Helvetia, West Virginia - 2001
The warm air of the laundromat washed over him, Dean's eyelids growing heavy. Helvetia, West Virginia, had a grand total of three roads, dominated by a family-owned pharmacy, a pizza place, and the 24-hour laundromat. He and Grace found their way there around midnight after taking care of a rogue werewolf. They'd been on the road for a couple of weeks, and were dangerously close to running out of clean clothes.
That was the less glamorous side of hunting, all of the time they spent in laundromats, gas stations, and rest stops. At least the pizza place was good. "Okay, your turn." Grace was sitting in one of the laundry carts, gazing up at him. Dean had perched on a table, leaning up against a wall of empty washing machines. They were the only ones in the laundromat on a Friday night. No surprise there. "We're on M."
"Mmmmothman," he answered sleepily, swinging his leg like he was going to kick the nearest laundry cart. "N?"
"Naga. They're half human and half snake. Can we stop at the Mothman museum on the way home? It's not that far out of our way."
"Sure," he smiled, closing his eyes as Grace got up to check on their laundry. She threw everything in the dryer, fishing a couple of quarters out of her pocket. When she came back, Dean had dozed off, finally letting himself rest. He rarely did that outside of hotels or the Impala, two places they could count on being relatively safe. But they'd been chasing this werewolf through the woods for two days, finally running him down moments before he reached town.
Not totally confident in the structural integrity of the table, she climbed up anyway, settling in next to Dean. He sleepily put his arm around her, Grace instinctively laying her head on his shoulder. She was tired too, but she'd napped while he drove, and slept in the back of the Impala while he was keeping watch in the woods. Dean hadn't slept in nearly three days, insisting that he stay awake. He could run on coffee, he'd claimed, letting her sleep while he sat up on the stakeout.
He was always vigilant, but even more so when his dad wasn't around. Or at least in a different way. When John was hunting with them, they had to deal with all of his deriding comments, his constant reminders of past failures. John kept Dean alert, and he'd trained him into taking responsibility for things way outside of his control. So when he and Grace went hunting without his father, Dean was just as vigilant, constantly afraid of missing something that would hurt her. But he didn't have to worry about threats from inside. There wasn't the fear of his father's rage, just the fear of the unknown, the monsters outside of their hotel room. Grace tried to convince John to let them hunt alone as often as she could, since she knew that if he wasn't with them, there was a lot less for Dean to worry about. Without John there, Dean could fall asleep in the laundromat and not have to worry about being yelled at for being so inattentive. So she let him sleep as she watched late night television on the old, fuzzy TV that had been installed in the laundromat years before.
Eventually she got up, folding their laundry back into their bags. When she shook Dean's shoulder to wake him up, he automatically jumped to his feet, assuming there was some sort of threat. "It's fine," Grace said, handing him his bag. "C'mon, I'll drive for a little while. We can get a room in the next motel we see, and then you can sleep in a real bed."
Dean stared, still bleary-eyed. Something about this memory wasn't right. When he fell asleep, Grace had holes in the knees of her jeans. She'd been wearing his jacket, and he could've sworn her hair was braided. Rubbing at his eyes, he realized that something was off. She looked older now, much older than she should have been. "Gracie?"
"I need you to remember," she said, taking his hand. "You have to remember."
"Remember what?"
White Elm, Iowa - 2000
The three of them dropped their bags at the door, just glad to be in a motel after the torrential downpour that seemed to cover all of Iowa. Running from the car to their room had left them drenched, Dean more so than the others, since he also had to race into the lobby to get a room. "Alright, I'm already soaked, so I'll go get some food. You two clean up." he instructed, leaving her and Sam to settle in.
"So what do you think this thing is?" Grace asked, rummaging through her bag to find a pair of pajamas.
"Whatever it is, Dad thinks it's tame enough to send us and Dean after it, so it can't be that bad. The weird noises in the house, the sudden death of extended family members, it sounds like a banshee. Do you want the first shower?"
"You go ahead, just don't use up all the hot water."
When Dean got back, Sam and Grace had showered and were reading up on banshees, a trivia game show on in the background. Grace laid on the floor, a couple of books open around her. Her hair curled into her eyes as she balanced a book on her knees. Sam had sprawled out on one of the beds, a book in front of him as well. "Hey, nerds, I've got burgers. And fries. And milkshakes, since this place apparently has the best milkshakes this side of Des Moines."
"Thanks." Grace sprung up, returning with a towel before grabbing her food. "You might want to sit on the floor if you're going to eat right away. Here, I'll turn the heat up so you don't freeze to death."
A couple of hours later, after everyone was clean, dry, and well-fed, Sam and Grace closed their books. Dean hopped off of the bed he'd been occupying, taking a pillow and one of the blankets with him. "Dude, where are you going?" Sam asked, setting his book aside.
"You know Dad's rule - Grace always gets a bed. And you take up a whole bed yourself, Gigantor. We've got a perfectly good armchair, I might as well use it."
Grace pursed her lips, frowning at the idea. "Dean, you've been driving all day, you ran out in the next great flood to pick up dinner -"
"You and Grace can share," Sam said matter-of-factly. The others looked to him, Sam continuing, "C'mon, guys, I've known about you two for a while. You really expect me to believe you sleep in separate beds when you're hunting on your own?"
"Sammy -"
"Dean, I don't care. I'm glad you guys are happy. Now stop being an idiot and get in the damn bed. You're not sleeping in a chair." He turned the light off on his side of the room, rolling over to face the wall.
Dean shrugged, climbing into bed next to Grace. He gave her a chaste kiss after she turned the lights off, pulling her closer. But suddenly something seemed off. She was Grace, the same Grace he'd slept next to for a bit. But something was different. The memory was wrong somehow. "Dean, you need to wake up," she told him. "I know you can."
Lawrence, Kansas - 1999
"Grace, hey!" Sam waved and jogged over to her locker. Grace swapped out her math textbook for another, closing the door before turning to face him. There was dread in the pit of her stomach, the sinking feeling that she knew exactly what he wanted to talk about, and it wasn't something good. "How was Goodwin's class?"
"She's giving a pop quiz, or at least she gave us one."
Sam nodded as he opened his own locker, the one right next to hers. "I think I did fine on the last one, so hopefully I'm good this time around. So, uh, how are you doing after the last hunting trip?"
They'd taken down a nest of vampires in Nebraska the previous weekend. "Fine. I'm used to this stuff by now. We've been friends for how long?" she laughed, some of her nerves escaping her.
"You and Dean seemed pretty close on that trip," he commented. They started walking, headed for another building.
"Yeah, he saved my ass from Dante or whatever his name was. Their second in command? He almost got me, but Dean took care of him."
Sam stopped as they reached the point where they would have to split up. "I mean… more close than that. More close than normal. Dean doesn't let anybody steal his food, but you ate like half of his fries -"
"That's what this is about? You think something's up because your brother was feeling nice? Because I ate a couple of fries?"
"No, I think something's up because you're being defensive about it." Sam raised an eyebrow, saying, "It's fine if you guys don't want to tell anyone else, but I'm his brother. And you're my best friend. You guys can tell me anything. And I kind of deserve to know."
The warning bell rang, giving Grace an excuse to run. "Nothing's going on, Sam. I've got to get to Bio or West'll give me detention. You know he doesn't like me." Sam watched her go, shaking his head.
"He knows," Grace insisted later that night, staring out the windshield.
"He doesn't know." Dean was adamant.
The two of them sat in the Impala, having just finished dinner at the diner across town. "He knows you disappear for no good reason and then come back in the middle of the night. He's smart enough to call my house and ask for me while we're out. Dad told him I was at the library last time, but I think Sam knows."
"I tell him I'm at the bar. He doesn't ask much."
"You can't get into bars!" She sighed, turning her entire body towards him. His eyes glimmered in the light of the diner's neon sign, the weary smile one she had grown so attached to. "He knows, Dean."
"Well I don't want to stop seeing you. Is that what you want?" The pain in his eyes broke her heart. "Gracie, if you're not happy, you can tell me -"
"No, no, I just think we need to tell him. How's he going to trust us if we hide something this big from him? Hey, it's alright. I like you, Dean. I like spending time with you. You make me really happy, but I think Sam deserves to know." She paused, suddenly speaking in a voice much older than her own. "He's going to be happy for us. He was at our wedding, Dean. But he's worried about you. We all are. We need you to wake up. We need you to fight. Please."
"Grace, what are you talking about?" he asked, but he already knew the answer. He knew that he was hiding. He wasn't the Dean Winchester who had just turned twenty, sitting in the diner parking lot with her. He was the Dean Winchester who was hiding in his memories, hiding from Michael, hiding from having to face what he'd done, what he'd become.
"Dean, please. If you stay here for too long, we're going to lose you. It's like you're floating out in the ocean, and the longer you drift, the further you get from shore. There's only so far out you can go before I can't pull you back any more." Her voice finally broke as she told him, "I've been hopping through your memories. I've been watching our lives through them. I've been watching us become... us. I need you, Dean. Samantha and Robbie need you. Sam needs you. Cas needs you. Jack needs you. Your mom needs you. We all need you. You have to fight this. You have to fight him. Please. Hey, I was made for lovin' you, baby."
"What?"
"That's the song that's about to come on." She looked to the radio. "I know how this memory goes. You're going to turn the radio up, and we're going to sing along as you drive me home. You're going to kiss me, and you're going to watch to make sure I get into my house alright. I'm going to wave at you from the window like I always do. And then you're going to drive home and talk to Sam. You're going to call me in the middle of the night and tell me how fine with it Sam was, how he already knew. I picked up the phone on the first ring, and I had to tell my parents that it was a telemarketer, because they'd hate it if you called in the middle of the night. But you're going to be singing that song. That's how it became our song. Please, Dean. I need you to wake up."
Lebanon, Kansas - Present Day
"How are you doing that?" Sam asked, watching Grace speak to his brother. She'd put him in a state of twilight sleep, muttering an incantation as she traced a pattern on his forehead. She was answering him like he was actually talking to her. Sam knew she'd managed to burrow into his mind, but he was astounded at how well it was working.
"Magic can replicate what a dreamwalker does. So I wrote my own spell, made it work for spelunking through memories," she explained, her eyes still closed. Her voice softened as she said something to Dean again. "No, that was Sam. He's here too. I can help you."
"How?" Dean asked, knowing that trying to regain his own mind meant fighting Michael.
Grace reached out, lacing her fingers with his. "Whatever you do, don't let go. I've got you. I'm here, with Sam. We've both got you. You're safe. You're safe right here, in the Impala, in this moment. That's why you're here. This was our diner. We were here every Friday night, even though the one I worked at was closer. We'd go here every week, and if you were gone on a hunt, you'd take me for dinner or a milkshake as soon as you got back. We'd get everything to go and we'd park by the river so we could look at the stars while you told me about whatever you were fighting. I get how easy it is to stay here. It was always safe. No monsters, no angels, no demons, no John Winchester. But we finally got the life we always wanted. We're so close. I'll take you back with me, just don't let go."
Sam paced in front of them, neither Grace nor Dean noticing. He only stopped when his brother gasped for air, like he'd been drowning and had suddenly reached the surface. Dean sat up, clutching Grace's hand for dear life. "Dean?" She and Sam started at him intently, Cas coming into view as well.
He looked around, his eyes settling on Grace. "Yeah."