So we're less than 5 weeks from the season premiere, still no trailer, and it's driving me just a bit crazy. So I present to you the second semi-speculative fic I've written so far, this time more in the direct aftermath of 13x23, so spoilers are ahead. Let me know what you think, I'd really appreciate it! :)
I don't own anything SPN related. If I did, we'd at least have a poster...or something by now for the new season, come on CW!
Sam gives himself twelve hours. He gets Jack back to the bunker, helps Cas fix him up, fills everyone in on what happened, and devises a plan to find Michael and get Dean back. For twelve hours, he and Cas and Mary and Bobby and a few other remaining hunters scour cameras with their computers. It was very late at night when they got back to the bunker, probably earlier morning, and they work through what remains of the night until they'd see lights outside if the bunker had windows. They flip through lore books, consult tracking spells, try to get into satellite images, and keep an eye out for any unsettling news developments of mass 'cleansings'.
There's nothing.
Not that Sam had expected anything, but he had been hoping for something. Maybe they'd have a leg up because Michael had forgotten how to navigate a world with technology and cameras everywhere. Sam should've known they'd never be that lucky.
They start putting out police APBs next to cops and sheriffs they can trust to not shoot Dean on site. That's when Sam starts to crumble. The twelve hours of intense autopilot, of not processing what happened, of trying to find Dean as soon as possible before things start going worse than they already have, slowly comes to a close as his fingers hover over one of the sheriffs on his contact list.
When he excuses himself, nobody bats an eye. They'd all been going for hours, and had probably been waiting for him to step away, to start to break down just a little, to start to show some sign of how much this is killing him inside. No one follows him, which he's grateful for, and he closes the door to his room the moment he gets in, even though it's claustrophobic inside.
Nothing against the people outside, but he doesn't know half of them. And while they understand what it's like to lose loved ones, they don't understand what it's like to lose to this degree, and Sam's not about to share that outside the confines of his own room, let alone his slowly diminishing family unit.
He presses the call button over Jody's number and holds the phone up to his ear. Dean was the last person to talk to her. He told her about how Lucifer had taken Jack. Had he said anything else? What were his last words to the woman they'd grown so close to? How on earth could Sam even begin to describe what had happened a mere twelve hours ago? How could he vocalize what he hadn't even accepted internally? How could-
"Sam?"
Jody had picked up the phone, and had evidently been trying to get his attention for a few seconds. Sam sat down on the edge of his bed, not memory foam like Dean's, but bigger than Dean's so that his feet wouldn't hang off, Dean had made sure of that.
"Hey, Jody." It's marred with a sad smile that quickly falls from his features. There's no skating around it, no euphemisms that he can give to make it sound better, no assurances that they'll find Dean and the evil archangel riding shotgun before it's too late.
His brother killed the devil after getting possessed by a different crazy, murderous archangel, that then stole his body and rode off into the sunset without a trail behind him for Sam to follow. That's it.
"Hey, Sam," she replies in a similar fashion. There's a beat of silence. "What happened?" It's measured and careful, and unlike the hurried briefing he had given earlier, filled with questions he had no answers to, her voice promises to listen. Sam's said two words, and Jody already knows that something is wrong.
He starts to crumble, but he doesn't cave. He can't. Not with so much riding on his shoulders. Dean wouldn't cave if their positions were reversed.
He tells her everything, well, pretty much everything. Some of the background is still missing, but he fills her in on the other universe, how they got Jack back, how Lucifer's finally dead, and how he should be grateful and elated over that fact. He was, for a split second, before the devil's crazy alternate universe brother decided to body-hop Dean.
But Sam stops before he tells her that. He stops at Lucifer's dead, and he's glad for it, and he pauses.
"Sam? Where's Dean?" Jody finally asks after the silence begins to drag on. It's not forceful, it's as caring as she can manage, and it comes across through three hundred miles and a phone connection as clear as it would have if she were sitting right next to him. She cares about Dean too, but she also knows the bond the brothers share.
"Michael took control, he flew off," Sam cuts out sharply. He doesn't explain how his brother's features morphed to accommodate the angel. He doesn't explain how Dean's tone of voice was all wrong, or how he didn't even look at Sam and Jack before he left or how cold everything about him seemed in the three seconds Sam was around him. "We've been looking, but there's nothing. Just thought I should…uh…fill you in, you can take down the other APB. Maybe put out a new one, but don't engage, just…call if anyone spots him."
Jody coughs slightly on the other end of the line, and when she comes back on, there's a seriousness in her voice. "We'll find him, Sam, before anything happens."
"I can't lose him, Jody," it comes out quickly, the admission he's been holding in his chest for the past twelve hours and counting. "Not after everything, not after he said no to Michael almost a decade ago."
That's how long they've been plagued with all this apocalypse crap, going on ten years of literal hell, archangels, torture, you name it. Another world's Michael doesn't get to do what their own world's couldn't, and certainly not with Sam's brother.
"You won't," Jody assures, for both of them. "Everything you two have been through together, I bet you he's fighting tooth and nail to kick that sorry asshole out of his body. We'll find them, and Michael will pay."
Sam wants nothing more than to do just that, but they actually have to find him first. Maybe thinking they'd have it solved in twelve hours is a bit hopeful, but he doesn't like giving Michael any more of a head start. Maybe in another twelve they'll have something to go on.
"We will," Sam says and tries to nod, but doubts get in the way of his actually believing it.
"You take care of yourself, alright, Sam?"
He affirms that he will and promises to call with updates, and she does the same.
When the phone clicks off, there's just silence in the room. Sam takes a few breaths to collect himself, and considers going back outside to where the others are working. They've probably taken a break, they deserve one. Sam should take one too, he knows it, but the clock keeps ticking in his head, every minute another soul Michael could be taking while Dean's a helpless passenger.
He pulls out his laptop and gets to work. His fingers over the keys fill up the silence, and when that does no good, book pages fly back and forth. Mary comes in with a sandwich and some water later without saying a word, and neither does Sam, and the sandwich sits forgotten on his nightstand.
Hours pass, and still nothing. The timer in his head goes to almost twenty hours, almost a full day of no leads, no signs, no nothing. What if one day stretches to two, three, a week? Instead of finding Dean with black eyes, his green ones will be filled with a harsh blue light that isn't his own, and that's much scarier than no light at all.
A slight tap at his door distracts him ever so slightly on the tracking spell he's been reading through, and he looks up. His neck is stiff and sore from being hunched over so long, but he doesn't pay much mind to it.
"Yeah?" he answers loud enough to be heard, and the door opens.
Cas stands on the other side, looking about as tired as Sam probably does, and just as worried. "This is not directly related to Dean, but it is a development, I thought I should show her where your room was so she didn't get lost."
Sam gets up from the bed and looks at Cas quizzically. "What are you talking about?"
Cas opens the door just a little further, and there stands Jody. She's in a typical jacket and plaid shirt, and she looks tired, despite it being only early night. It takes a moment to register in Sam's head that Jody is standing in front of him, meaning she had to have driven over from Sioux Falls. And given the time, she probably left not long after their phone call, six hours being about the drive time.
"Jody?" he says quietly, not quite connecting why she's here physically.
"Figured I should probably meet this angel you boys are always talking about," Jody jerks a hand towards Cas and smiles just a bit. Cas returns the gesture, and excuses himself to go check on the others. "And I thought a drop by couldn't hurt."
She came all the way to see them, to check up on them, to probably get more information on Dean. Sam knows she cares, it's grown over the years, and this just cements how much.
"You didn't have to…it's a long drive…would've called." His words are a bit disconnected.
"I know, but still. Finished the work week, things are quiet, I can take a break to get all hands on deck for my two days off," Jody shrugs back. "I'm not about to sit at home and watch rom-coms when someone needs help." She doesn't specify if that someone is Dean or Sam, but he gets the feeling it's a mix of everyone in this totally screwed up and stressful scenario.
"Jody, I don't know what to…thanks," Sam eventually just smiles because he is grateful. Really, truly, honestly grateful, not just for the extra hand, but for someone else that actually has an inkling as to what this situation means for Sam. Cas gets it, not in the precisely human terms, but as much as he can, which is a lot.
Aside from Cas, there's not really anyone that…understands. Jack needs some taking care of himself, but Sam knows that he'll be helping the effort as well. Mary tries, he knows, and he doesn't hold it against her, but they've barely seen her a few weeks since she was resurrected, and that's not much time to understand the bond her sons have developed over years of losing each other and losing everyone else.
But Jody, she gets it. Less than Cas, but still. She's been there, through the apocalypse, through losing Bobby, through Sam losing Dean to the black eyes years back. She may not have been on the front lines, but she was always an option, and now she's here to help, and that's all they can ask for. Hell, she showed up without being asked because she felt she could be needed.
"No need for thanks, happy to help, Sam, always," she affirms it with a nod. "Even if it doesn't happen in the two days I'm here, we'll get him back." It's different than it was on the phone, and Sam can't quite pinpoint why. It's everything everyone's been thinking and hoping for the past day, but hearing it again, from someone who gets it…
Sam drops his head as tears burn his eyes, and he curses himself. There isn't time for breakdowns, Jody's here to help, he should fill her in on everything they've been looking for, ask her what she could do from her end, introduce her to people, gosh did she run into Bobby on the way through the bunker?, maybe give her a book or two-
That's as far as his frantic, semi sleep-deprived mind gets before she takes a few steps forward and wraps him in a hug. He unconsciously leans down so it's easier for her, and returns the gesture. It it's possible, the tightness that had settled in his chest begins to ease ever so slightly.
When they pull back, she's looking at him worriedly, like she can see right through the facade that's been keeping him going.
"First, you're going to eat, and get some sleep. Six hours, alright, we'll let you know if anything pops up," she says, but it's clear from her tone that this isn't an argument. She came here to help, and this is one of the ways she's going to do it. "Dean wouldn't want you running yourself ragged, Castiel and Mary are both worried, and I'd like to make sure that one of the boys is less worse for wear. Put all of our minds at ease?"
Sam doesn't have any choice but to nod. He's been up for at least a day and a half already, and now that he's taken a slight break from reading, he notices a headache beginning to form. Sleeping for a few hours, or looking at more dead-end spells while everyone worries? There's not much of a choice there. Jody came all the way over, the least he can do is let her do what she came here to.
"Alright," he agrees quietly, and Jody looks relieved that she didn't have to put up much of a fight.
"If I come back in half an hour and see lights on, we'll have a problem," Jody jokingly threatens, and Sam doesn't doubt that there's some truth behind it.
A ghost of a smirk appears on his lips. "Understood."
Jody nods at that and takes a few steps back, pausing for a few moments in the doorway. "Night, Sam," she says softly and closes the door behind her, returning the room to its original state.
Dean may be gone, but that doesn't mean that there's no one watching out for him, he just has to remind himself of that. There are still people that care enough to fight to get his brother back with him, and it's only fair to them, and Dean too, that he attempt to take care of himself just a little in the process.
So he eats what Mary left him, marks the pages in his books, shuts off his laptop, turns out the lights, and crawls into bed. They'll get Dean back and deal with Michael, but Sam shuts his eyes knowing that at least for the moment, there's less evil in the world. Sam falls asleep soon after, for once not worrying about Dean, but knowing that his older brother, both of them actually, as Dean had said, had killed the devil for good this time.