A/N: okay so I don't own the rights to any of these people, though you know the usual; wish I did.
As always your comments are welcome, feedback wanted very much. I hope you like this it is a work in progress and I hope to do a chapter a week but I just started a new job so I may slack for the next few weeks.
All the best. From me.
Xoxo
It is our past decisions that make us who we are today. Though we shall never know our future selves, to know if these choices make us better men than we are now, we can only hope that no freak accident of nature should grant us the disservice of knowing what comes next.
Prologue
Rain poured from the heavens in thick grey sheets, the sky as black and uninviting as the deepest, darkest cavern the world had to offer. Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the skyline as the bolts crashed down to Earth; thunder roared as it chased the lightning through the night sky. The strong north wind howled as it blew through the ancient forest, shoving the thick branches aside and stripping the leaves from the bark, whipping them high into the air as it went.
Amidst the chaos of the storm all else was still and silent. No animals ran through the undergrowth seeking shelter, no adventurous hikers sought a protected spot to wait out the storm for the night.
The storm raged fierce and all consuming, threatening to rip trees from the ground, roots and all. In a small clearing, miles from any road and any sign of human life, a bolt of lightning struck the muddy ground hard, chunks of earth flying high into the air with the force of the strike.
Thick, white smoke slithered its way from the impact crater, rising high into the air and snaking its way towards the bright full moon that could only just been seen as the dark grey clouds shifted. A high-pitched whine filled the air, so loud that it would make ears bleed, should someone be unlucky enough to hear it.
Halting its climb towards the heavens, the white smoke began to swirl into loose circles, slowly pulling itself in tighter, and tighter, until it formed a ball of pulsing, hazy light; hovering six feet off the ground. The air around it shimmered and crackled, distorted by the heat that surrounded the small ball of light. The ground beneath the orb began shaking, mud sliding over rocks and tree roots.
As quickly as it had all started, it stopped. The high-pitched whine faded away, the ground stilling until all that remained in the still raging storm was the glowing orb as it continued to hover unassumingly surrounded by the darkness.
With one last long pulse, the ball of light exploded outwards in a solid wall of blinding, white light; pushing out through the forest, stretching out for miles before turning back on itself. As it contracted back to where the orb had been, it blinked out of existence, disappearing as though it had never existed.
A clap of thunder shot through the sky, illuminating the now dark clearing and two lone figures that stood where, until moments ago, the ball of light had been; the figures' shadows stretched up towards the heavens.
Gasping for air, the young women collapsed to the ground, her knees sinking into the mud as she doubled over, a shaky hand coming up to clutch at her frantically beating heart. Beside her, her travelling companion glanced down at the woman, a confused look on his boyish face.
"Come, we don't have much time," he said, his rough voice cutting through the deafening noise of the storm as it raged around them. Slowly, he turned away from her, his eyes darting around the small clearing; surveying the area in which they found themselves, looking for something that only he could see.
Groaning, the young women at his feet slowly pushed herself up, looking down at her mud covered clothes in disgust. "You couldn't have dropped me off at Disneyland or, I don't know, somewhere sunny?" she mumbled, as she slung over her shoulder the duffel that had fallen to the ground, forgotten in the agony of them both falling back to earth.
"Disneyland would have been too open, and it's night," he replied, his voice level, indicating his misunderstanding that she had posed a rhetorical question. Starting towards the tree line to the left of them, the man ignored the exasperated eye roll and the small smile that tugged at the young woman's lips as she quickly turned to follow after him, wiping her muddy hands on her wet jeans as her feet slid on the saturated ground.
She caught up with him before he could make it more than a few long strides into the thick wood. She laced her fingers through his, tugging him forward, smearing mud over the back of his hand, and marring his perfect skin. The wind whipped her long chestnut hair around her, as she moved, almost dancing through the forest; twisting and turning as if she could see obstacles long before she came upon them.
Her companion never questioned where they were going, he trusted that she would always lead him in the right direction; she knew that he would always follow her no matter what. Sighing, she turned sharply; pulling him to the left and to what, she hoped, was a road and somewhere she would be able to hitch a decent ride. She hoped for something old, a classic, just like her dad's had been.
The man spoke, his voice rough and monotonous. "Your destiny..." he began.
"Bullshit," she interrupted, yanking her hand free of his tight grasp, pulling away from him and disappearing into the shadows, as she had been taught all those years ago. "I really don't remember this being part of the deal because I'm damn well sure I wouldn't have agreed to this shit".
Frowning at the spot she into which she had disappeared, the man stopped, seemingly unbothered by the rain as it soaked into his already dark hair, running off his trench coat and dripping to the muddy ground. He felt confused by the anger in her voice. They had been over this a thousand times before, he had been sure she had understood why this needed to be done, why they needed her to do it.
"You must do this. If you don't, then there will be no hope…for any of us," he said. His voice soft, calming even. A rarity, she knew, when it came to him. His voice curled around her, soothing the panic she had begun to feel welling up inside of her. Despite his lack of humanity, he never failed to act the right way when it truly mattered, each rare occasion made her love for the older man grow that little bit more, each and every time.
He felt her presence before he saw her delicate frame slipping from the shadows to lean casually against a tree, just out of arm's reach, as if she did this sort of thing every day, as if it was normal for her and, he supposed, in a way it was.
Sighing, she looked at him with wide green eyes, silently judging him, weighing up her options. Her penetrating gaze never failed to make his skin itch, as if he could actually feel her hands on him. In those moments, he almost felt like caving in to all her suggestive comments and heated looks, through he would never admit it. His rules and boundaries were there for a reason, no matter how much it hurt to know that she would never truly be his.
"It's a good job God made your vessel pretty," she quipped, as she offered him her hand and jerked her head in the direction they had been heading, a sweet smile pulling up the corners of her full lips. With every step he took towards her, her green eyes darkened until they were as black as the night sky, her eye sockets becoming bottomless black pits of nothingness. "Come on," she said, "they're just a couple of miles up the road; I can feel the damn tension already."
Smiling, he laced his fingers through hers, pulling her slim body tight against his, and noticing the way she clung to him. Their bodies slotted together like well-used puzzle pieces.
Slowly, they moved apart and began to make their way through the forest again, never once letting go of one another, always touching in some way. They both knew the risks of being here, both knew what failing meant but, like most things in their lives, it needed to be done and it was down to them to fix things.
After what felt like days, but in reality was only a few hours, they stumbled out onto the side of an old-looking road that stretched on in both directions, disappearing into the trees. Gently slipping his hand from hers, the man turned to face his young travelling companion, gazing down at her with determination in his eyes.
"This is where I leave you," he said. "It is up to you now."
Sighing, she ran a shaky hand through her dripping hair, shoving it out of her face. "Jeez, no pressure then," she huffed, refusing to meet his gaze. Instead, she turned to look north, her black eyes seeing easily through the rain and trees, zeroing in on the faint pulse of the one thing for which she was willing to risk everything, including the small shred of happiness for which she had fought so hard and risked so much to protect.
She hoped she could do this. She knew she didn't really have that much of a choice in the matter but that wasn't important, not now anyway. She had been training for this moment her whole life, ever since she had started dreaming of a time that was not hers. Given how they both lived, it shouldn't seem like such an impossible task he was asking of her, yet the idea of him abandoning her in an alien place, after having his presence as the one constant in her life for the last twenty years, made her want to wrap her arms around him and dig her nails in, refusing to ever let go.
Sensing her apprehension, the man in front of her quickly sought to ease her troubled mind. Gently, he placed his hand under her chin, using the slightest pressure to turn her head back to face him. As their gazes met, the blackness of her eyes started to recede until they were once again a deep, emerald green.
She seemed so lost and scared as she looked up at him, waiting for him to brush all her troubles aside. She looked so much like the little girl he had first met, all those years ago, standing in the doorway of the place she called home; watching her terrified parents pack up everything that they thought a necessity before they disappeared into the night, leaving him to watch over their most precious possession.
Just like that heartbreaking night, the man pulled her into his arms and wrapped her in a tight embrace. However, this time he didn't promise that everything would be fine because he knew it was something he would never be able to guarantee, not with everything that had happened and could still happen. It was all down to her whether or not they made it back and whether or not the place to which they returned was the home it had once been or whether it would continue to be the barren wasteland it now was. It was her job to save them, even if she didn't want it to be. As much as she tried to fight it, it had to be her, always.
Sighing, she sucked in a deep breath to surround herself with his scent, as she savoured the feel of his body against hers, knowing that, once she left, she would never experience this again, unless she completed her seemingly hopeless task.
Pulling back just enough so she could take one last look at the man in front of her, she tried her best to act as normal as she could. She flashed him her most seductive smile, the one that always managed to get her what she wanted, whether she was asking for a kiss or your soul. The one he always told her off for using on the young men at church.
Frowning disapprovingly down at her, her companion shook his head slightly in disbelief, though he could feel his heart swelling with gratitude at the small mercy she was offering him. He was glad that the last thing he would see of her would be her smiling face, her green eyes sparkling with the mix of lust, love, and mischief that he was so used to seeing, because if she failed this would be the last moment he ever had with her; his last chance to tell her.
Leaning forward, the man sealed his lips over hers in a chaste kiss, his hand slipped from under her chin to cup her cheek in a tender gesture of love that he had seen his brother make a thousand times before and which had always left her smiling so sweetly.
Her lips were soft and moved with a well-practiced ease against his clumsy and inexperienced ones, something that both gladdened and disappointed him. Kissing her was something he had imagined doing for so long but had always denied himself. However, now that he had her for only a few moments more, and could feel her hot breath on his lips, he understood why humans were always striving for physical connection; why it meant so much to them to feel someone else's arms surrounding them.
Pushing his lips a little harder against hers, he wished they could stay this way a little longer. He wished that this was the only moment that mattered in the world and that this wasn't their first kiss and their last kiss goodbye all rolled into one.
But, all too quickly, she was pulling away from him as the sound of a car engine reached their ears, cutting through the noise of the rain. Reluctantly, he let his hand fall from her cheek and took a step back into the shadow of the woods just as she stepped away, out onto the road, to get the driver's attention.
Her companion already missed the heat that had radiated from her body and seeped into his, soothing the guilt and self-hatred that tainted his thoughts and made him second-guess every decision.
Neither of them said a word but they held each other's gaze, saying their goodbyes in the only way they had ever known. Everything that had gone unspoken between them over the years hung in the air, threatening to break from whoever proved to be weakest first.
The car's tyres screeched on the wet surface of the road as the driver hit the brakes, desperately trying to avoid hitting the young women who had stepped out into the middle of the road. Her hidden companion watched with a mixture of pride and guilt as the young women slipped into character as effortlessly as she breathed, spouting apologies and excuses. He had made her that way.
The young driver leaned across the passenger seat to get a better look at the rain-saturated woman. Leaning against the car's door, she fed him a false story, telling him that she had been hiking when the storm hit, that she had gotten lost and just needed a ride to the nearest motel. The driver didn't seem to notice she was wearing cowboy boots or that she looked like she had just stumbled out of a rock concert, his eyes were firmly rooted to her chest.
The young man nodded eagerly, pulling on the door's handle so that it swung open, creaking slightly. Thanking him, she flashed him her most charming smile - the smile that never failed to make all the boys bend to her will, her travelling companion included - before she slipped into the passenger seat slamming the door behind her. As quickly as the car had come round one corner it was speeding off around the next, disappearing from sight. And, just like that, she was gone.
One step closer to her destiny and already more than a hundred away from him because it didn't matter if she was successful, or if she failed, for she would be changing the future one way or another and there was no guarantee she would be going home to him, at least not the version of him she had spent her life with anyway. That is, if she made it home at all.
The man knew well what happened to people who got too close to the Winchesters. It was possible to count on one hand the number of people who had survived to tell the tale and, thanks to magic or post-traumatic stress, only half of them could even remember ever meeting the Winchesters in the first place. And here he stood, having just sent the one person he cared for, more than life itself, to get as close to them as possible.
Turning his back on the long stretch of road, he began the long trek back into the woods, truly alone for the first time in years. His heart sank with every step he took, loss and regret weighing heavy within his very core. He really should have told her that he loved her, now she would never know.