click.
"But you said there were what...5 seasons?"
"Yes, going all the way to 2010 so far."
At this point, it was Sam's jaw that dropped. "So, you're saying your from weird universe where Dean and I are actors...and your from the future?"
"I think so...yes."
Sam stood, then turned and walked back into the motel room. He didn't say another word.
Once he was back in the room and out of earshot of the car, he turned to his brother, who was still pretending to sleep.
"Your right." he said. "She is crazy."
Meanwhile, in the cold, lonely parking lot, a black Impala shivered as the first drops of night rain began to fall on her. She waited patiently, desperately praying that tomorrow would bring her back to sanity.
Sam managed to sleep through the night, despite Dean's contant tossing and turning on the bed next to his. Every once in while Dean would let out a low growl or a whispered curse. Although it was unclear as to whether he was cursing the fact that he couldn't sleep, or the fate of his beloved car.
The next morning, Dean got up, cranky and stiff, to get some coffee for their day on the road. After a quick shower and a change of clothes, he grabbed his keys, took a breath, then walked out to the parking lot.
He opened the door of the Impala without hearing anything. No voice...nothing. For a brief moment he hoped it had all been a dream, or just some temporary thing that had gone away and left his baby unharmed.
That is...until he started the engine.
The engine sputtered and died for a brief moment, then roared to life as a voiced yelled out from the cars speakers.
"Okay..OKAY! I'm awake! Oh man...what time is it?"
Dean lowered his head to the steering wheel, resisting the urge to punch the dashboard as hard as he could. It wasn't the car's fault after all. It was her.
"It's 6:00 am. Time to get coffee." Dean said. "We are gonna set some ground rules. At least until we get rid of you. First, I am the driver, not you. Second, the driver..."
"Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cake hole." Chris interrupted.
Dean grumbled a bit. "Third, no interrupting me. And finally, you are in my car. You do what I say when I say it. Are we clear?"
"Yes. We are clear. And now that we have that out of the way..."
Chris locked all the doors, preventing Dean from getting out until she had said what she wanted to say.
"These are my ground rules. First, my name is Chris. Use it. Second, I will be glad to cooperate in any way I can, but I will not be treated like some supernatural monster. Third, I happen to like your taste in music, so we will have no problem there."
Dean paused when he heard that. ~Well,~ he thought, ~I do have awesome taste in music.~
"And finally, if you would get your egotistical head outta your ass for five seconds and actually listen to me, I could help you. I know you have no reason to trust me. I also get the distinct impression that Sam did not believe a word I told him last night. But if you listen to me, you might just save a few extra lives."
Dean glared at the dashboard. He didn't trust this...Chris, but he had to admit, she had guts. Not many people talked to him like that without ending up bloody. He tried to tell himself it was just out of curiosity when he replied, "What do you mean by "save extra lives?"
"I mean this. An old friend of your dad's who works in the prison system is gonna call you. He will tell you about a possible ghost who is killing inmates in the prison where he works. The ghost isn't that of an inmate. It's the nurse who used to work there. She was killing inmates when she was alive. She didn't think they deserved to live. Then there was a huge riot and the inmates killed her. They recently opened up the section of the prison where she was killed. That was what set her free. Now she is killing again."
Green Valley Cemetary...
Dean and Sam watched the bones of the prison nurse go up in flames. Chris sat quietly on a gravel roadway behind a row of trees, just close enough to where she could see the glow of the fire.
She pondered absently how many people the Winchesters had saved over the years. Then she thought about how many they still had to save.
Then it hit her. Sam. Sam was supposed to die in May of 2007. The soldier, Jake, would stab him in the back. Dean...he would make that deal with the crossroads demon. Then a year of searching for Lilith with that demon bitch Ruby. Then hell, the breaking of the first seal, the apocalypse...
~Hell No.~ Chris thought to herself.
With their job done, the boys returned and they headed out of town. Chris had already made her decision. She had managed to convince them that she wasn't entirely crazy after her predictions about their current hunt. Come morning, she and the boys would have a long talk about their future.
"You have got to be kidding me."
Dean and Sam had been sitting in the Impala, talking to Chris, for the better part of 2 hours. It had taken that long for Chris to tell them everything she knew about what the future held for them. Although they still seemed to take everything she said with a huge grain of salt, they listened intently to everything she said. Especially after she mentioned Sam's death.
Dean had spoken first, unwilling to believe that he would lose his brother. He had already lost both his parents to the yellow-eyed demon. He would be damned if he lost his brother too. Sam was all he had left.
"This is totally FUBAR." Dean groaned. "First our lives turn int a bad Stephen King novel, complete with a car named "Christine", and now we have to not only kill the demon, he have to avoid dying, crossroad deals, and the frickin' end of the world?"
"Dean, chill. This is a good thing. However this happened, Chris knows what will happen to us. This is better intel than my visions can offer. Details, dates, names... With her help we can not only save a lot more people, but we can put an end to the demon once and for all. We might even be able to get dad out of hell!"
Both brothers knew that particular hope was a long shot at best, but John was their dad. And when it came to family, the Winchesters knew that a long shot was better than none at all.
"Ok, ok Sammy." Dean looked at the dashboard of his car. He still wasn't used to acually talking to his Impala. At least not in the sense that it actually talked back. "So...Chris. What exactly do we do?"
"Um..."
"Well?"
"How should I know? I just know that at some point next month, Sam will be kidnapped by Azazel. If he is, you can find him in Cold Oak, South Dakota. And under no circumstances are you to trust Ava or a soldier named Jake."
"Because they're both killers."
"Right."
"This isn't gonna be easy is it?"
"Nope."
Dean rested his hands on the steering wheel, the placed his forehead on top of them. Thoughts were racing through his mind...protect Sam, kill the demon, save the world, and don't get killed doing it. This situation, in his opinion totally sucked.
So he said, "Dude, this totally sucks."
He glanced at his brother, who was wearing one of his patented "bitchface" expressions. This was his "worried bitchface."
"I know Dean, but what choice have we got?"
The djinn hunt went without a hitch. Dean never even got caught by the thing thanks to Chris's warning. He hated to admit it, but he was starting to realize that she was pretty useful to have around. Plus, she actually seemed to know what she was talking about. It was nice for the good guys to catch a break for once. They had lost so much already. He already knew he couldn't survive losing Sam. When Chris had told him of the lengths he had gone to save Sam in that tv show she watched, he really wasn't that surprised. His father had done the same for him. At the time, he had been so angry at him. But now, when he thought about losing his brother, his only family... He knew all too well how easy it would be for him to make the same choice.
It wasn't long after that he and Sam pulled up next to a tiny little diner during a drenching storm. Dean was just about to send Sam out into the rain to get them some food before they continued on. After all, he was the big brother. It was the little brother's job to walk in the rain. If there was a rulebook for siblings, that would be rule # 12. Rule #1 of course would be..."The oldest is always right."
Dean loved being the oldest.
Before Sam could even get his hand on the door latch, Chris said "Stop!"
The two brothers looked at each other simultaneously, then at the dashboard. "What is it?" Sam asked.
Chris's voice was strained. The entire car vibrated slightly as a icy chill settled into Chris's metallic frame. "This is the place." She said.
Niether Winchester needed to ask what she meant.
_
Author's note - Please rate and review Comments and ideas are welcome cuz I'm kinda stuck here...