There'll be Peace When you are Done

By Ellen H.

Author's Note: Yes, this is a death fic, kinda. This is an attempt to postulate the end of the series (and yes, as much as we want it to go on and on, eventually the CW is going to pull the plug-I'm getting my mourning in early). In any event, let's face it, the likelihood of them ending up in nice houses with wives, 2.5 kids, a poodle, and a white picket fence are few, these are the Winchesters we're are talking about here. I own none of the characters portrayed herein, only the scenario in which they find themselves. Strangely this is from Dean's point of view. Not something I am actually comfortable with usually.

Chapter one-

The pain flared up, a searing burning pain that wasn't even close to the agony he had felt before on numerous occasions. It engulfed his whole body, cascading along every nerve ending like some giant wave. He could no longer remember what had caused the agony, or where it had started, it was simply all that he knew, all that it seemed like he had ever known….and then it was gone. The next thing he knew he was sitting in the seat of his baby, hands on the wheel, and feeling…fine.

He heard a sound to his right and looked that way to find Sam staring back at him with wide hazel eyes and a puzzled frown. He had to blink several times himself as he took in his little brother. Gone was the bleeding wound that he had seen on the left side of Sam's face, a lucky slash from a no doubt poisoned claw. Scanning down the gigantor body he noticed that the blood that had stained the green Carthart jacket both from the face wound and the freaking huge gaping hole that had been in his brother's right side were missing. In fact he looked clean and pressed, a far cry from the rumpled, dirty, bleeding mess that he had been only moments ago when he had backed up to Dean's back, holding that place against all comers in the little furball that they had been engaged in. As Dean was recalling that Sam reached out a hand and pulled back the leather jacket that Dean was wearing, and Dean looked down to see what his brother was looking at. Huh, what the hell?

The bullet wound in his upper left chest, the one that he was pretty sure involved a little lung puncture, was gone, as was the blood that had soaked into his shirts and the leather jacket. Also gone was the mud and other filth from their fight across the field to what he had assumed was their last stand. He looked down at his bots, and even they were practically pristine, something they hadn't been for a number of years. Okay, this was freaky. And speaking of freaky…

He notices again that his hands were on the wheel of his baby, something that hadn't been so for the last several months. Baby was stored in a secure storage up in South Dakota, a lot of miles and time from where they had been. And to add to that, she was perfect! He released the wheel to run one hand across the dashboard, the pristine dashboard. Gone were 30 years of coffee stains, nicks and scratches. Gone was the stain where a toddler same had thrown up the first time he had been allowed to sit in the front seat, gone were the splits from the ravages of the sun on the plastic. He shifted his gaze out the windshield, no longer pitted and hazed from long exposure to dirty roads and flying debris, to the hood, and saw an expanse of flawless black, the high glass as deep as the first moment that she had rolled off the assembly line so many years before.

He looked down at the seat, and saw unmarked leather. Gone were the scratches and stains that had marked the leather through the years, coffee, mud, dirt, and far more Winchester blood than was necessary. None of the stitching was coming loose, and that cigarette burn that had resulted in Dean getting his ass beat by his father when he was 16 was gone. It was as if she was brand new, not showing one day of the almost sixty years of hard driving that she had gone through.

"Dean!" His attention was draw again to his brother and he saw that Sam was looking into the back seat, mouth hanging open in shock. Before he turned he instinctively looked into the rear view mirror, and his eyes met a pair of familiar hazel eyes that he had not seen for far too many years. Eyes that were so like Sammy's, except for the shape, John Winchester's eyes. He jerked around and found himself looking into his father's face, almost.

It both was and wasn't John Winchester. Gone were the lines of pain and age that had carved themselves deeply into his face in over 22 years of hunting. Now the only lines were the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes, now crinkled with the open smile that curved his lips, a smile unlike anything Dean had seen since he had been four. Also gone was most of the grey in his dark hair, and the usually stubbled face was clean shaven. This was John Winchester as he would have been without the years of grief and death. Dean's eyes had hardly taken in that difference when his eyes were drawn to John's right, where a woman with blond hair sat close to his side, holding his hand.

Her eyes were a familiar green, just like those he saw in the mirror every day, though in shape they were more similar to Sam's. Her face was unlined and the blond hair hid only a few grey hairs. She was smiling gently at them both, with a touch of amusement in her eyes. Mary Winchester was as pretty now as Dean remembered her being when she leaned over that last night to tuck him into his bed.

"Well, are we just going to sit here for eternity, or are we gonna get this show on the road?" John said suddenly, breaking the spell that Dean had been under as he gazed at his parents. It was his commanding voice, the voice had been conditioned over the course of over twenty years to obey instantly, and he found himself turning back around in the seat, laughing in his head as he saw Sam doing the same next to him. His mind was whirling with shock, unable to even squeeze out any of the million questions that were in his mind. He reached for the key and twisted it. The engine turned over, purring in a way that he had never heard.

This was not the engine that had been rebuilt numerous times. That had been fixed at thousands of nameless motels, along hundreds of miles of empty roads. This was the powerful rumble of a new engine, sure of its power and ready to run. He looked over at Sam, whose head was turned toward the rear seat, a tentative smile on his face. As Dean looked around Sam shifted his eyes to him and their eyes locked.

In that moment Dean saw everything. He saw the fire sweeping through their home in Lawrence Kansas. He saw baby Sammy cradled in his arms as they sat on the hood of the Impala and watched their lives end. He saw thousands of shoddy hotel rooms and hundreds of cheap rentals in towns he no longer remembered. He saw two boys, one light, one dark chasing each other through fields, sparring, fighting. He watched as his brother's fiancé burned on a ceiling. He saw a semi plowing into the impala. He saw his father bargaining his life away with that yellow eyed SOB. He saw himself holding his brother's cooling body in the mud of a deserted city. He watched as the hell hounds dragged his soul to hell and he saw the years pass that he spent there. He saw an angel of the lord stalking through an old barn in a wrinkled trench coat. Once again he saw Lucifer rising from the pit, and he watched as his little brother dragged the bastard back down into it. He saw the lonely year he spent without Sam at his side and he saw the soulless version that had finally returned to him smiling as a vampire bit him. Their trip to old west passed before his eyes and he saw the mother of all as she succumbed to the phoenix ashes in his blood. Once again Castiel proclaimed himself god, and the leviathan took their opportunity to break free from purgatory. The litany didn't stop until he once more saw himself and Sam, back to back, both bleeding heavily, in that abandoned field surrounded on all sides, then it was gone, and he was staring into his brother's eyes.

Somehow he knew that Sam had just seen the same things he had. It was there somehow in those emo hazel eyes that were so familiar. All the pain, all the fear, all the death, it had all been there, but now….now it was all gone. It was as if that had all happened to someone else, and he had been watching some kind of accelerated movie of their life. Gone was the pain from old wounds, the emotional agony of years spent in hell, the bitterness of being unable to save everyone, the heart rending grief of friends and family lost to the fight. He felt…new. He felt good, and he could see in Sam's eyes that he was feeling it too. Slowly he felt a smile growing on his face, and saw an echoing one on Sammy's.

He took one hand off the wheel and reached toward the radio, flicking on the power. He was not in any way surprised when the song came on, and his grin grew as he pushed on the accelerator, heading out down the long winding road that he could suddenly see before them. The Winchester's were on the road again, all of them, together.

As the big black car drove off only the chorus of the song remained…

"Carry on my wayward son

There'll be peace when you are done.

Lay your weary head to rest.

Don't you cry no more."

The end

The song of course as I am sure you know is "Wayward Son" by Kansas. I have always felt that it was one of the best songs to represent both of the brothers.