Thank you so much Jenjoremy for all you've done for me and this story. You're the best. Thank you Gredelina1 for supporting me. Thank you all for giving this story a chance xxx

Early Happy Thanksgiving for all my US readers. Here in the UK we're thankful to you for the gift that is Black Friday. I've already got my bargains picked out ;-)

Chapter Two

Sam's fingers loosened, and the directory slipped from his hand to dangle from the shelf. He backed out of the booth and looked around him. The cars and the dated visage of the store mocked him with the reality of his situation. He was really here still. This wasn't some kind of nightmare. He was trapped in 1978 without his brother.

The thought tried to overwhelm him, to drown him in horror, but he couldn't let it. He had to hang on to himself if he was going to get home. He could react to and make sense of what Michael had done when he was back with Dean, Bobby and Castiel.

Castiel! That was who he needed. Castiel would get him home.

"Cas," he called. "It's me, Sam. Michael has done something to me. I'm in '78 still, and I have no idea how to get back."

He waited, heart beating hard, for the sound of an angel's arrival, but there was nothing. It took him a moment of pushing down the weight of defeat to realize there could be nothing. Castiel couldn't find him anymore. He had the sigils on his ribs that hid him from angels' senses.

Defeat rushed up again. It was like his mind wanted to give in already. The truth of his situation was fighting to beat him down. His heart was stronger though, He needed to be with Dean and the others, and losing himself to despair was not going to help that. He had to stay strong.

Castiel couldn't find him, so he had to find Castiel. They'd left him in Lawrence in that hotel. He had been pretty wrecked when they'd left him, but perhaps he would have had a chance to recover. If not, Sam could wait until he had, and then they could get back to 2010 together. To hell with Michael, Sam was getting back to his family.

He broke his situation down into facts. He was in New Mexico so, depending on the part of the state he was in, he was around a half-day's drive away from Lawrence. He needed a car and some cash for gas.

He looked down at his shirt and saw the bloodstains and tears from his dual stabbings. He couldn't be seen like this. He checked the jacket and saw it was unmarred apart from a small stain of blood that had darkened to black. He zipped it closed, thinking the mark could be explained away as a coffee spill if anyone asked. He hoped no one would ask.

The car posed no problem as he was in a parking lot, but he would have preferred to have a set of keys to simplify the situation. He looked at the store to his right and weighed up the sense of rolling it. He had his knife.

He disregarded the idea when he thought about his location in time. A clerk in 1978 was likely to be armed when handling cash at night without the other security means of the future. He didn't want to put his invulnerability to test by bullet. He would wait until someone came out.

He ducked into the shadows beside a dumpster and waited. Just a few minutes later he heard a door open and footsteps approaching. A man was whistling a tune as he walked to his car, a pale blue Lincoln, with a sack of groceries in his arms.

As Sam stepped out of the shadows, the man looked startled. He was middle-aged and smartly dressed, well to do, a good match for the car he was approaching.

"Can I help you?" he asked politely.

Sam grimaced guiltily as he walked towards the man with his hand outstretched. "Keys."

"Excuse me?"

"Give me your keys, walk away, and I won't hurt you."

"You're not going to hurt me, son," the man said. "But if you need a ride…"

Feeling like an asshole, Sam took another step towards him and pulled his knife from his pocket where he had stowed it. He flipped it open and lifted it so it caught the dim light of the store's window.

The paper sack dropped to the ground as the man's hands flew up in front of him. "There's no need for violence," he said. "You can take whatever you want. I have money."

"Keys. Wallet," Sam said.

Keeping one hand raised, the man's other hand crept toward his pocket and pulled out a set of keys and a brown wallet. He held them out to Sam, and Sam saw that he was shaking. He felt even worse at the man's reaction, but this was for a greater need. Sam needed to get to Castiel so he could get home. This man was the way he was going to do that. And he wouldn't hurt him really. The knife was just a threat.

Sam took them.

"Please don't hurt me," the man said. "I have a wife and children. My girls are only fourteen and eleven. They need me."

"I'm not going to hurt you if you do as I say," Sam said. "You're going to go into the forest and run for five minutes before you even think about coming back."

He needed long enough to get away before the man called in help. He thought the fear he had instilled in him would be enough to make him obey. Even if it wasn't, this car would get him out of town quickly.

"Which way to Arizona?" Sam asked.

The man pointed left. "That way."

"Thank you," Sam said, hoping the misdirection would work. If this man told the cops he was heading west they would hopefully swallow the bait and leave him free to escape east. "You can start running now."

The man turned and ran into the trees. Sam wasted no time before unlocking the car and climbing in behind the wheel. He brought the engine to life and the radio started playing a cheesy hit from the Grease soundtrack. Sam snapped it off as he reversed out of his spot and pulled right on the road. He gunned the engine and raced along the empty streets, searching for signage that would get him to the interstate.

xXx

Sam drove until the gas gauge slipped deep into the red and he was forced to stop for gas. He had just passed into Kansas, and he was confident that the car was safe now. The cops probably hadn't even searched for it in New Mexico, but now he was across the state line he thought it was safe with the time's limited communication between states. He still didn't relax though. He couldn't until he was with Castiel again.

The tension helped him stay awake. Though his body was weary, his mind was alert. It was like when they were running on low sleep rations for a hunt; the need to be ready for action overpowered the body's need for rest. He was used to this, even though he had been awake and running on adrenaline for a while. The last time he'd gone to sleep in a motel felt like a long time ago. When he was at Bobby's again, he would sleep. He would take time, set aside the apocalypse, and just rest. At least that was what he told himself.

He pulled up at a gas station and checked the wallet he'd taken from the man in New Mexico. He was relieved to find a thick fold of bills. He was sure he'd have enough to fill the tank and plenty more besides. He'd lucked out with his victim. He checked the price and a breath huffed out of him. He was going to have more than enough cash to get by at these prices. Gas was seventy cents a gallon. He had to laugh at the thought of Dean's face if he was there. It was a running joke between them that the Impala's gas tank ate money.

There was a kid dozing on a grubby plastic chair by the door, but when Sam tapped the horn, he jolted awake and leapt to his feet. Sam rolled down the window as he approached and said, "Fill the tank, please."

The kid grabbed the pump handle and rushed to the back of the car, saying, "Yes, sir."

Sam waited as he filled it, watching the numbers click over on the pump display until they stopped at $8.40. Shaking his head wonderingly he pulled out two five-dollar bills and held them out of the window to the kid. "Keep the change," he said.

The kid grinned at the extravagant tip. "Thank you, sir."

Sam smiled at him and then started the engine. He waved a hand in farewell as he drove out of the forecourt and onto the road again, speeding into the traffic in his impatience to get to Castiel.

xXx

When Sam reached the outskirts of Lawrence, he felt a wave of relief. He was close to getting home now. He drove through the streets to the hotel they'd left Castiel in and pulled up out front. His heart was pounding hard—with excitement or nerves he wasn't sure.

He threw himself out of the car and rushed through the doors inside. The man behind the desk had hair longer than Sam's that was ungroomed. He was wearing a red turtleneck with a low hanging strand of Indian beads. He looked up blearily at Sam and started to say, "You looking for a room…" when Sam cut him off.

"I'm just visiting a buddy. Where's the honeymoon suite?"

"Fourth floor," he said. "But…"

Sam was already running through the door marked 'stairs'. He took them two at a time and when he reached the fourth floor, he raced along the hall. It occurred to him he didn't know the room number when he spotted a porcelain panel on the wall beside one of the rooms with flowery writing declaring it the 'Happy Day Honeymoon Suite'. He knocked loudly on the door, thinking if Cas was still suffering the strain of bringing them back he might not hear him; he could still be out cold.

There was no response, and he knocked harder with his fist. "Cas! It's me, Sam. C'mon, man, open up. I need help."

He pressed his ear to the door and listened hard. There was no sound from within at all, though if Castiel was unconscious, Sam guessed there wouldn't be. He patted his pockets but his lock picking tools weren't there. He couldn't remember if he'd transferred them to his new pants when he'd changed last. It didn't matter either way; he didn't have them.

For a moment he stood defeated, and then an idea occurred to him. A place like this, in this time, wasn't going to have good locks. He checked the wallet and saw that there was an American Express card tucked into a pocket. He crouched and slid the card carefully in between the frame and the lock. He jiggled it a little then smiled as the lock clicked open. He got quickly to his feet and pushed open the door. His smile faded when he saw that the room was empty.

At first he was able to hang onto hope as he rushed inside, calling Castiel's name. There were two doors leading off of the room and he thought he could be in one of those. He crossed the room and pulled open a door, sure he would find Castiel inside. It was an empty closet though. He cursed and rushed across to the second door. He opened it and rushed into the bathroom and switched on the light.

"Cas?" he said hopefully.

He wasn't there.

Sam staggered back a step, his mouth dropping open. Castiel was gone. Sam was trapped.

"No," he growled, clinging to a faint flicker of hope. If Castiel had woken up, he would have gone to find Sam and Dean to help them against Anna. Sam had to believe that was what had happened. Anything less than that was going to take his strength to keep going.

He ran out of the room and pounded along the hall and down the stairs, bursting into the small lobby. The man at the desk looked up and said, as if he'd been paused on their interaction before, "But he left."

"How long ago?" Sam asked.

"A few hours, maybe. It's hard to keep track. It was real early though."

"Did you see which way he went?" Sam asked, making for the door.

"Uh… up maybe. I don't know, man. It was kinda hard to keep track. I think the other man took him."

"What other man?" Sam stepped up to the desk and fought the urge to lean over and take the man by the throat.

"Okay, so your buddy was here with me. He was asking about the Winchesters, where they lived. He looked real sick, you know, and I asked if he needed anything. He said he just needed his friends, and that was when the other guy showed up. And I mean showed up, not arrived. I don't know if I smoked too much dope on my break or if this is some crazy Twilight Zone thing, but he appeared out of nowhere with this funny sound."

"What did he do?" Sam asked intensely.

"He grabbed the sick man by the arm and said something about his time being up." He frowned. "Yeah, he said, 'Your time is up. You will go home'. The sick dude looked kinda scared, and he said something about Sam and Dean, but the other dude squeezed the sick dude's arm hard. It looked like it hurt. That was when it happened. They just disappeared with that funny sound again. You think they're from the government?"

Sam's heart sank. Michael had taken Castiel. "No. I don't think so," he said dully.

"Shame. It would have been cool to have a government super-powered pitcher on the team."

"What?" Sam asked dumbly.

"John Winchester," the man said. "That was who he looked like, the other guy. He's on the baseball team and I thought maybe the mechanic thing was a double-life. It happens, you know. We just don't read about it in the propaganda filled newspapers."

"It wasn't a government thing," Sam said defeated. "It was something different."

The man leaned forward. "C'mon then, tell me who they were. I promise not to tell anyone. How did they disappear like that?"

"I don't know," Sam lied.

"But what does it mean? Stuff like that doesn't happen for no reason. Are they coming back? Is it something to do with Fort Leavenworth? Are those army guys experimenting with teleportation? Is it like Star Trek? Were they transported?"

"Yeah, sure," Sam said idly. "That's exactly it."

"Wow. That's far out."

Sam pushed down his panic and tried to make sense of the situation. It was hard as his mind was reeling. If Michael had sent Castiel back to 2010, Sam couldn't get back with him. He was trapped. What was he supposed to do now?

He had to know what was really happening, why Michael had done this to him, and what he hoped to gain by sticking Sam so far in the past. Since he couldn't call on Castiel for answers, he was going to need his 'guardian angel'. He needed Anna.

"I need the room a little longer," he said.

"Sure. No problem. The room's paid up through tomorrow."

"Thanks," Sam said.

"Later, man."

Sam walked slowly back through the door and to the stairs, trying hard not to let the despair win. He would get the information from Anna, and then make a plan of what to do next.

xXx

The room door hadn't closed properly behind him in his haste to get out before, so he didn't need to card it open again. He walked inside and clicked it closed behind him. He took a breath and spoke into the empty room, "Anna. I need to speak to you. I'm in the Honeymoon Suite of the Virginia Hotel, Lawrence." When there was no arrival, he spoke bitterly. "Come on. You're supposed to be my new guardian angel, so guard already."

There was a flutter and Anna said, "That is not what he meant by guardian, you know."

Sam turned his glare on her. "I don't care what he meant. I need help, and since you're here, you're going to give it."

"Am I really? And what exactly do you think you have over me that will make me do anything for you?"

"I don't have anything," Sam admitted. "But I think there's still a part of you that's a decent person. You were brave when we met you before. I don't know what Michael has over you to make you work with him, but you were good once, and I think you want to be again. Helping him stuff me here is not good. I helped you once. Me and Dean saved you from the demons and the angels. Don't you think it's time you stepped up and returned the favor?"

"What Michael has over me is none of your business. You know why I came for your parents. You know enough. Can you tell me you would have done anything different in my place?"

He couldn't. He had told Lucifer he would kill himself to escape him, and he would have had Lucifer not promised to bring him back. If he thought it would save lives, he would end his, but he couldn't do that now. Even trapped in 1978, out of Lucifer's reach for a while, he couldn't die because Michael had made him invulnerable. He couldn't prevent his own birth either. He could never hurt his parents.

"Why is Michael doing this to me?" he asked. "Why leave me here?"

"I don't know," she said.

"You're lying," Sam accused.

"Maybe I am. It doesn't matter either way. Knowing why won't help you. You'll still be trapped here. Face it, Sam, you're not going anywhere. Lucifer won't save you, as he doesn't know you're gone. The Lucifer of this time is trapped in the Cage still. Really, Sam, this is the safest you've been in years. Michael has protected your body, and there is no one coming after you. You should be grateful."

"For this?" Sam asked, throwing up his arms. "Sticking me here without Dean?"

"Yes."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Face facts fast, make it as easy on yourself as you can. You're here for the duration. You can't be with Dean until it's the right time, which is 2010. You're here for the next three decades no matter what you do, so you might as well start as you mean to go on. Create a life. There is no way back and you know it. There is no way to time travel without an angel, and there is no angel to help you. Castiel is still a good soldier in this time, and he would never believe you even if you told him the truth. You're stuck, so deal with it."

Sam saw the truth in her eyes, at least the truth of what she believed. He was trapped here until he could find a way out. She might not believe there was one, but angels didn't know everything about the world. There were thousands of creatures out there, gods and goddesses. There was power. He would find one of them to get him home.

"You understand," Anna said with satisfaction. "Good. I'm going. Oh, one more thing. Michael wiped your mother and father's memories. They don't remember you and Dean. They can't help you."

"I could tell them the truth," Sam said.

"You could but you won't. You want them to have peaceful lives, and your presence would be anything but peaceful for them. Do the right thing: leave them alone. Find your own way."

Sam swallowed hard and nodded stiffly. He wasn't acknowledging her; he was accepting to himself the truth of what she was saying. He couldn't interrupt John and Mary's lives. He had to do this alone.

Anna vanished with a soft sound and Sam blew out a breath. His heart ached and he wished more than anything that Dean was there with him. He wasn't though. Sam had to make the best of what he had.

He was alone, in 1978, and until he could find a way home, he had to take care of himself.

So… Castiel is gone and Sam has no ally in 1978 to help him. He's a Winchester though, so he'll work something out, right?

I started posting a new story last night. It's called The Things We Left Behind and it's a late S13 – early S14 AU.

Summary: AU from episode 13.22 - Exodus. Sam's plans to leave Lucifer in Apocalypse World backfire when he is also trapped there with the very angry archangel. Meanwhile, Dean and the others are forced to deal with Michael and his nefarious plans while trying to find a way to cope with the loss of Sam.

Until next time…

Clowns or Midgets xxx