AN: Again, spoilers for episode 220- What Is and What Should Never Be. :)
Lucy also learned quickly that Matt was never home for dinner. Of course it wasn't like her, Sam, and Dean sat down to dinner together but she thought in this "life" that she would have the stereotypical life. A loving husband, a perfect child. Pretty much a perfect life. But that just wasn't the way it was. Instead, after spending a long afternoon out with her mother-in-law Silvia, she found herself eating a bag of chips alone in the kitchen. She thought of cooking, since it was something she normally didn't get to do, but she was too tired. After she'd eaten her fill of junk, she wandered up the stairs and into the nursery. Maria was changing the baby out of the outfit she'd been in during the day and into a pair of pink and white pajamas. Lucy had found that Silvia had, had a lot to do with the decorating of the whole house and that included the nursery. She also thought that Silvia had an awful lot to do with Eva's wardrobe. No one owned that much pink willingly. She stood next to the nanny, watching as Eva laughed and kicked her chubby little legs in the air. "I can put her down, Maria." She said softly.
Maria nodded and disappeared from the room once the baby was changed and dressed. Lucy picked her up and couldn't help but smile as the little girl leaned her head heavily on her her shoulder as she held her close. It was still hard to believe that this was hers because certainly, she didn't deserve it. It was the perfect life, even if it had its most imperfect things about it. As Eva fell asleep and she transported her into the crib, Lucy took a moment to really look at her. She didn't really resemble Matt a lot. Eva had her dark hair and skin tone. She also had her nose but she definitely had someone else's eyes and mouth. Those eyes were pretty familiar too, Lucy just couldn't think of who they belonged to. But Lucy just shook her head, figuing her mind was just racing too much, and pushed away from the crib to leave the nursery.
The house was still empty and Matt wasn't home yet so she decided to surf the Internet. There was still a lot that she didn't know; like what had happened to Sam and Dean. She still hadn't heard from her parents but thought she'd call them again the next day, just to see if she could hear both of their voices. If she could hear that, then that would make just about everything worthwhile. Once the computer loaded everything, she opened an internet browser and started clicking around, typing in 'Sam Winchester' first. A few articles were brought up and she started clicking on them. Sam had gone to law school! That made her grin to read that he'd graduated from law school just because she knew that had been his goal. He'd said he wanted to go back eventually, even if it wasn't to finish law school and instead get a different degree.
After reading about Sam for a good twenty minutes, she went back to the search engine and typed in 'Dean Winchester'. This time it brought up a whole lot more than his brother's had. The first was an obituary. She clicked on that one pretty quickly, leaning in to read over it. He'd died? Apparently he'd died in a car accident. She frowned and sat back in the chair. "A car accident," She mumbled. Surely she would've known about it, especially since it had happened about ten months before.
Her frown grew even deeper as she did the math in her head. And then she remembered those eyes that Eva had that definitely weren't Matt's or hers. She clicked on a few other links on the search page but also started digging a little deeper. Good thing she'd picked up more than a few research tips from the Winchester's.
Dean had started seeing things. Or at least he was pretty damn sure he was seeing things. But some girl kept appearing to him, pale and grey and pretty much the definite meaning of "death warmed over". His whole family had gone out that evening for his mom's birthday. His mom had a birthday to celebrate! It was one of those restaurants that he normally wouldn't be caught dead in just because there were too many utensils. Plus he had to dress up of all things. But it was for her birthday and that's all that mattered. He and Carmen were seated next to each other while Sam and Jess were on the other side of the table. Dean found that he really liked Carmen (besides the whole being hot thing too). She seemed intelligent, not like some of the women he'd had contact with over the years, and she made him laugh. But as much as he liked her, Carmen wasn't Lucy. And as much as he tried to forget about everything he'd known and as much as he tried to live in the now, he found he couldn't really. But it was a happy night and made even more so with finding out that Sam had proposed to Jess. Dean was finding it hard to keep the grin off his face.
Until he saw the girl again. He'd hurried to grab her, to figure out what the hell was going on but she disappeared as soon as he got close enough. As he turned around, he saw the looks they were giving him. All looked worried and he was sure he probably looked like he'd just seen a ghost. He was beginning to think that's exactly what it was, although he wasn't quite sure why his old life had followed him to the new one. It took seeing the girl in his apartment for him to decide that he needed to get out of this. This wasn't all he had wished for, this was turning into a nightmare.
She'd torn the bedroom apart, looking for anything that would prove her theory. She'd looked over the wedding picture on the dresser, finding the small baby bump hidden under the dress. That'd been one point proven: she'd been pregnant with Eva when she got married. She also found that her smile in the picture looked more forced than anything. She didn't look like a happy, blushing bride. Sighing, she closed one of the dresser drawers and turned around in a circle. There had to be something in the room somewhere that could prove her big theory.
Grabbing her phone, she scrolled through the long list of numbers. Half the names she didn't recognize. Then Lucy paused on her parents' number. Hesitating for only a second, she pressed 'send' before holding the phone against her ear. The phone started ringing on the other end and she disappeared into the closet to start digging through the mounds of clothes in there. If she had to tear apart the whole damn house she'd do it. But she froze as a voice on the other end of the phone answered. Her mom had a soft, southern-twinged voice that always made her feel safe and warm. And hearing that after everything was nearly enough to make her cry.
"Hello?" Her mother's voice asked again.
It was then that Lucy figured out how to get her brain and mouth to work at the same time. "Mom?"
"Lucy? What're you doing calling us?"
"I...I wanted to hear your voice." She sat down in the middle of the floor, clutching the phone to her ear as if that would make her feel that much closer to her mom.
"What's wrong? You don't call just to talk anymore, you know."
"Maybe we should change that. I...needed to talk to you. About Dean."
Her mom was silent on the line for a good minute and to Lucy it felt like an absolute eternity. "Honey, why do you want to talk about him now?"
"I want to know what happened!" She blurted out. "I mean, I can't...I can't remember."
"It was a car accident Lucy. A drunk driver came across the center line on the road, slammed into him." She sighed softly. "Why do you want to dredge all this up now? You've got a husband and a baby now. Dean was the past."
"Is Eva his?"
"Lucy..."
"Mom, please?"
"You weren't very far along. You'd told me that you'd told him the afternoon before the accident happened. Matt and him had a lot of the same friends, you'd known him for about as long as you'd known Dean. He was there for you after the funeral."
"And I just randomly decided to marry the guy?"
"He could offer you a lot, Lucy. He has offered you a lot." Her mom let out another sigh. "Honey, what happened to bring all this out all of a sudden? You'd been doing so good. Is Matt there?"
"No. He's not home yet." Lucy chewed on her lip. Her theory had been proven. But she was finding that she didn't like this weird version of herself, she didn't think she liked Matt all that much and she knew she didn't like her mother-in-law. "Um, where's dad?"
"He's out in the back reading the newspaper. Do I need to call Matt or someone?"
"No I'm fine, really." Lucy rubbed a hand over her face. "I just really wanted to hear your voice."
"I'm glad you called, call more often okay? And if anything's wrong, just call me Lucy."
"Thanks mom."
"I love you sweetheart."
Lucy sucked in a breath and she was sure her heart had stopped in her chest. It'd felt like forever since she'd heard that. Biting her lip she nodded her head, even though she was on the phone. "I love you too mom." She finally managed to whisper into the phone.
Lucy left the closet and dropped the phone off onto the bed. She went back into the nursery, finding Eva sound asleep in the crib. Leaning over the railing, Lucy found herself smiling. The baby really did look a lot like Dean now that she thought about it. She was almost his spitting image just with her hair coloring. It was all just too much to find out. Too much to find out and know that there was no way to go back and change it.
Dean had gone to his mother's house to find any bit of silver he could find. The end goal was to find the djinn again. If he could find that asshole again, he could probably get home. Of course he hadn't betted on Sam waking up and trying to tackle him. But Sam had followed him out to the car, spouting off something about how they were brothers and that Sam wanted to help him. Sam was also looking at him like he had completely lost his mind but Dean wasn't going to argue. If Sam wanted to help then he wouldn't stop him.
It was nearly an all night drive at a breakneck pace just to find that damn warehouse out in the middle of nowhere near Joliet. Sam had told him more than once to turn around, to go back home. But he chose to ignore his brother, knowing that this wasn't his real brother. This was some pansy ass version of him. So he wasn't too surprised when Sam started to protest them going inside the warehouse once it was found. Dean mostly just told him to stay quiet and stay behind him. Hopefully he'd listen.
He held a flashlight in his hand as he walked towards what sounded like a girl crying. He could feel Sam at his back and could also feel the tension the younger man had all through his body. Dean wanted to feel bad about dragging this weird version of his brother with him but truth was, he didn't. They came around a corner and Dean felt his heart speed up just a bit; skeletons hung from the ceiling with their arms tied up above their heads. He'd seen the same thing, in his closet. Then he spotted her across the room and the two of them made their way to the girl. She was the same one that had appeared to Dean in the restaurant and in the street. She wasn't much better off than the rotting skeletons on the other side of the room, her eyes were open but weren't focused on any one thing and her skin was still grey and ashen. She looked on the verge of death. "Dean, what's going on?" Sam asked as he noticed the bag of blood hanging near the girl. She was making some kind of whimpering noise but wasn't forming any words.
Dean grabbed him, shushing him as he noticed something moving in the shadows. He shoved Sam back towards a staircase to hide before the djinn could see them. They watched as he approached the girl, listened as she asked for her father and pleaded with him to let go of her, to find her father. They also watched as the djinn drank some of her blood from the bag. Sam made a noise loud enough for the djinn to hear so they had to hunker down before he saw them. Sam then started freaking out, insisting that they leave before that 'thing' came back.
Dean then saw another flash of himself, pale and grey hanging from the ceiling just like the others. "Maybe I'm in here too.." He was muttering, well aware that he sounded pretty crazy. Sam was looking at him as if a third head had just sprouted out of his shoulder. He started walking around, trying to find something he wasn't sure existed.
Grabbing the knife from his pocket, he watched as Sam stepped back, his eyes wide. "Dean what are you doing?"
"This is all some sort of dream..."
"And you're going to kill yourself?"
"It's an old wives tale, if you're about to die in a dream you wake up."
Sam shook his head. "What? Wait a minute Dean, don't do that. It's crazy!"
"Maybe."
Sam took a step forward, making as if he was going to reach for the knife but took a step back when Dean held it with the point facing out towards him. "Okay, okay Dean."
"I'm pretty sure I'm going to wake up if I do this Sam." He seemed to think about it for a moment, hesitating even though he held the knife in towards himself. "Well, ninety percent sure."
"WAIT!" Sam shouted and it was enough to make Dean hesitate again.
It was then that he saw his mom out of the corner of his eye, moving towards him. He looked at her as she walked towards him, pretty and perfect like he remembered her, then looked back at Sam. Sam just looked at him before saying, "why'd you have to keep digging?"
Carmen and Jess both appeared as well as Sam kept on with, "Why couldn't you leave well enough alone?"
Dean felt cornered, torn between something he'd always wished for and what he knew was the truth. It was even worse when Mary moved in front of him, giving him a look that only a mother could perfect. He was starting to wonder what would happen if he stayed, if he stayed in this perfect little life that didn't really exist. But he shook his head as his mom asked him to put the knife down. "You're not real. None of it is."
"It doesn't matter. It's still better than anything you had." Mary said, almost as if she were stating the obvious.
"What?"
"It's everything you dreamed of. We're a family again. Let's just go home now."
Part of him really, really wanted to stay. Part of him wanted to believe that this was real. But deep down Dean knew that it was all part of the way the djinn worked. "I'll die. The djinn will drain the life out of me in a couple of days."
"But in here, it'll feel like a lifetime. I promise." She touched his face then and he nearly closed his eyes as he leaned into the touch. It was the type of touch he could hardly remember and hated when he'd forgotten.
Carmen stepped forward then, her hands touching both sides of his face and she leaned up to kiss him. "We can have a future together. Have our own family. I love you Dean. Please, stay." Dean was blinking hard and fast because a big part of him did want that. But he was pretty sure that he didn't want it with Carmen. She wasn't the one that he wanted to make laugh and she wasn't the one that he wanted all those cheesy things with.
But then Sam moved forward and he suddenly felt like he was in on some weird intervention of some sort. But he guessed that's what it sort of was. The djinn could convince his mind that this was real, that this was the perfect life for him and if he stayed, the djinn could have its way with him. Sam looked at him pleadingly. "Why is our job to save everyone? Haven't we done enough?" He asked before holding out his hand. "I'm begging you Dean, give me the knife."
He looked at each of them for a moment, he couldn't believe he was actually contemplating staying here with them. As much as he wanted this to be real, as much as he wanted Sam happy and Jess alive and most of all wanted his mom alive, he knew there was something more. There was something else in his 'old' life that would make all of the bad things they'd dealt with and gone through worth it. Something in his head was telling him that. And it was then he knew that he had to do it before he could change his mind again. "I'm sorry," He whispered right before pushing the knife right into his stomach.
"Dean!"
He heard Sam's voice and it sounded like...his Sam. His eyes fought their way open even though they felt heavy and really, the idea of going back to sleep or whatever was pretty tempting. Sam was standing below him, shaking him in a not-so-gentle manner. "Dean? Dean, wake up!" He ordered, aware that he suddenly sounded a hell of a lot like their father.
Dean's eyes blinked slowly and it felt like he was moving in slow motion. But finally Sam was more in focus in front of him, looking like the worrywart he always was. "Thank God, I thought I almost lost you for a second." He said as he reached up to pull the needles that were practically embedded in the side of his neck.
"You almost did." He said, wincing as Sam pulled one needle free.
"Let's get you down." Sam said mostly to himself as he reached up to start cutting at the rope that binded Dean's wrists above his head with a knife.
"Lucy? Where's Lucy?" He asked as he tried not to feel the rope burning into his wrists.
"I...don't know. I didn't see her."
"Sam!" He exclaimed suddenly as he saw something blue out of the corner of his eye.
Sam turned, swinging the knife out in the direction of the djinn as it came out of the shadows. He'd only cut halfway through the ropes but Dean started to pull as hard as he could to get them to break the rest of the way. If he couldn't get down...well he wasn't going to think about that. Sam and the djinn were struggling with the knife but eventually it clattered to the floor. The djinn pushed him, making him hit nearly head first into the stairs. But Sam didn't have time to think about the pounding in his head as he was turned around and found himself face to face with a very pissed off djinn.
Dean managed to finally free himself, dropping down onto the ground hard. He scrambled across the floor with his head swimming to grab the knife off the floor. Then he came up on the djinn as it held his brother by the throat, ready to do what had been done to him and Dean shoved the knife right in its back. The djin reared up like a horse and Dean twisted the knife as hard as he could. The lights literally went out in its eyes as he pulled the knife from its back and watched as the djinn dropped to the floor. He helped Sam to his feet and the two started the search for Lucy.
The warehouse was still dark and Dean found his head was still swimming. If he was being honest with himself, he thought he was going to pass out a few times but kept pushing. He knew they had a limited amount of time to find her before it would be too late. They came upon the girl he'd seen in his dream. She was hanging lifeless with the same needles in her neck. Dean reached up to pull it from her neck, surprised to find a tear rolling down her cheek. His eyes widened as he felt for a pulse, surprised to feel a faint one under his fingers. Sam moved forward and started to cut at the ropes, watching as Dean carefully laid her down on the floor. Sam handed him the knife then, "I'll stay with her. Go look for Lucy. If you need me, just yell."
Dean nodded and took off, knife in hand. It took him only a few minutes to find her, hanging much in the same postion he and the other girl had been. She was tucked away in a corner, her arms tied above her head. It looked like she'd struggled, given the marks he could see on her wrists. Hurrying forward as fast as his heavy legs would carry him, Dean reached up to touch her. Her skin was clammy and was pretty cold. He was half afraid they were too late, that she'd died alone in a place like this. His hands were shaking as he reached further to start cutting at the thick ropes that held her captive. She let out a groan suddenly as she was jostled some by his movements. He froze and pulled back enough to look at her. "Lucy? Lucy, wake up!"
Her eyes blinked a few times, blurry and unfocused for a moment before she found him. "Dean?" She whispered hoarsely.
He nodded and made quick work to get the needles out of her neck before going back to work on cutting the ropes. "Just hold on. I'm going to get you down and we're gonna get out of here." He was talking more to comfort himself since he was pretty sure she'd lost consciousness again. Blood was soaked into her clothes and he knew it wasn't just from the small wounds on her neck.
"You're dead..." She said quietly as he cut through one part of the rope.
"No I'm not. You're not either." He let out a grunt as the knife sliced through the other half of the rope.
She collapsed in a heap against him. Dean was probably lucky he'd always had pretty good balance because otherwise they both would've toppled to the floor. He finally noticed the head wound she'd gotten and knew that they'd most definitely be taking a trip to the hospital. Lucy mumbled something he couldn't make out as he picked her up, carrying her back in the direction of Sam and the girl.
She wasn't aware of much besides being poked, prodded and being interrupted by some really annoying bright light. But when she finally was able to open her eyes once they didn't feel like they weighed a ton, she found herself lying in a hospital bed, in a hospital gown. Looking around quickly, she half wondered if this was some other fantasy life. She was surprised to see Dean and Sam in the room with her though. Shifting some in the uncomfortable hospital bed, she managed a small smile when Dean was startled out of his sleep. He looked up at her, surprised to see her awake. The ER doctor that had taken care of her had said she'd suffered a pretty bad concussion.
Dean stood and walked over to the bed. "About time, you know you gave us quick the scare."
She looked confused for a moment. "Are you...you're real, right?"
"Yeah." He sat down on the edge of the bed carefully. His body was screaming for him to get some sleep but his mind was working on overtime. He could remember everything still and it made his head hurt, to be honest. "You remember the djinn?"
She nodded, reaching up to touch the bandage on her head. "What happened?"
"Think you got hit in the head. You've got a concussion, they gave you a sedative that was supposed to make you rest."
"My head's just...swimming." She dropped her hand onto the bed, noticing the two bandages covering both wrists. "What the hell?"
"Rope burn." Dean smiled wryly, "Uh we had fun trying to explain that one."
"Did you get caught too?" She asked after a long moment of silence.
He didn't really want to get into it while they were in a hospital, surrounded by people who would think they were both completely insane. But he nodded. "Yeah. We'll talk about it later."
Luckily she got the hint right away and she nodded. Reaching out with one hand, she touched his arm. Mostly it was to make sure he was real and it was also just to reassure him that she was fine. He looked worried and he looked exhausted. "Take Sammy and go get some rest. Please?"
"I don't want to leave you here."
She let out a snort and held up the arm that had an IV hanging out of it. "I'm not goin' anywhere. Go on, go back to the hotel. It's better than being here, trust me."
Dean contemplated it for a moment but he finally nodded his head. Leaning forward, he pressed a kiss against her forehead. "You get some rest too."
"Only if you bring me a cheeseburger when you come to bust me out of here." She said, covering a yawn.
He laughed softly and agreed as he stood from the bed. She was already well on her way back to sleep as he shook Sam to get him up. They stuck around a few more minutes before leaving her alone, each silently promising to come back as soon as they slept just a little bit.