IX.

A Hunt and Musings

I never think of the future - it comes soon enough. ~Albert Einstein

They got to the motel, and Sam promptly got one room for Dean and Castiel, and one for himself and Adam.

"I keep telling you, Sammy," Dean sighed, "It's too much—"

"No, it's not," Sam rolled his eyes, "So let it be. We could stay at the bunker or at the yard, and Cas and Gabe could just fly us here, but you're not a fan of that so we're doing it this way."

The witches were easy to find—arrogant, therefore sloppy. But there were also a lot of them. They had Sam and Dean each cornered.

"You can't escape, Winchesters. Salem's coven will have glory again, now that we're going to kill you when so many others failed," laughed the witch in Dean's ear.

"Right," snorted Dean, "You're kind of missing something, though."

With that, Adam cocked his gun and Castiel appeared, blade at the ready.

"There's more to our family now than just us two," Sam affirmed, and flipped the guy that had him, slamming him down to the floor.

The ensuing fight left most of the witches unconscious, and one particularly vicious one dead.

"Well, time to dig up that grimoire," Adam shrugged.

They got the book and found the spell fairly quickly—just a matter of casting it.

"Why don't we head back, then take care of it?" suggested Adam. "Or better yet, get to that bunker you guys were talking about?"

"That's probably a good idea," Sam nodded. "Cas, can you bring Gabe and Eva to the bunker? And the dogs? We'll drive—it's faster to get there than to get all the way back to Bobby's."

Adam cleaned the gun and put it away. He looked paler than normal.

"You did real good out there, Adam—saved our asses," Dean said, clapping the youngest brother on the back. Adam shrugged.

"Still . . . that guy was human," he muttered in the car as they drove to Men of Letters. Sam turned around in his seat.

"Yeah, but even humans can be monsters sometimes, Adam. I looked up the members of the coven. I checked their personal and criminal files as much as I could on the way here—that one? He used his spells to lure little kids to his house. Too many missing child reports have gone cold thanks to him." Sam would have continued with the implications, but Adam's lips pulled into a hard line.

"Huh. He deserved a little worse than a shot to the heart then. But I'm glad it's over with. Not a fan of witch hunts."

"Neither am I, but that's usually because they get to me before we can gank 'em. I've been turned into an old man, into a kid, Sammy's been switched with a teenager, just, man. I hate witches." Dean avoided reminding himself that the last encounter had been the worst when Castiel had been tortured.

Gabriel nodded once Castiel had explained.

"Well, you take Eva, and I'll take the dogs. We'll meet up just outside of it and you can lead me in. Sound good?"

"That works fine," Castiel shrugged. He scratched out a part of the trap.

"Dean doesn't trust you quite yet, but we're moving and I have no doubt he'll want to keep an eye on you," Castiel said, "And I'm sure Adam will want to spend time with you. We're moving to the Men of Letters bunker."

"Huh. Thanks for not abandoning me here, then," she shrugged, offering her hand, "Take me wherever it is." He took her hand, and they vanished.

Gabriel had the four hounds on leashes, but that did little to control them all.

"Heel," he tried, having mastered Crowley's voice finally. With surprise and a little satisfaction, he saw that they did not obey.

"Okay then . . . heel!" This time, using his own voice. Success. At least with Charm. The others calmed down a bit but didn't really stop causing controlled chaos. He teleported to where he sensed Castiel would be, and the dogs followed.

The familiar Impala pulled in a few minutes later.

"Okay, this mirror spell . . . I've done some digging, and I know what it does," said Adam as they dug into their dinner—pizza, done to everyone's preferences, courtesy of Gabriel.

"You did?" Dean asked.

"Yeah. Sam's not the only one who had to do research papers in college, you know. I was pre-med. I know how to look for things."

"Oh, so you were a nerd too," Dean concluded, getting a smack over his head from Sam.

"Gah, I was joking. That's really cool, though. Having an almost-doctor on board and all."

"Yeah, well, I did look into possibly finishing med school before I met up with you guys. It's not like I think I won't be a hunter now—I've made that decision—but I figure I could probably be a doctor for hunters, you know? Fix 'em up when there's no chance they can explain to a real doctor. I know the angels can fix practically everything, but still, some hunters don't have angel boyfriends. Or might not trust angels. So they might need someone they can call up."

"That's actually pretty . . . awesome. I wouldn't have thought of that," Sam said.

"Yeah, well, that's not happening for a while, if at all," he sighed, leaning back, "Because this craziness isn't going to end soon."

"Hey, Gabe, is there a universe where that happens, like you were telling me the other day?" asked Sam.

"Yeah. Where you two find Adam before the ghoul gets him and he joins you. Sam goes back to law school, Adam to med school, and Dean goes into a trade school to be a mechanic. You take a few years off of hunting to do those things and get jobs as your respective things. Then you end up doing a little less hunting, a little more helping hunters out from the sidelines. Quite a few universes with happy endings," he said, leaning back, "Too bad I don't know the outcome for this one."

"That's because you're in it," guessed Sam.

"Precisely."

"When'd you go looking through other universes, Gabriel?" asked Adam.

"Had an off day," he shrugged, "So I went timeline-hopping. Looked into the Winchesters of other worlds. Looked into how other things turned out. Just being curious," he said, ending his sentence by stuffing his mouth with a large forkful of spaghetti. "It's interesting is all."

"So what did you find, Adam?" asked Castiel.

"The spell puts you into a room—a mirrored room—with four versions of yourself from the past. If multiple people perform the spell at once, they get rooms next to each other, but there's not much to that. You're stuck with talking to other yous and them getting to know who they become. There's some other stuff but I don't know it all. That's the general gist."