"Are you afraid?"

Yes, Sam thinks. He should be. It's do or die, and both of which have consequences that Sam can't fathom yet. They die here and so is everything else. They do it successfully, then…

"No," he hears himself say. "I'm not afraid." Not really. Sam's completely past the fear, and there's something fascinating and terrifying in discovering that what lays beyond the fright is an absolute sense of clarity.

Rowena smiles up at him with pride. "That's my boy," she says, echoing her words back then in the mausoleum, except this time there are no tears between them, only weariness and the acceptance of their fate.

Sam leans to her touch when she cradles his face. He closes his eyes and leans down to join his forehead to hers.

Rowena sighs wistfully, tilting her head to rest on the side of his cheek. They're not quite kissing, but it's equally as intimate as one. Sam savors the moment knowing he might not have this again. Maybe never.

Looking back where they began, they've come a long way, didn't they?

"It's time," she says, and it's as if the spell is broken.

Their fingers twine together and the words flow easily. It's melodic and thunderous, their combined chanting, like a huge crashing wave against the disastrous cacophony outside.

The magic expands from Sam and Rowena, and it's enough to encompass their whole surroundings and protect them both from the falling debris. It's not enough, however, to stop the quaking of the ground.

Their incantation halts and the bowl sizzles and spills a bright otherworldly light that wraps the two witches in a blinding glow. Sam's hold tightens, and Rowena holds on and grips him just as tight.

Sam swallows. "Rowena—"

Rowena's lips quiver. "Sam—"

The world crumbles, and the destruction misses the last two people left on Earth.

Sam wakes.

He wakes to a distantly familiar motel room, less disorientated that he thought he would be. The fact that he's staring at an intact ceiling means the spell worked.

As to the extent of it, he's not sure.

There was no premeditated time set when they worked on the spell because anywhere and any time aside from the one they left is better.

Turning to his right, Sam gets his answer as to what point in time he's in. It's pretty ironic and funny that what escapes him is a sigh of relief when he sees who it is.

It's Ruby in all her naked glory.

Sam can't believe he's saying this, but—it's better than he hoped. He's right exactly where it's most preferable, the time where the first Apocalypse is nigh. The possibilities alone send his mind reeling.

All the changes he can make, the incidents he can stop, the deaths he can avoid… the people he can save.

Ruby groans in her sleep and shifts. She looks peaceful like this, and Sam remembers wondering before whether she's truly capable of sleep. He recalls being unable to shut his eyes properly because it's one thing to bed a demon but to fall asleep next to one is another.

Looking at her now, with her mussed-up dark hair that paints the sheets in striking contrast, Sam wants nothing but to card and smooth her mane down. Sam pulls the sheets to cover her, and he pities the woman within. Over the years, it was no longer often that he stopped to think of the poor person being possessed, and if Sam was right, the last that he and his brother truly cared about was Meg Masters.

The longer he stares down at Ruby, the more his past repressed memories return: he cared for this demon before and thought that she held the same affections. Sam was naïve to think that love was possible to grow between a hunter with cursed blood and a female demon gone rogue. He was stupid to think that Ruby would betray her nature for him.

Sam gingerly touches Ruby's head, and he fights off the urge to crush her lovely skull.

He smiles at her when her eyes flutter open. She smirks at him like she knows what he was doing, like Sam is where exactly she wants him to be.

"Aren't you early?" Ruby purrs, stretching and twisting to expose her full breasts. "Hungry?"

What she's offering aside from her blood isn't lost on Sam, and he humors her by raking his eyes over her form. Her meatsuit is pretty, he'll give her that, yet it sparks nothing but nausea in him, a kind of sickness dug up from a long-forgotten pit.

"Not today," Sam says with a shake of his head before standing up. He doesn't have to look at how Ruby frowns at his decline.

Sam turns his back at her to check his phone, and the current date makes him stop.

September 18, 2008.

Suddenly, he's seized with a torrent of emotions that should be enough to crumple him down.

Sam is back to the day when Dean was pulled by Cas from Hell, and the reaction is apt for the date, he supposes, except to him, it'll be seeing his brother and his best friend who's like another brother, alive and well.

To them, Dean has only died once. To them, Cas will be just another angel with the task to bring the Apocalypse to fruition.

To Sam, Dean already died on him numerous times. To Sam, Cas is more than an agent of Heaven.

In any other situation, Sam would have broken down in relief and guilt. But now, with Ruby around, he allows himself a moment to compose himself and breathe.

"Sam?" he hears Ruby say with faux concern, apparently not missing his reaction completely. "Is everything ok?"

Sam runs his hands through his still short hair and gives a shaky smile. "It's nothing."

Ruby crosses her arms when she stands in front of him—she knows better than to position herself behind him. "It's not nothing, Sam. You're shaking." She purses her lips then sighs. "I knew it. You need it right now."

Sam actually chuckles at her unsubtlety. "You don't know what I need, Ruby, and if you do, I doubt you can give it."

Ruby snorts at that. "Pretty sure the last few months are proof that I know what you need, Sam."

She took that as an insult. Sam hums in satisfaction. Good. "I guess you do. So if you can give me Lilith's location right now, that'll be great."

Ruby shrugs and raises her hands in mock surrender. "Now you're being petty."

Sam sits down on the bed with all the nonchalance he can muster. "The thing is, I'm not."

She sighs at him tiredly but situates herself down in a kneel between his legs, looking up at him with her big doe eyes. "I get it. You think we're not making any progress in finding Lilith," she says, planting her arms atop his knees. "But trust me when I say that we are. At least, you do. You've been taking the blood better and better each time." She strokes the sides of his thighs. "In another month or so, Lilith will be done by you as quick as a snap of your fingers." She reaches out to his face tenderly. "You're a talented man, Sam," her mouth purses into a mischievous smile, "in more ways than one."

With a different perspective, Sam can see it clearly now how Ruby got in his head: she played him like a fiddle with gentle touches and sweet words befitting of a faithful lover, and she accepted and encouraged that darkness in Sam and made him feel loved and special for it. The young him craved that acceptance the same way he craved the demon blood.

In the end, she's right. She did know what he needed.

Sam pries himself from her fingers that find the zipper of his pants. The girl inside Ruby has already endured enough, and pleasuring him isn't going to be another one that she has to. Not anymore.

"What is it again, Sam?" she sounds so exasperated after his second avoidance. "If we're having foreplay with you playing as hard-to-get, then please tell me now."

Sam ignores her. "Again, I ask, where's Lilith?"

There's anger that flashes across her face that is gone instantly, replaced by what seems to be sympathy and an expression that brims of understanding. "Sam—"

"No," he interrupts sharply. "You know where she is because you've been working for her since the beginning. Lilith's loyal lapdog, that's what you are. You don't care that the entirety of Hell thinks you defected because that was a direct order from your boss."

Ruby, to her credit, remains firmly on the spot as Sam advances to her threateningly. She looks like a deer caught in headlights, her meatsuit's face pales. "What—"

"Oh, I know the whole story, Ruby, so before you think you can feed me the same bullshit twice, think again."

"You're insane!" Ruby exclaims, taking some steps back from him. "Are you hearing yourself, Sam? Me an agent of Lilith?" She's a good actress, and the laugh she gives indeed sounds as if she thinks the idea is absurd. It's the eyes that betray her, the way her gaze shifts uneasily past Sam to locate a hasty escape.

"But you are, aren't you?" Sam tells her calmly. "Sent out by Lilith to manipulate Lucifer's true vessel into getting addicted to demon blood, set him to the path of revenge against the First Demon in order to break the seal and free Lucifer."

Ruby's eyes widen and swallowing with what seems to be nervousness when she hits the wall unarmed and Sam crowding her. "H-How—Where did you even hear this nonsense?!"

Sam slams his fist next to her head, and she jolts and fuck if that doesn't feel satisfying to Sam. "It's not nonsense, Ruby. I know what's going on. If you admit the truth, I'll be merciful and grant you a quick death. If not…"

The threat hangs oppressively, and Sam knows the point is delivered. He's not fooling around, and the faster he gets on with this problem, the better.

Ruby's eyes search him for a telling lie, and when she finds none, she breaks down in a fit of a disturbing laugh. She doubles over and her head snaps, eyes completely dark when she hisses at Sam before lunging to him.

Sam's back collides with the mattress, and on top of him is Ruby straddling his chest with inhuman strength. She has her knife pressed firmly against his neck, held firm by her strong grip.

"Well, look who discovered the dirty little secret of the lifetime," Ruby croons above him. "We're doing so great, Sam, but you just have to ruin it. So, Sammy, how did you come by with this knowledge?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Sam taunts. Ruby can hurt him, but she'll never kill him, not when he's the key to Lilith's death. "Why don't you look, Ruby?"

Her black eyes cloud momentarily. Sam doesn't fight back, doesn't struggle. Let her see. Let her see the ugliness of his soul and the pit it turned into after her hard work to the young Sam Winchester.

And Ruby sees. What a sight it must be if it can make a demon, a corrupted soul itself, gasp in disbelief.

Sam takes the millisecond hesitance to push her off of him. She hits the wall with a crash, her knife slipping from her. Sam's fifty-fifty whether it'll work, but he's strike with inspiration and holds out his palm.

While the effect of his young self's previous consumption is waning, Sam can still feel the weight of power. It's underneath his skin, and Sam will be lying if he says he doesn't miss the familiar rush in his blood, the want to unleash and cause pain to those who deserve his punishment.

Pinned and defenseless in place, Ruby is afraid of what comes next, but amidst her terror is a twisted pride that she'll die by the hands of something she made and painstakingly strengthened.

"Go on, Sam. Kill me."

Kill me with your mind. Kill me with the power I honed.

Sam refuses to give her the satisfaction.

The force he's exerting with his mind slackens its hold on Ruby, but Sam doesn't put down his hand down. He makes a split-second decision and out tumbles the words:

"Defigire et depurgare."

It's not quite the same without a hex bag, and while Sam is still light years away from Rowena's league in terms of witchcraft, with his current psychic abilities, he gets the same desired effect. Sam revels at the look of surprise on Ruby's face before she convulses, clutching her abdomen as she coughs up her true form in heaps of black filth.

"What—What is this?!" she hisses and coughs, sending Sam a murderous glare that can send a lesser man to death.

"You were a witch. Should be familiar to you," he says idly, watching Ruby being destroyed from within. "Learned a trick or two."

Ruby falls on her knees, scratching at her neck, chest, and stomach. Sam stands there with an odd detachment as she writhes on the floor, convulsing and letting out choking noises in an attempt to speak and curse at Sam.

Sam doesn't move until she dies on the pool of black sludge that used to be Ruby's demon form. Her face will be forever frozen in fear and a question of:

Who are you?

It's just as well that she died not knowing.

By the time Dean and Bobby knock on the door, Sam is sitting on the bed as if nothing happened, as if he did not kill and burned Ruby's dead meatsuit with a contained fire.

He's ready when he sees Dean, young and less burdened than Sam saw him last. Sam notes the mild bewilderment that crosses Bobby when Sam doesn't question or doubt Dean's sudden presence when he should have been dead and in Hell. He embraces Dean so tight because damnit it's his brother that he saw die multiple times in a span of a decade and a half, and his last memory of him is his permanent death.

And Bobby, their Bobby—

Sam embraces him too because it was eight years for Sam and six years the last time he heard Bobby's voice. Sam disrupted Bobby's peace upstairs, and he doesn't get to know what happened with Bobby after.

Bobby is one of the many he can save, and Sam will make sure he'll stop his death.

"Woah, hey, Sammy—Are you—"

Sam reluctantly lets them go and distances himself before he can break down and cry. "Sorry. Just… Sorry. Give me a moment." They think he's overwhelmed with emotion at Dean's sudden return, and fuck it, they're not wrong.

"Look, not that I want to break the happy reunion, but," Bobby begins hesitantly when a few good considerable minutes pass by. Something shifts in Dean's face and morphs into concern and a twinge of disappointment. "How did you do it, Sam?"

"Do what?"

"What did it cost, Sam?" Dean asks heavily, back straight against the wall. "What did it cost to bring me back?"

To bring himself back to this time, everything.

Sam remembers vaguely this line of questioning, and he's calmer when he answers. "I'm not the one who brought you back, Dean," he says evenly.

"Why don't I believe you?" Dean tells him, and Sam acknowledges that his brother is a little ashamed of himself to say that. "So I just rise up from the dead, from Hell, all by myself? Sam, tell me now what you did. We can fix it. Whatever deal you made, we can take it back."

Sam believes that, and he wants to say badly that Dean already emerged from things that are worse than Hell.

Until it was the end of the world and Dean left him for good.

"I did not make a deal with a demon either," Sam says with a sigh. "But I might know who did." He rubs his face. "Ruby told me."

"Ruby? She's alive?" Dean's face is clouded with growing anger. "And let me guess, you're working with her too after I died."

"I was," Sam admitted. "Until this morning. I killed her, Dean, because it turned out that she was under Lilith's command all along. She wasn't helping me to look for Lilith; she was cultivating me per Lilith's orders."

There's a lot to unpack there so Sam doesn't dare to look at Dean and Bobby's reactions, continuing, "You're gonna hate me for this, but I'd rather you find it out now: I've been drinking demon blood, most of the time Ruby's. It helps with the psychic abilities up to the point where I can send a demon back to Hell and save the person inside." Sam smiles ruefully. "I liked it, the feeling that I can help save them more than just ganking the demon that rode them."

Sam lets the silence sit afterward. No doubt that Dean's presently judging him now while Bobby is reserving his until Sam spills out the full story. He recalls Dean thinking of him a different level of freak when he found out that Sam has demon blood in his veins. Sam isn't under the illusion that it'll be different this time.

He doesn't hear Dean move to the other side of the bed to slump down like he's bearing all the weight of the world.

"Why?" Dean simply asks hoarsely.

"Why what?"

Bobby grunts. "I think what your brother means to ask specifically is why's Lilith going through the trouble of," he gestures at Sam, uncertain how to address it, "making you stronger."

Sam only has one word to sum it all up for them. "Apocalypse."

The ride to Bobby's place is quiet, and Sam doesn't expect it to be anything else.

Sam told them everything, at least what classifies as everything in this certain phase of their lives. And while Dean is understandably distracted, it's probably not a good idea to let him drive with his mind still processing all that information.

Not that Sam regrets unloading it all at once because secrets have been their bane. It's about time that they work on that even if it means Sam has to do it first.

Even if it means Dean will stop talking to him altogether.

Sam spares Dean a sidelong glance. It's his brother but not quite the same. This Dean hasn't been through what the future Dean had been. It'll be a long journey for his brother, but Sam will be there to see Dean through.

He's far from expecting that nothing will change from before—that's what he's trying to remedy in the first place—though admittedly, it's as saddening to be solitary in the past where Sam's presence alone can make or break the outcome.

Except, he's not really alone in the past, isn't he? Theoretically, if Sam was chucked back to 2008, Rowena should be sent back to this year as well.

Sam wonders where she is right now. Does she think where he is right now too? Is she alright? What could she be doing as of this moment?

He wants to know what was it that she was about to say before the spell threw them back in time, separated, and he thinks back as to what he was meaning to say to her.

Sam smiles regretfully to himself when he remembers and thinks that he should have been quicker and bolder to say it a little earlier.

Next time, he thinks, next time we meet.

On the passenger seat, Sam falls asleep, holding on to that promise.

tbc