It has already been 40 chapters, moving from canon to fanon. How well are you people keeping up? At the end of this chapter, I'm going to pinpoint the most important divergences, just in case someone got lost.

Chapter 41

Becky Rosen was beyond surprised when she saw the marks on Alex's neck, identical to hers. And learning that the young girl hadn't actually come to Georgia because of her but in search of some kind of celestial thing, it didn't take a genius to figure out that both facts were likely related. How exactly, that was the tricky part, but fortunately they were a group of brainiacs (Becky's words) and they were going to solve the mystery asap... or at least that she hoped.

Showing an ounce of her past recognizable behaviour, Becky spurted into action and informed her co-worker that she was taking the rest of the day off (and probably the week too) due to personal reasons.

"Now don't you dare to mention anything about a road motel. You're staying at my apartment and that's final. It's small, but Alex can sleep with me in the bedroom, and you boys can take the couch. It's convertible." And only after a pause, Becky added in a meek voice, "Please."

Sam didn't have the heart to tell her no. There was something so drastically changed in her, that very unexpectedly the hunter found himself missing it. Annoying and troublesome as the blonde had been in the past, it had also made her a genuine person, and he wasn't sure what to do with the current maudlin version of her, that looked like bursting in tears if you just raised your voice at her.

When the four of them arrived at the apartment, it was another surprise. The place was so... standard, with no personal touches. It was still nice and clean, but didn't look lived in. And if there was one thing that Becky had lots of, it was personality, or she used to in the past.

"Have you moved in recently?" Sam couldn't help but ask.

"Depends on what you consider recent. It's been more than a year."

The Winchester didn't insist, but every little detail reassured him that something was definitely wrong with Becky and that she had been right in calling for help, whatever this was about.

"Now, Becky. Tell us what's happening," Sam spoke to her in a soft tone when the four of them sat at the coffee table, the blonde pouring them each a cup of tea that nobody had asked for. "You sounded pretty distressed over the phone."

The woman took her time to answer, gripping her cup between her hands as if a lifesaver and letting the aromatic steam waft over her face.

"It has been a difficult time since we last met, Sam," Becky began when she relaxed enough. "Not that it has been any easier for you, I know. I kept reading and publishing the next Supernatural books 'til the last one, when God... Chuck, reunited with the Darkness and they left. That was a shocking revelation, certainly."

"Yeah, truly," Sam chuckled slightly. "You weren't the only one astounded by that, I assure you."

"You didn't have sex with God, Sam. I don't think the situation was even remotely as dumbfounding to you. You didn't even consummate our marriage with me."

Poor Adam, who was just about to take his first sip of tea, almost choked to death at this.

"Right, ehm... You were saying, a difficult time?" Sam prompted her to keep speaking and leave behind the unfortunate subject of their fleeting marriage.

"Yes. After tricking you into marrying me, for which I deeply apologize, I felt disheartened. Sad and hurt... I needed someone, I wanted someone to hug me and tell me that I wasn't completely the garbage of a person I felt as. So I tried calling my older brother, whom I hadn't spoken with in years, but I couldn't get a hold of him." At this point, Becky's voice started to break. "I kept trying, looking for him, and then... I coincidentally found a match. An unbelievable one, if you weren't a hunter. I discovered that Walter was dead, had been for a long time."

"Why is that an unbelievable match?" Alex inquired softly.

"You know, in the Supernatural books, the side characters never get a lot of info, which is understandable. Unless they make a reappearance, most of them don't even get a name. So I had no way to know that when the Seven Sins were released from Hell and Envy possessed some poor guy in front of his house, I was actually reading about Walter Rosen's demise."

A sorrowful gasp escaped Sam's mouth. He hadn't even known that once Becky had had a brother, but he faintly remembered the man she was referring to. A blond, burly man. If not possessed by the demon, he would have said that his face looked gentle and kind.

"Walter went missing from Oak Park, Illinois in 2007. Following the trail, next thing I knew was him in the middle of a fight in a mall in Nebraska. The entire thing was so eerily similar to what happened to the side character, that eventually I had to connect the dots."

"Oh, Becky... I'm so sorry," Sam said.

"That's just your life, dealing with demons and the people they hurt," the woman shook her head, sniffling. "But me? Oh... what kind of sister doesn't know that her own brother has been dead for years? I loved Walter dearly, he was like... a superhero to me when we were children. He even saved me once... no, he actually saved me many times. I adored my older brother, and yet I couldn't help him the one single time he might have needed me instead. God, I didn't even know!"

The distraught blonde broke down in tears right then and there, in from of them. Adam and Alex looked at Sam for a clue of what to do, but it wasn't as if he had any more than the youngsters. Thus they just allowed Becky to cry quietly for a little while, hoping that would give her some relief.

"Sorry, I just couldn't..." she talked again after a few minutes, drying her face with a handkerchief. "I didn't call you just to watch me cry."

"It's ok, everyone needs it sometimes," Alex comforted her. "What happened after your brother?"

"How it relates to what's happening to you now?" Adam added, straight to the point.

"After Walter, I felt all the worse. The one person in the world I believed that still cared for me was gone, and I had been none the wiser. And after what I had done to Sam... so sorry, Sam. I can't say it enough," Becky repeated. "I didn't want to be that person anymore, the person that forces another into marriage, the person that ignores her own brother's death... so I sought help. After the grief period over Walter, I started visiting a psychiatrist."

Sam nodded to himself, understanding a bit better why Becky was being so unlike herself. At first he thought about congratulating her, because admitting that something was wrong with oneself was never easy, and even less easier attempting to actually do anything about it. In his opinion, the woman had been very brave, but... The Winchester looked around the apartment again, how neutral and impersonal everything looked. Her own clothing was so dull, totally unrelated to her personality. Not that he was a fashion expert, but Sam suspected that Becky was more trying to delete herself than improving or correcting her bad points. And running away from oneself was definitely not a solution.

"And how it went, with the psychiatrist?"

"I was so afraid at first, thinking that they would judge me all over, but she was actually a very nice woman. Doctor Eunice helped me understand myself better, why I acted the ways I did in my life. She gave me a couple of small tasks every week, to see how I reacted to them and why. It was fine for a couple of years, but then..." she sighed deeply, closing her eyes.

"Then?" Sam nudged her to continue.

"After the small tasks, bigger ones came. The most difficult was to move somewhere new: another building, another town... whatever. I didn't really want to, but I still tried, and... it actually went great! I left my boring and unsatisfying job as a secretary and through a ComiCon I found my current job at the comic store; the apartment came later. I also developed a new hobby creating Supernatural maquettes on Etsy, and even..."

Becky stopped again, pressing her lips as if trying to contain whatever she had almost let out. She was playing idly with her hands, but one of her fingertips was insistently rubbing the skin on her left ring finger.

"Since I had already gone to personal counselling for years, doctor Eunice suggested me group therapy, where I could get in touch with people with similar troubles and find support in one another. It went very well for months, until... until they started dying," she finished in a whisper, taking back her cup of tea and sipping.

The hunter nodded again. Finally they were getting somewhere.

"They started dying? Just like that?" the nurse voiced out her doubts. "Could it be...? Miss Rosen, I mean no offense, but being a therapy group... Sometimes people in psychiatric counselling might act very randomly. Did they, by any chance, commit suicide?"

"No. No, they didn't," Becky denied vehemently. "They had other kind of troubles, none that related to self-harm in any way. Besides, the three of them died in the same way: they were strangled."

At this, both Sam and Adam directed a meaningful look at Alex's neck, where the marks of fingertips were clearly visible, just like in Becky's.

"How do you know that?" the boy inquired, puzzled.

"The Police came asking questions the day I called you. They told me the cause of death solely because they suspected there was a pattern and I could become a victim if this continued. Any of us in the therapy group might be the next victim. They also interrogated doctor Eunice, now that she had returned from Hawaii."

"Hawaii?!" the dark-haired girl almost shrieked, exchanging pointed looks with her two male companions.

"Yes," she said, surprised by the yelp. "She went there on vacation after Christmas season cooled down, but came back a couple of days ago. Probably due to the fact that someone is murdering her patients."

Alex felt her head about to explode. Didn't everything just match so perfectly? Two days ago her anunnaki key decided to swam across the ocean in a freaky sprint, likely hitching a ride in a plane along with Becky's psychiatrist.

"This must be difficult for the doc," Becky continued. "She's very devoted to us. Even when she went on vacation, Eunice still kept in contact, calling one of us every day. My turn was in Saturday."

"Today is Wednesday 17. Did she call you on the 13th?" Sam asked, counting. "Was it a normal call? Did the doc sound okay to you?"

"... Yes? I mean, she probably was worried after the deaths of Mr. Stuart and Mrs. Susan, and then the third happened just the day after we talked last, on Sunday. No wonder she cut off her resting time and came back."

There was a stagnant silence for a moment. Sam dragged a hand through his hair, for the first time missing it being long, pondering the best way to help Becky. At least she wasn't one of those being rudely awaken into the truth of things that go bump in the night. The woman had already had her fair share of supernatural stuff.

"Becky, just one question. How much sure are you that your psychiatrist is actually human?"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When Kaia entered the library, a book in hand that she intended to put back in its respective shelf, she found Jack there alone. The boy was sitting with his back bent over a table, one cheek resting on the wooden surface, and eyes lost somewhere in space.

"Hey, little bird. What are you doing here all by yourself?" she asked him, half joking and half worrying. "You've been sad since Gabriel returned to Heaven."

"It was my fault," the nephilim confessed appalled, watching the girl sit next to him. "He didn't want to leave Kali, but she forced him to in order to save him. All because I wasn't strong enough to deal with the monster I let free."

"You know that's not true. You and Jesse are stronger than any of us."

Jack remained silent, but the obvious answer was the elephant in the room. It wasn't a matter of strength, as the archangel had pointed out when he saved their asses.

"You know, I don't envy you, Jack. Nor do I envy your power, or Jesse's," Kaia spoke, resting her cheek on the table surface too and locking eyes with the boy. "I know how it feels, at least a little bit. I'm powerful on my own too, and like you two, I also had great expectations placed on me. And then I was thrown into the Bad Place, faced with the giant who broke me in pieces... But the most frustrating thing? I actually know how to defeat it, but I still can't."

Jack frowned at this piece of information, for he had no idea.

"What do you mean, Kaia?"

"Back at home, the trials of the rite of passage into the higher status of society are selected randomly. Nobody knows what it would be one's. A trial of strength? A trial of wits? It may be magic, or it may be a spiritual revelation. There's no way you can prepare for it. And yet, if I had known what awaited me, it would have been so easy to win!"

"How so?"

"The giant, I learned after arriving in the Bad Place, it's a creature of the earth. Born from the very soil. That's why, no matter how much I harmed it, it would always heal. But back at home, we had frequent meteor showers where a celestial mineral rained from the sky, like fragments of stars. We call it isadra, an iridescent gemstone that looked like the very pieces of the night sky. If I had had in my possession even a small one isadra, just big enough to carve out a dagger, I would have plunged it right through the giant's skull and be done."

The nephilim felt so sorry for his friend. Trying so hard for so long, and all this time knowing what the solution was but having it totally out of her reach. The mere thought was cruel.

"I don't have isadra to show me the answer, Kaia," Jack whispered, discouraged. "Castiel told me that my mother believed in me, she believed so strongly that I would be good for this world, that I would be important. But I don't know what great thing I'm supposed to do. I keep trying doing good, but it seems that I can only fail."

"Hey now, what gives you the right to say that?" the avatar chided him tenderly, stroking his other cheek a couple of times. "You're still a baby. You have all the time in the world to figure it out, human time and angel time. Me? I don't even know how many years exactly I spent wishing for a chance to return home that would never come."

Jack didn't respond after that, but he mulled over her friend's words for a while. His emotions were still so innocent and raw... Castiel picked up on them easily through their familial bond, even if he wasn't even in the bunker at that moment. To him, the fluctuation of his adopted son's feelings was so clear that he could have been broadcasting them all over angel radio and it would be the same.

The seraph knew that Jack was feeling guilty and downcast since what happened with Gabriel and Legion. Letting aside that Heaven was actually the best place for an archangel to be, specially given the current circumstances, nothing changed the fact that Gabriel had returned heartbroken after Kali's dismissal. And this, consequently, also had deeply saddened the nephilim.

Castiel wondered, while doing his shopping in Lebanon with Claire and Eileen, if there was anything he could do to help Jack lift his mood. Kelly would probably know what to say, whatever her visions about her son had been about.

Maybe... maybe it was time for Castiel to call for Balthazar's help again.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A scream echoed in the middle of the night, and then a suffocated breathing. Her lungs felt heavy, her throat closed off, and her mouth could barely mutter the tiniest moans of help. The weight on her chest was crushing, while at the same time it was as if she could burst like a bubble from the inside.

"SAM! ADAM!" a voice called out. "Oh my god! Please, help!"

Barely a few seconds after, the door of the bedroom opened with such force that it hit the wall. Sam came in first, gun ready, but he secured it and put it away when he checked that there was no creature to fire it at. Instead, in the dimly lit room, he took in the scene of an evidently soaked bed and a nurse trying her best to keep Becky's hands away from her own neck.

"Alex, what happened?" Sam asked, rushing to help. He held Becky's face, trying to catch her attention, but he soon realized it was useless. "What the fuck... she's still asleep!"

"Oh, really? I didn't notice when I kept calling her and getting ignored," Alex replied snidely.

"Her eyes are open, so I thought... Okay, whatever. Let's just try to calm her down."

It was easier said than done, for the woman continued to flail around like a fish out of water for a long while. Adam brought a big, dry blanket and the three of them wrapped Becky in it, almost like a straight jacket, to prevent her from further strangling herself. After almost an hour, she seemed to come out of her fitful nightmare and closed her eyes again, breathing normally. She didn't wake up for even a second through the whole ordeal.

"No wonder I gave Claire such a scare," Alex whispered in a low tone, watching over the sleeping woman in the couch. "Becky also frightened me."

"I can understand the strangling, but what about the water?" Adam murmured back. "The sheets and even the mattress were completely sodden."

"I don't know. Everything looked normal when we went to sleep, and next thing I know I walked into a pool."

"You didn't strangle yourself tonight," Sam pointed out. "While dreaming, do you remember anything?"

"No, nothing different from the last two nights. Just a feeling of utter guilt and abandonment, and someone begging to stop. To stop what, I don't know, but I'm beginning to have an idea," the girl looked intently at the blonde.

"In the morning we should go talk to that psychiatrist," the hunter decided. "See how much 'devoted' she actually is."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dean walked into the bakery with a heavy gait. Another night of lonely sleeping, and an equally felt lonely morning where he didn't catch a single glance of his feathered best friend. Julia had told him that the lights have flickered for a few seconds while he was outside clearing the snow from the entrance stairs, so very likely the hunter had missed out on another visit from the silver-eyed angel. Oh, what a pity.

Sighing contently at the warmth and tasty smells from the bakery, Dean already felt better. His mood had vastly improved after Emma found him in the garage again and they spent the whole morning together, talking about anything. He learned that his daughter was definitely gone on the cuteness of rabbits, even those that weren't crocheted with ribbons on their ears or didn't wear pocket watches.

But then Emma had started asking questions about Baby. First it had been simple questions, like what year she was made, because she could understand numbers and the passage of time now. And next it had been what is this and what is that, what this did and what that was called, why it was dirty, why it was smelly, and why it had to be so filthy. But... but the amazon hadn't shied away when Dean handed her a dirty rag and told her to clean the mudguards; and when he slipped to work under the Impala and asked her to pass him a certain tool, she had actually remembered the right one.

Yes, it had been an awesome morning in his book. And some pie would be the icing on the cake, no pun intended.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Kensington," he greeted the woman politely. "Missed me?"

"Sure I did, Campbell boy! Days without you showing your pretty face around? You got me worried, lad."

Dean smiled to himself. The motherly tone of the almost senior woman never failed to make him feel better.

"You look somehow forlorn, though. Has anything happened, dear?"

"Hum... no, not really?" he tried to deflect the subject, but the tender look on the woman's face told him that the wasn't fooling her. "Well, actually... yes, lately there's this thing nagging at me."

"I surmised as much. Anything that a humble baker could help you with?"

The Winchester rubbed his nape, his eyes darting around the store, trying to find the words.

"I... I have a daughter," Dean confessed in one go. "A teenager girl. She's living with us since October, and things are difficult. They're getting slowly better, but still. There's a lot to work on, you know? I learned about her mother's pregnancy in a very bad way, and only got to meet my daughter once before, when she was still a toddler. Since we got in touch again, I've been trying to find something in common to bond over with her... but so far, I've got nothing. Or almost."

Mrs. Kensington listened politely, trying to be impartial to both her most enthusiastic client and the daughter she had never heard about before.

"Is this the reason you've been buying different pastries since Christmas? Because you're trying to find something she likes?"

"Was I so obvious?" Dean joked, feeling a bit embarrassed.

"I'll say you're not exactly Hitchcock, lad," she smiled gently. "So nothing has worked so far. What did you bring her until now?"

"First was pie, of course, but she didn't like it. Then I tried pancakes, the pear tart, and once we had cake at home. She also tried that weird crepe thing at the New Year's party in the barn, and then the cupcakes."

"The crepe thing was a galette," Mrs. Kensington informed him. "And she didn't comment on any of them?"

"She usually says it's too sweet, which, duh! Pastries are supposed to taste sweet, right? But she once or twice said that she liked the dough part."

"Not necessarily, dear. A pastry can also be a bit sour and still remain delicious," the baker corrected him, walking to a specific glass counter and putting out a tray of bluish muffins. "Take some of these blueberry muffins, and we'll go from here."

Dean took a dozen (so everyone in the bunker could have a taste) and thanked her, yet feeling unsure of the deceiving not-sweet pastry. At dinner time, he left the muffins in the middle table in the library, attempting not to look too eager when Emma picked one. The amazon munched slowly, her brow furrowing in deep thinking. Then she grinned, (fudging yes, she grinned!) and asked if she could take a second.

Dean almost started a victory dance right there in front of everyone. No, really.

The hunter practically ran to his bedroom. Once there, he took out a pen and a started sheet of paper and finished writing down:

1 Pie FAIL

2 Pancake FAIL

3 Tart FAIL

4 Cake FAIL

5 Weird crepe thing FAIL

6 Cupcake FAIL

7 Blue muffins FUCKING SUCCESS!

Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Pivotal divergences from s12/s13:

- Amara gifted Dean a wish, yet to be asked.

- Instead of Mary, it was Jess who got resurrected.

- No British Men of Letters nonsense.

- The BMoL golden egg was actually found by Crowley in a Hell's vault.

- Lucifer's next vessel was directly the President (no rock star and no bishop).

- The psychic girl Magda remained alive, since there was no Ketch to kill her.

- Claire was cured of werewolfism without Mick Davies' help, obviously.

- It was the hunter Wally who asked for backup against Ramiel (and he made it out alive).

- The person Eileen killed with the Colt was a random civilian.

- The alpha vampire was killed in whatever other case, not related to the BMoL.

- Alicia and Max Banes called Dean instead of Mary (not revived) for help to find their mother.

- Kaia Nieves and AltKaia merged into one single person.

- Gabriel was never captured after the summit of the gods, he remained all this time with Kali.

- Therefore Asmodeus wasn't killed by Gabriel, but sooner killed by the shedim Legion that Jack accidentally freed (so neither Castiel was ever held prisoner).

- Lucifer never escaped from the Apocalypse world, he's still trapped there.

- Nobody escaped from the Apocalypse world actually, only Jack and Jess. That means no bunker full of other people.

- Also means that the four ingredients needed for the spell to open a rift were never obtained (so yes, Castiel didn't technically marry the Djinn Queen).

- Anael plays no part in this fanfic, since she never met Lucifer. She returned to Heaven with every other remaining angel when all the gates were closed.

- After being brain-fried by Castiel, the prophet Donatello eventually managed to die in peace and went straight to Heaven.

- Balthazar has been brought back from the Empty as well.

- And finally... DESTIEL IS REAL, people! :D