Protect The Island

Set directly after 5.16. I recently watched an episode of Lost in which Jacob and the Man in Black make appearances in Richard's past...and when they were talking I couldn't help but think 'Wow, the Winchesters REALLY need to watch this, after that episode. And thank God for Becky because she started bouncing in my head screaming 'Let me tell them!'. So she did. This is random, drabblish, and probably written while I was high. It took me less than half an hour to spew this out. So...enjoy!

This is not a cross-over. And yes, Sam is incredibly bitter. Whatever, it's four thirty in the morning for him and he's talking to a really annoying fangirl after he just got back from Heaven. He's not in the best of moods.

Sam sighed heavily, running a hand over his face in an attempt to swipe away the sleep gathered at his eyes, as his cell phone rang off loud and shrill in the dank, depressing silence of the motel room, currently inhabited by…just him. Figures. After Dean had to come to grips with the fact that God doesn't care anymore? Yeah…Sam knew where his brother was. At a bar, trying to drown his sorrows in alcohol.

Sam knew from experience that got you shit except for a headache in the morning.

Still, the younger Winchester sighed, hauled himself to a sitting position and searched with a blind hand around for his phone, closing over the device and pressing 'accept' on the call, without bothering to check ID. Knowing his luck it would be the freaking Devil calling, but the son of a bitch just popped into his dreams when he wanted a good old chat. Maybe it was Dean drunkenly slurring to either not wait up for him (like Sam was going to) or to come pick him up, which was stupid because Dean had taken the Impala and Sam had no clue where his brother could be.

He was thinking way too lucidly for being so tired.

"Hello?" he mumbled into the phone, rubbing another hand over his face before he squinted tiredly at the time flashing in the bottom right corner of the motel room's TV. Four thirty in the morning. Fan-fucking-tastic.

"Sam?" Oh God, he knew that voice. If the creepy stalkerish hyperventilating hadn't clued him in already. Becky. "Listen, Chuck just told me about his latest vision –." At four thirty in the morning? Score for Chuck. "And I think I might have a solution. Are you on your laptop?"

What? "No, Becky, I was sleeping."

"Sleep is for the dead, Sam!" Becky replied harshly, reminding Sam way too much in that one moment of Dean. The younger brother had to swallow back his sudden need to cry. Damn it… "Come on, get online! There's something I need to show you!"

"Fine, fine," Sam muttered, unwilling to argue and knowing that if he just hung up, he'd get Becky calling back again and again and a-fucking-gain until he did what he was told. He shoved out of the bed and padded over to his laptop, which was luckily only sleeping. A few seconds later he had a window open. "Now what am I seeing?"

"Check your email." Again, Sam obeyed without question, unwilling to face the fact that not only did Sam apparently have email, but that Becky knew how to send it to him – the only account he'd ever had he'd created whilst at Stanford. The stalker tendencies of fangirls will never cease to amaze him.

Sure enough, at the top was a new email from Becky. There wasn't an actual message, just a link to youtube in the 'subject' section, which Sam dutifully followed. What greeted him once the video loaded was a screen-shot of…Holy shit…

"Is that Lucifer's vessel?" he exclaimed, shocked.

Becky sighed impatiently. "No. I checked. He's some actor. Look, you need to watch the clips. I mashed them all together just for you. I think it's important that you, and Dean, and definitely Castiel see it. I think it'll help."

"Uh…thanks, Becky. I'll call you back," Sam said, hanging up the call quickly before he pressed 'Play', more than a little curious as to what she might have sent him, to fix their 'God' problem.

The Lucifer-vessel doppelganger was speaking to some guy who looked like he really needed some spa treatment, on a beach outside the ruin of a statue;

"Imagine that this wine is what you keep calling hell. There are other names for it. Malevolence. Evil. Darkness. And it's all down here swirling at the bottom. Unable to get out, because if it did it would spread. Now, the cork is this Island." The man paused, corking the bottle of wine. "And it's the only thing keeping the darkness where it belongs.

There was a brief flash of nothing, obviously where Becky had cut and pasted the video together;

The man that wasn't Lucifer spoke: And there were other people here before me?

"Yes, many."

"… What happened to them?"

"They're all dead."

"If you brought them here, why didn't you help them?"

"I wanted them to help themselves. To know the difference between right and wrong without me telling them. It's all useless if I have to make them do anything. Why should I have to step in?"

"If you don't he will."

At this point Becky had paused the clip, putting up a picture of some guy wearing black. He was unassuming, aged, with pale green eyes and graying hair. She pasted a label over him: 'The Man in Black. Black smoke. Personification of Evil.'

Then it continued, the Lucifer doppelganger sitting on a log with the Man in Black, looking over to the other;

"So you tried to kill me."

"You expect an apology?"

"I'd just like to know why you did it."

"Because I want to leave. Just let me leave, Jacob."

"As long as I'm still alive, you're not going anywhere."

"Then now you know why I want to kill you. And I will kill you, Jacob."

"Someone else will take my place."

"Well, then I'll kill them too."

The clip ended then, with a few words scrolling up the screen – disclaimers and all that. Sam frowned, sitting back on the chair, before almost on cue his phone began to ring again. He sighed and picked up. "Yeah? Becky? I just watched it…I'm not really sure what you're trying to tell me, here."

Becky sighed again, impatiently. "Don't you get it? You, Sam…You and Dean and Castiel are the cork. If you break apart, then evil will flood the world. We will all go to Hell, like it says at the end of the episode. The Black Smoke cannot leave the Island, so to speak. You can't stop believing in God, Sam, otherwise you'll fall and we'll all die. God brought us here, just like Jacob brought people to the Island, and he wants people to choose right from wrong by themselves. He shouldn't have to intercede, but he has representatives like you and Dean to kill the bad guys and keep the Island safe from the Black Smoke. If you fall then it's all over. And the Black Smoke will never stop trying to leave, so you have to be ever-vigilant, otherwise we're all going to die. Dean can't lose faith now. Jacob is actually dead by that point in the series, Sam. Jacob – or God – is dead. At least they all thought he was. But don't you see? He isn't…he's still watching, just like Hurley can still talk to him occasionally. Hurley is like Joshua…he does care…he just can't help anymore. He has to rely on people like you and Richard to defend the Island because he is no longer able to."

There was a breath – the second she'd taken in that entire speech – before she spoke again. "Do you understand?"

Well…no, he didn't really, but he took a deep breath for her sake. "Yeah…I guess I do, Becky. Thanks, that's really helpful." He could practically hear her preening. "Thanks, Becky."

"Always, Sam." She hung up shortly after that. Sam sighed heavily, turning around in his chair and almost jumped ten feet in the air when he found Castiel standing there, looking at his with his head cocked in that classic tilt that was always a 'watching the humans' pose that Sam had learned to accept.

"Um…Cas? What's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong, Sam," Castiel replied, and Sam swore than if he didn't know better, he would have thought Castiel was smiling. "That young woman is much smarter than I gave her credit for. I think under different circumstances we would be great friends."

"Um…Cas? What are you talking about?"

The angel shook his head, still with that odd almost-smile on his face. "It doesn't matter. Listen…I need you to keep this with you, alright? Give it to Dean when he has come to the same revelation that I have." Castiel stepped forward, pressing a cold metallic object into Sam's hand. The young hunter had barely registered what he was holding before there was a flapping of wings, and Castiel was gone.

"Son of a…" Sam shook his head, smiling a little. He felt lighter than he had since he'd returned from Heaven, a lot lighter, actually. Cradling the gentle weight in his palm, he looked down at the charm he'd given Dean when he was a little kid, the charm Dean had thrown away. Castiel had kept it, and now it was Sam's turn, until his brother wanted it back. Sam would carry it with him until that time came.

After all, they were the cork, right?

They couldn't fall apart now.

A long way away, an old man stretched up from his work in the rice patty fields and smiled widely, looking up the Heavens. The whispers of his children floated down to him, and he nodded his head, pursing his lips in thought.

Fangirls, he thought. My greatest invention ever.

Author's Note: I realize that I may have inadvertantly bashed something in here...I don't know something about Becky's speech makes me think I'm making fun of someone, somewhere. I'm not sure. Anyway I apologize if that did happen.

Anyway, review or not, please. This wasn't a thing I did for feedback. I just...I don't know. I wanted to think that if no one else noticed it, then I wanted to at least put it out there. I just had to get this done before the next episode of Supernatural comes out (tomorrow, YAY)

Much loves,

HigherMagic x