Ok, so this one took a while, but I wrote it and decided I didn't like it, so I just sort of stared at it for three days. Then I consulted a friend and so I rewrote it, which is ALWAYS fun. Ugh. Anyway, it's written now. Hopefully you enjoy it.

Also, these chapter titles are brutal. I cannot for the life of me come up with good ones.

Me: Dean.

Dean: What?

Me: You're the only one who hasn't done it yet.

Dean: No.

Me: Yes.

Dean: No.

Me: I will egg your car.

Dean: You wouldn't dare.

Me: You BET I would.

Dean: ...

Dean: ...

Dean: Fine. Bianca Valdez does not own me or Sam or Cas or any of this story, although apparently she's trying her damndest. She does, however, own eggs, and if she touches my baby, I'll kill her.

Me: Oooookay, then...

Then

"Apparently his dad's gone and lost him, too. Idjit called in a panic last night."

"I'm him….from the…future….It's me, Bobby. It's actually, really me."

"I don't know what you did to deserve it, but you Winchesters have the strangest luck I've ever heard of. So what's our next move?"

"Instinct tells me to go to Dad, but, well…I already ran into him and he almost killed me. Bobby, I have no idea what to do next."

"Explain."

"Ok, you're not going to believe this, but Sam here can back me up," said Scruffy, hands out placatingly. "I'm you, from the future."

"That's insane. We're leaving, Sam."

"No! Dean, just listen to them! A demon named Crowley switched me and future me, and now he's here and they're here and we have to get him back to them and that time so things can go back to normal!"

"We don't have time for this," Castiel said. The stranger's fingers made contact with his skin and Dean's head was suddenly awash with images.

He saw his own face, steadily aging, Sammy's beside it, until he grew to resemble the man before him and Sam grew to resemble…Ash.

He saw lives and deaths and love and hatred, and he knew that these men before him were telling the truth. This man, eyes full of loss and pain, this man who had seen so much, this was Dean.

And Dean would become this man.

Now

Sam wasn't sure what Castiel had done, but Dean didn't look so good. He'd dropped the gun, the metal clanking against the pavement loudly. His eyes widened and his breathing stopped, and for a moment Sam thought he was dying. Frightened, he rushed forward and grabbed hold of Dean, trying to shake him out of it, but the moment had already passed. Dean began to breath heavily, and he collapsed on top of Sam.

"Dean! Dean, are you okay?"

Dean didn't answer, instead gazing wide-eyed at his older self. "Y-you're me? H-how?"

And then he collapsed.

Sam turned towards Castiel, panicky. "What did you do?" he asked, his voice frantic.

Castiel didn't look so good either. He'd slumped against the wall, his eyes closed, but they opened again when Sam spoke. "I showed him his future," he said tiredly. "With my grace in its current state, it was messier than I would have liked. He will be fine in a little while. "

The elder Dean (Sam decided to think of him as Future-Dean from now on) stared at his younger self with a mixture of fascination and horror. "Cas, was that really necessary?"

"The longer we stay here the more my powers are drained," said the angel. "It is essential we find our time's Sam as soon as possible."

In Sam's arms, Dean let out a low moan, eyelids twitching. A smile spread across Sam's face as the familiar green eyes blinked open to look at him.

"Hi, Dean."

Dean stared at him for several seconds, before he violently rolled himself out of Sam's arms. "Dude, let go of me. I feel like a freakin' girl."

Sam watched, amused, as his brother tried and failed to get himself onto his feet. Stumbling to the ground a second time, he shot a glare Sam's way, and Sam tried to wipe the grin from his lips.

He didn't quite manage it.

"Sure, laugh it off, b****."

"Ya need help there, jerk?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "I'll get it." A groan of exertion accompanied a successful attempt at balancing himself, and Sam rose with him.

"Well then." Dean was looking at Future-Dean incredulously. "This is, by far, the weirdest thing that has happened to me."

Future-Dean grinned. "Trust me, pal, it gets weirder."

Bobby Singer was a man of many talents. These talents included lore-finding, monster-killing, and the ability to out-drink even the toughest redneck.

These talents did not, however, include cooking.

It'd been a while since Sam had eaten anything that the old hunter had made. As soon as he figured out how to cook for himself, and how to get Bobby to let him at the stove, he'd taken the reins, and both Bobby and Dean had seemed pretty happy about it. Sam had thought his days of bad cooking were over (except for when Dean got adventurous. The man could cook a pretty damn good burger, but give him an egg and a frying pan and he'll serve scrambled eggs, extra crispy. Sam hadn't previously known that latter option existed), but in Bobby's words, "Boy, you got a busted arm, a bruised windpipe, and a possibly concussed melon. Yer not goin' anywhere near the knives," and that was that.

Sam had sat obediently at the table, anxiously awaiting whatever monstrosity his surrogate father had managed to cook up. Luckily, he was greeted with a sandwich. It was downright impossible to screw up a sandwich, right?

He soon found out that he was very wrong.

Bobby was watching him, eyes smiling. "It any good?" he asked eagerly.

Sam faked a smile and swallowed a bite of stale-breaded, over-mayonnaise-d, too-salty (who puts salt on sandwiches?) sandwich. "It's great, Bobby, thanks," he said, voice somewhat strained.

Bobby grinned. "Well, I'll leave you to it, then." With a groan he stood, stretching out his back and mumbling something about getting old. "I'll go into town and grab you some painkillers. While you're eating you can take a look at these. See if you can find anything on time travel." He dropped a pile of lore books in front of Sam, along with a piece of paper with his number scribbled on it. "Call me if you need something."

The corners of Sam's mouth twitched upwards again and he watched Bobby leave the room. As soon as he was gone, however, the younger hunter stood and tucked the sandwich into the depths of the trashcan. Then, guiltily peering out the window every few seconds, he quickly prepared himself a new one and sat back down.

It was at that moment that the phone rang.

Not the FBI phone, or the CDC phone. Not Homeland Security. Not the Fish and Wildlife Service. The phone that rang was the one that very few people had the number for: Bobby's personal line.

Sam stared at it for several moments as it vibrated in its plastic holster. Then, warily, he reached forward with his one good arm and picked it up.

"Bobby, it's me. I need your help. I still haven't found Sam." The voice was gruff, tense, and urgent. It was a voice that Sam new almost as well as his own, second only to Dean's voice.

It was the voice of John Winchester.

"Bobby?" said John. "You still there?"

Heart beating fiercely, Sam slammed the phone down, effectively hanging up on his father.

It rang again, and Sam just watched it go. Should he answer it? Should he wait for Bobby?

It stopped ringing and Sam stared at it some more. Then, picking it up as gingerly as if it were a bomb, he called Bobby.

"Sam? That you?"

"Yeah, Bobby, it's me. Where are you?"

"On my way inta town. Why? Ya need somethin'?"

"It's my dad."

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. Then, incredulously, "What?"

"He called about younger me."

"Balls."

Sam sighed and fidgeted with the straps on his sling, adjusting his right arm so that it was more comfortable. "Yeah," he said. "I know."

"And ya know this because ya answered the phone?"

Sam nodded, though he knew that, of course, Bobby couldn't see him. "I didn't say anything. Hung up right away, but he called back. In fact," he said as he heard a dial tone in his ear. "He's trying to call again."

"Balls!" said Bobby again.

"So what do I do?"

"Hang tight, I'm comin'. Don't answer the phone."

"Right. Thanks, Bobby."

A click and the line went dead. Sam sighed again, then jumped when the phone started to ring in his hand. "Son of a—" he slammed it back into its holster and sat back down.

"Why is my life so complicated?" he wondered aloud as the phone began to ring again.

"Dammit!" John slammed his phone down as, once again, no one picked up. "I need your help, Bobby!"

Jaw set in anger, he turned out to the parking lot and stared at his car. He'd finished grilling the motel clerk several moments ago; the young man knew nothing. Sam was just….gone.

He should be out there looking for him. He should be driving all around, torturing every damn monster he could get his hands on until he found his son. But here he was, just sitting here, because Dean had decided that now was the time to go shopping.

John knew that he shouldn't be angry at Dean. His eldest was just keeping himself occupied. John understood the need to be out there doing something, anything, even if it was completely pointless, just to ward off the helplessness. Dean in particular struggled with this sort of thing, especially where Sam was concerned. Watching the way his sons interacted with each other, John knew that Mary would have been proud. Hell, she was probably watching everything for all he knew.

If he was honest with himself, John knew that it wasn't even Dean he was angry at. He was just…angry. He was always angry. He missed his wife with a burning ache, and the search for the thing that got her seemed endless. He didn't even know what it was.

His boys were the only thing that kept him sane, and now Sammy was missing.

There was only one other time that such a surreal situation had occurred, and that had been when he'd gone to the future and seen himself as a war-hardened leader. But for Dean, this came as a close second.

"Ok, so how the hell are we going to find Sam?" Dean asked. Then he glanced at his brother's ten-year-old self. "Not you. You know what, from now on, you're Sammy, my version is Sam. Gotcha?"

Sammy raised his eyebrows. "Um….ok?"

Cas cocked his head thoughtfully and opened his mouth as if to speak, but Past-Dean butted in. "I know where Sam is."

Dean stared at him. "What?"

"Or I know where he was. So this spell switched them, right? The memories Cas here showed me. They had Sam in it. And the Sam in the memories was the guy who showed up in my room earlier, calling himself Ash and saying he'd been swapped with my Sammy."

"And you didn't think to mention this sooner?"

Past-Dean glared. "I didn't realize, ok? Jesus, when do I get to be so much of a jerk?"

Sammy raised a hand, eyes laughing. "Uh, Dean, you're already that much of a jerk."

"Shut up."

"Both of you shut up," said Dean (the elder). "Me, what happened after Sam showed up?"

Past-Dean flashed a grin. "Well…."

Dean knew that grin. That was the 'I-did-something-wrong-but-I-don't-want-to-admit-it' grin. "What did you do?"

"Look, some random dude shows up in my warded-against-everything motel room saying that a demon switched him with my brother. I mean…what was I supposed to do?"

What would he do in that situation? The realization washed over Dean with a sudden chill. "You called Dad, didn't you."

Past-Dean shrugged, feigning nonchalance, but his face was the picture of guilty apprehension. "Yeah."

"Awesome."

Cas looked confused. "How is that—"

Dean raised an eyebrow and the angel closed his mouth. "Sarcasm?" he asked carefully.

The hunter didn't even deign to grace that with a reply. You'd think that by this point, Cas would have picked up on this kind of thing. But no, he was as clueless as ever.

Sammy was staring at Past-Dean, eyes wide. "You called Dad?" he asked, voice fearful.

Past-Dean avoided his younger brother's gaze.

Dean rubbed his forehead. "And I assume he kicked my Sam out?"

"Well…after he slammed him into the wall and threatened to kill him."

"Awesome," repeated Dean. "Really, just awesome."

"I could search the area for him," said Cas stonily. "It would take a while and I would be drained, but—"

Dean shook his head adamantly. "No, Cas. You aren't zapping anywhere in this condition. You're angel mojo's zonked as it is. We are hotwiring a car and driving."

Cas nodded, conceding the point before offering up another idea. "Where would Sam go in a situation like this?"

"There's never been a situation like this before."

The angel glared at him. "Dean…"

"Why don't we ask our resident Sam expert?"

All eyes turned to Sammy, who looked thoughtful. "Well, I'd go to Dad first…"

"That's not helpful, Sammy," said Past-Dean.

"Shut up. I wasn't done. But, if I couldn't get to Dad for some reason, I guess I'd go to Uncle Bobby's."

Dean grinned. "All right. Bobby's it is then. First thing's first though." He turned his gaze on the younger half of the group. "Me. Can you make it back to your motel all right?"

Past-Dean's eyebrows flew up. "What?!" he asked. "Why the hell would I go back to the motel?!"

"One, Dad's gonna freak out if you just disappear on him," said Dean. "Two, I ain't puttin' you in danger. I don't want you to die now and stop my—our—entire future." Past-Dean opened his mouth in protest, but Dean stopped him. "Three. I think you'll agree with me on this one, and I think you already know what it is."

Past-Dean's eyes slid towards his brother, and Sammy's own hazel orbs swung up to meet them.

"Three is Sammy. More important than Dad, more important than us, we keep Sammy safe, right?"

Past-Dean nodded slowly.

"So you take him back to the motel. You tell Dad whatever crappy story you can come up with, and you forget this ever happened. Got it?"

This nod was short and grumpy, the acquiescence of someone who was stubborn and did not like to concede a point. But it was acceptance, and Dean seized it gladly.

"You want a ride?"

It was Sammy who answered. "You could drop us off just down the road from the motel. That way Dad wouldn't see you."

"Sounds like a plan." Dean clapped his hands together and grinned at them all. "I'll be right back. Lemme go steal a car."