Author's Notes: Set months after Sam left for Stanford, and assuming that John left Dean with his own hunts right after Sam left.
Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own 'em, though I wish I did.
Summary: Abe, a 27-year old hunter stranded in the past, meets 22-year old Dean Winchester. After being stuck together for eleven days, Abe prepares to go back to his time. But because of an unexpected attack from a black dog, things don't go exactly as planned.
Hope
Chapter One
June 21, 2001
12:00 PM
"Dean, wait."
He stopped walking, then he turned around to face me, raised his brows and waited. I bit my lip, kind of afraid of the consequences of what I'm about to do. I shook my head, trying to ignore the pressure, trying to stop thinking about the endless possibilities, of the kind of failure and destruction my actions could cause. And then I remember.
I remember those too few days I've been hunting alongside this boy. How every moment of it made me feel as if I'm living my life for the first time. How, no matter how rough or unorthodox his actions are, the intentions behind them are always, always uncorrupted. No matter how much he's lost, how much he knows he'll lose, he continues. He continues to hunt not for himself, but because he believes in saving people. It's ironic, because no matter how much he disbelieves in the existence of goodness out there, of all the people I've met, he has continued to prove the limitless possibility of it inside of all of us.
Always impatient, he voiced out, "Dude, it's gonna close soon, you know!"
Taking a deep breath, I hoped to God I was doing the right thing.
Looking straight at twenty-two year old Dean Winchester, I said, "Thirteen years from now, you're going to hunt--,"
Immediately, he shook his head, frowning as he yelled, "You can't! Remember? You can't tell me anything about the future! Who knows what effects or chain of events this will set off? It could end the world--,"
"It doesn't matter! The world is already ending where I come from."
He stops, frown getting deeper by each revelation. "Why are you telling me this? I can't--,"
"Yes you can!" I insisted. In the loud rumble of the portal beginning to close, I yelled, "I know you can! If it's you... if it's you, I'm sure. It's possible. You can change it, Dean! You can!"
Surprised and confused, he yelled back, "What difference would one person make?! Just go! I can't hear this! I won't! What's gonna happen will happen. Now, come on! It's gonna close!"
"No, Dean!" stubbornly, I stayed where I was, looking at him seriously, desperately, trying to make him see that this was important. "You have to listen! I won't go back if you won't listen to me!"
It was his compassion and kindness and willingness to sacrifice himself that made him different, special, from everyone else. No one I had met had the same capacity to love as he did. He doesn't deserve to die, didn't deserve to die, without the world knowing who he is and what he's done. I couldn't let it happen, now that I knew, now that I have that chance. Dean could be just one person, and one person couldn't possibly stop the world from ending but, but sometimes, sometimes one person could create a ripple of movement. Sometimes, one drop could cause a great wave of change. And I'm willing to bet, bet my entire life on it, that if anyone could do it, it would be him.
"Abe, just go! No one can change the future, you said it yourself! Now just go!"
I shook my head, and, knowing the time I had left was coming up short, I ignored his protests and yelled, "Thirteen years from now, you're going to die!" His eyes widened at the news, but before he could tell me to stop, I continued, "You're going to hunt something, Dean. You and your brother. It's gonna be a haunting, in a school. You're gonna dispel the spirit, you're gonna walk out of that school without so much as a scratch. But then as you run back to the Impala without anyone noticing, an explosion's gonna come from the third floor. You and Sam, you're gonna go running back, run towards the school even as kids and teachers and everyone else are running outside. You're gonna try and save as many as you can. And you will save many, you're gonna be able to save them all. All, except one." I looked at him, straight in the eyes and said, "You aren't gonna make it out, Dean. The walls are gonna crumble and you're gonna get stuck in the room on the highest floor with a hysterical twenty year old kid who isn't gonna help you one bit. You're gonna try to calm him down but you won't succeed. You're gonna get a chair, break the window and you're gonna look out and you're gonna call for help. The fire brigade hasn't come yet and you know you're running out of time. So you yell at your brother, at Sam," if Dean was surprised I knew his brother, he didn't react. He stood there, listening to me, although the frown on his face never left. He still didn't think this a good idea. "You tell him to get the tarp at the trunk of your car, tell him to spread it out, that you and the kid are gonna jump and that he should catch them or else. Sam's gonna get the tarp in no time, gonna be able to spread it with the help of other teachers in a heartbeat.
"But it's not gonna be fast enough. As you get ready, another explosion's gonna rock the school. And because it's an old school and crumbling... it's gonna start to collapse. You're gonna realize it's happening, but the kid doesn't. He's gonna stall and he's gonna whine so you decide to bodily force him out. He's gonna get out safe. And when you prepare to jump, you won't be able to. The school will collapse before you do. And you die. You die there, Dean."
Seeing the portal steadily decreasing in size, I studied his face, hoping he had caught every rambling word I said. After a second, he took a deep breath, like he was trying to come to terms with everything, and asked, "What do you want me to do?"
Immediately, I answered, "Not to die! To live and meet people and let them know that you exist, that someone like you exists and make them realize that the world isn't hopeless, that the world could, and should, be saved. You instill hope in people, Dean. The world needs that! You need to--,"
"Abe, you've got the wrong person. I'm not--,"
"Bullshit! Try saying that to the people you've met, the people you've changed, the same people I've met who wouldn't take it when someone disses your name. The same people who, when asked, fondly remembers your escapades and great adventures and how, each and every time, you lived up to who you were--are. I've never seen it before, never understood why hunters talk about you with so much awe and reverence, never understood why they felt that your death was kind of like the world ending. You should hear them, Dean. If you hear them talk about you--God! They talk on and on and on. And always, in the end, you could hear the sadness in their voice. And sometimes, sometimes you hear hope laced a little in there, too, as if remembering what you've done gives them a little more energy, a little more drive to keep on moving forward." I paused, gave him time to take it all in, remembering stories from Sam about his older brother, how unused he was to hearing anyone compliment him, how he'd constantly brush them off as if they weren't true.
Behind me, the portal was the size of a door, barely larger than I was. I knew I had to hurry, if I didn't, it would be years before the portal opens again. Worried, I looked at him, only a few yards away from me, hoping to hear him say that he'd remember what I told him and that he'd stay alive.
I never did get to hear his confirmation. Because suddenly, behind him, that black dog we had been hunting, the one that always evaded us, appeared. It was advancing steadily towards him. Slowly, I saw Dean turn around, shoulders tense, knowing that he had no chance of battling it out with the dog. After all, the only reason he came here was to see me off, the gun he and I had didn't have silver bullets in them. Plus, it was friggin' in the middle of the day! In my life, I've never seen or heard of a black dog attacking in daylight. Then again, the eclipse could be the cause of it all.
Dean took a cautious step back, eyes never leaving the black dog. Step by cautious step, he edged away, preparing to run like hell the moment he could. When he was an arm's length from me, he caught my eye, winked, then, without warning, pushed me inside the portal.
In my mind, everything had gone in slow motion. Stumbling back in to the portal, I saw that the dog had started running towards us, towards him. I saw its teeth, glinting like knives in the dim light, saw its eyes glowing an eerie light, focused on the twenty-two year old beside me. Instincts kicking in, I scrambled to stay upright, to not fall back. So I reached out, caught Dean's sleeve, then pulled. As I was bigger, taller, older than he was, he stumbled, quickly turned to look at me, and I saw the panic in his eyes.
That was when I realized that we were both falling into the portal--the one that would take me to my time, twenty years from now. At that time, I knew that I still could have let him go, let him regain his balance so that he wouldn't fall into the portal with me. But I couldn't. Not with the dog there, not if it could mean that the boy could die. In the less than two weeks I had been with the kid, I knew I couldn't just leave him behind. Especially now, because I had a chance not to.
So I pulled harder and he crashed into me. Wrapping one arm securely around his chest, I let us fall back towards my time, twenty whole years into his future.