January 3rd, 2043


The packhouse was too fucking quiet.

Well, maybe not quiet, Sam reflected, staring up at the ceiling as he tried to summon the willpower to get out of bed. He could hear his dad puttering around the kitchen making breakfast while the percolator hissed and rattled on the stove. Mom had been up for hours—or maybe she'd never gone to bed in the first place—keeping busy in the laundry room, where the washer and dryer rumbled and rolled in tandem on their third or fourth cycles of the morning. Somebody was taking a shower in the upstairs bathroom; the pipes groaned and sputtered in protest as the hot water made its way up to the second story from the heater in the basement. Outside, a blue jay was jeering obnoxiously whilst being scolded by what sounded like an entire flock of chickadees, and the storm door was squealing and clattering in its frame whenever the wind caught it just right.

So no, it wasn't quiet. It was more that certain, vital noises were devastatingly, achingly absent.

Sam had never slept more than a night or two without the reassurance of Cass' deep, even breathing in the next bed over; they'd shared a room, a crib, a goddamn womb, and the persistent silence where the constant, steady cadence of his twin's heartbeat ought to have been made him feel as though his own heart had been ripped right out of his chest.

"Oh for fuck's sake," he grumbled, giving up on sleep up at last.

He let muscle memory carry him down the stairs and into the kitchen, yawning and scrubbing miserably at his tired eyes as he shuffled around the island to get at the coffee pot.

"Morning, Sammy," Dad greeted him, sleep-rough and subdued, glancing up from the griddle and frowning at his son's disheveled state. "Did you sleep at all?"

"Some," Sam grunted, shrugging as he poured himself a steaming cup. "Not much."

The creases in dad's forehead deepened as he carefully added another batch of pancakes to the growing pile on the platter beside him, but he didn't say anything. Sam stole one off the top, tearing off a too-large mouthful to appease his complaining stomach.

"What about you?" he asked around the sweet, fluffy bite, sticking his head in the fridge to hunt for the half-and-half.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Dad chided, without heat. "I got a couple of hours in."

"And mom?"

Dad bit his lip, casting a pained and anxious look in the direction of the laundry room as Sam emerged with the creamer.

"She's having a hard time," he sighed tiredly, rubbing the back of his neck.

It was a non-answer, really—not to mention a massive fucking understatement—but Sam wasn't about to push. It was bad enough that he hadn't been here, where he belonged, in those first crucial days; that he'd deprived his family of what little comfort he had to offer when everything was still so unbearably raw and fragile. Mom could do laundry for the whole damn pack if that was what kept her sane; he had no right to question anyone else's coping strategies when his own apparently included summoning demons, holding ancient deities hostage, and letting his buddy jump through wormholes.

"Hey," Gertie mumbled, padding into the kitchen with her wet hair still done up in a towel on top of her head.

Her eyes were rimmed in red, and they didn't linger long on Sam. She'd burst into tears at the sight of him when he and Big Sam had pulled in on New Year's Day, clinging and sobbing into his neck while he helplessly patted her on the back. It stung more than he cared to admit that his sister couldn't bear to look at him; it wasn't his fault that he and Cass had the same stupid face.

"I thought you couldn't have that?" he commented as she stood on tiptoe to fish a mug out of the cupboard.

"Shut the hell up, Sam," she retorted, elbowing him out of the way and pretending not to see dad's disapproving look. "It doesn't even matter; it's not gonna stay down anyway."

Sam winced in sympathy at that, moving aside and raising both hands in surrender. Gertie wasn't even showing yet, but the newest Fitzgerald had been making themselves known in other, far less pleasant ways for weeks now; far be it from him to stand between a pregnant woman and her coffee.

"Is Logan up?" Dad inquired, just the slightest edge to his voice.

"He's still asleep," Gertie huffed, stirring in a heaping spoonful of sugar. "Lucky bastard."

Lucky bastard, indeed; Sam couldn't help but feel envious of his brother-in-law when sleep had been eluding him for the better part of a week. The stupor he'd drunk himself into his second night at the bunker didn't count, and he'd paid a heavy price for those few blessed hours of unconsciousness; Big Sam had peeled his hungover ass off the floor the next morning, head pounding and stomach churning, and dragged him into the library to assist in hours of mind-numbing research under Lachesis' dispassionate eye. They had been through every scrap of lore the Men of Letters had on psychopomps, but it seemed that the rules and rituals which formerly governed the low-level principalities were no longer in effect; they couldn't summon a reaper, no matter what they tried.

The Queen of Hell didn't come when called either, which the older man had bitched and moaned about, but which hadn't surprised Sam in the slightest. Their attempts at scrying and tracking spells resulted in Big Sam flipping a table in frustration; wherever Rowena was—and she certainly wasn't in Hell, Michigan, or Satan's Kingdom, Massachusetts, or Devil's Den, Wyoming—she was probably having a good laugh at their expense. After that infuriating exercise in futility, Sam had only just managed to talk the enormous idjit out of attempting to jumpstart an eclipse with a spell that would have altered the orbit of the fucking moon; thankfully, the threat of werewolves the world over losing their collective shit had been enough to convince Big Sam to abandon that especially ill-advised scheme.

"Sammy?" Dad prompted, tone and inflection indicating that it wasn't the first time he'd tried to get his son's attention.

"Hmm?" Sam blinked, refocusing. "What?"

"Jesus Christ, I'll do it," Gertie cut in irritably, reaching around Sam for the stack of plates dad was trying to hand off.

"Sorry," Sam murmured, hastily fumbling open the silverware drawer in a belated attempt to make himself useful.

"It's fine," Dad dismissed the apology, taking the knives and forks out of his hands. "I'll help Gertie set the table; why don't you tell Big Sam breakfast is ready? I think he stepped out to make a call."

That tracked; the older hunter had been on the phone more often than not over the past week. Donna had been calling several times a day; even with Claire and Kaia as backup, the situation in Elk Creek was untenable. The sheriff was none too pleased about having to work with the crossroads demon who had once tried to kill her best friend, though Jody bizarrely seemed to take greater exception to Crowley's angelic escort; for reasons Sam was not privy to, she was exceptionally concerned with how Castiel's continued presence might be affecting Claire.

"Um, sure," Sam agreed, taking another gulp of his coffee before setting it aside. "Let me just get my coat."

Big Sam wasn't just out on the front porch, which was unfortunate; it hadn't snowed in Grantsburg since early December, but there had been very few days where the temperature rose above freezing, so there were no footprints in the patchy crusts of ice to mark which direction the older man had gone. Sam tried to scent the frigid air, but taking a deep breath felt like getting stabbed in the sinuses, so he hunched his shoulders against the bitter chill and resigned himself to a methodical search, instead.

"Where the fuck did you go?" he muttered to himself, trudging reluctantly down the steps and making his way across the yard.

The chickadees dispersed noisily as he came around the corner of the house, scattering black oil seeds across the ground in a flurry of frantic wing beats. The blue jay was delighted, taking advantage of their upset to swoop in and gobble up more than his share. Sam bypassed the battle royale taking place at the birdfeeder in order to check the driveway, but all of the cars were present and accounted for, unoccupied and cold, including Big Sam's sedan; before they left the bunker to caravan up to Wisconsin, the older man had ditched his hijacked clunker at Lebanon's only service station with the keys in the ignition and a couple hundred bucks in the glovebox—no harm, no foul.

"Goddamnit," Sam swore, kicking the nearest tire; unless Big Sam was hiding in the woods somewhere, there was only one place left to look.

The barn at the back of the Fitzgerald property was over a hundred years old, and between the peeling red paint and the gambrel's missing shingles, it certainly looked the part. It was drafty as hell, but it wasn't as though any livestock relied on its weathered clapboard walls for warmth or shelter; the drover unloaded twenty head of cattle every couple weeks throughout the winter months, but the animals met a swift, merciful end as soon as they lumbered down out of the chute and through the broad barn doors. Sam almost envied the stupid, soft-eyed creatures; unlike the oblivious steers, he knew all that awaited him across that threshold was death.

Over the past year and a half, he had desecrated innumerable graves in the hope that a judicious application of salt and flame would allow their restless occupants to find a little peace, and he had dissected countless cadavers looking for evidence of the supernatural species responsible for their untimely demise. Fully half of those investigations had ended with at least one cooling corpse; he had slipped a bronze knife between a siren's ribs, zapped a couple of rawheads, put down a few rogue wolves, and cleared out entire nests of vamps, all with the same brutal efficiency. Sam was a hunter; he was no stranger to dead bodies. But that was Cass in there, body washed clean and shrouded in white, laid out on the workbench between the humming deep freezers and the heavily-laden meat hooks. That was his brother, and he just couldn't deal; he'd been avoiding the barn for two whole days.

Sam braced a hand against the doorpost and shut his eyes, teeth clenched and jaw working as he tried to screw up the courage to go inside. There was no longer any question as to Big Sam's whereabouts; he could hear the older man's earnest baritone through the door, rising and falling in staccato bursts as he attempted to secure the cooperation of the person on the other end of the line.

"… hear me out… wouldn't ask if it wasn't important… you don't understand… my son… tried everything else… the number I have is no good… doesn't want anything to do with me… long shot… have to try…"

Feeling completely pathetic, Sam gave up trying to force his feet to move and made a fist instead, giving the rough wood a few hefty thumps.

"Big Sam?" He interrupted, pitching his voice to carry.

"Just a minute!" Big Sam called back, aggravated; then, quieter, to his contact, "I have to go; let me know when you find something."

The older man still looked irritated when he emerged from the barn, but his mood softened a bit as he took in Sam's stiff, anxious posture.

"Everything all right?" he wanted to know.

"Yeah," Sam shrugged, aiming for nonchalance. "Just… pancakes."

Big Sam's concerned expression told him that he had fallen short of the mark, but the older man didn't call him on it. Instead, he pulled the door around behind him, tugging at it sharply until the latch caught, and nodded in the direction of the house.

"I could eat," he said simply, and left it at that.

They let themselves in through the back door, stripping out of their coats and picking a careful path between mom's neatly-folded piles of laundry. The low hum of conversation ceased as they came into the kitchen, which couldn't possibly be a good sign. Because Sam was a coward who hadn't bothered to correct his family's assumptions about his impromptu trip down to Kansas, things had been tense and awkward ever since he showed up at the packhouse with Big Sam in tow. Mom had been pissed to find out that DJ had gone off on his own, and the older hunter's pained, guilt-ridden explanation hadn't helped matters any; Sam had never seen his dad look so hurt and betrayed. Now, with his parents sitting together at the table, holding hands and looking grim, Sam found himself wishing that he had stayed in bed after all, grief-induced insomnia be damned. He knew that they couldn't continue the way they had been, oh-so-carefully avoiding one another as they settled into a sort of uneasy truce, but for fuck's sake, did they have to discuss it over breakfast?

"We were about to send out a search party," Gertie snarked, breaking the strained silence, but no one was in the mood for banter, and the gibe fell flat.

"Sorry about that," Big Sam offered, pulling up a seat. "This looks really good."

Sam snorted at the older man's stilted attempt at small talk and went to nuke his long-neglected cup of coffee, stalling for time.

"We need to talk," Dad said, determined.

"Yeah," Big Sam sighed, pushing a hand through his unruly mane. "I guess we do."

"Sit down, Sammy," Mom insisted, and Sam had no choice but to obey.

"How long," Dad started, stopped, cleared his throat. "How long should we wait?"

There was no room for misinterpretation; despite the awkward phrasing, everyone at the table understood what dad was asking. They couldn't keep Cass on ice indefinitely.

"I can't give you a timeline, Garth," Big Sam answered bluntly, rolling his knuckles across his forehead. "I only spent a few days in Purgatory when I went to break Bobby out of Hell, but Dean told me what to look for and made sure that I had help; when he got sucked in after ganking Dick, it took him a year to find a way out on his own."

The information wasn't new, but that didn't mean that it was welcome; mom's knuckles went white where her fingers were laced through dad's.

"And you're sure that there's nothing we can do?" Dad pressed anxiously.

Big Sam looked across the table with eyes full of pity and slowly shook his head.

"I'm following up on a couple of leads," he admitted quietly, "but they're thin."

Dad acknowledged the confession with a short nod, and mom let out a shuddering breath.

"We should have a funeral, then," she said tightly. "For closure."

"He can't have a pyre, but you could bury him," Big Sam replied haltingly, sounding absolutely wrecked. "For the spell that Dean is trying to do—" he cut himself off with a grimace and amended: "For the spell that DJ is trying to do, there have to be remains."

"This is bullshit!" Gertie bit out viciously, glaring at the older man. "We don't even know if DJ is still alive!"

"Gertie," Dad growled a warning.

"Yes, we do!" Sam snapped, over-tired and under-caffeinated. "I already told you about the Forget-Me-Knot."

The spell was intangible; he couldn't see the thread or feel it, or even remember exactly which finger the goddess had tied it to, but he knew that it was there. Lachesis had informed him, in her benign and maddening way, that subconscious perception of another person's zoe was a matter of sensitivity; while he might not be able to pick up on the consistent tension, he was bound to notice if the line went suddenly slack.

"Right, I forgot," Gertie scoffed. "A witch gave you an invisible fortune-telling string."

"Lachesis is a goddess," Sam corrected, bristling at his sister's derision.

"Oh, excuse me, a goddess," she sneered, rolling her eyes. "Because that's so much better!"

She wasn't wrong; deities weren't exactly known for being honest or helpful, and there was no substantive reason to believe that the Fate was any different than the rest of her capricious cosmic kin. For now, she found their plight intriguing; entertaining, even. But what would happen when she got bored?

"It's better than nothing!" He snarled defensively. "Why are you being such a bitch about this?"

"Don't call your sister a bitch!" Dad barked, affronted.

Gertie shoved her chair back abruptly and stood, leaning across the table and into Sam's space.

"I'm not going to sit here and pretend that magic will solve everything!" she hissed, baring her teeth. "People don't just come back from the dead anymore, Sam; if you wanted Cass alive, then you should have listened to dad and stayed home!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, it was clear that she regretted them; she straightened up stiffly, eyes widening and color draining from her face, but it wasn't as though they could be unsaid. Sam bore the accusation as stoically as possible, biting his lip and taking measured breaths through his nose.

"I'm sorry," Gertie choked, arms shaking as she folded them protectively around herself. "I'm sorry, but I can't… I can't do this."

She left the room in a rush, knocking briefly into Logan in her hurry to escape; with emotions running so high, no one had even heard him come down the stairs.

"What the…?" he mumbled, sleepy and confused. "Babe?"

When his wife ran past him down the hall without a word, he turned back toward the rest of them and frowned deeply.

"She's upset," Mom explained softly, unnecessarily.

"Right," Logan said slowly, raising both eyebrows. "Well, I'm just gonna…" he gestured in the direction Gertie had gone.

He backed out of the kitchen, shaking his head, before turning and heading back up the way he'd come. Everyone left at the table seemed determined to ignore the outburst, which was fine by Sam; he was so fucking tired of arguing about who was to blame for Cass' death. As far as he was concerned, the guilty party was already six feet under, courtesy of one DJ Winchester.

"I can stay for a few more days, help with whatever you need," Big Sam continued soberly, as though there had been no interruption. "But then I have to go down to Elk Creek; I don't have a choice anymore."

"I know," Dad sighed, meeting the other man's pleading, apologetic look with a sort of resigned acceptance. "Gotta do what you gotta do."

"I'm not giving up," Big Sam assured them. "It's just that—"

The sound of his ringtone brought the hunter up short; scowling, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the caller ID.

"I'm sorry," he excused himself, rising. "I told Ennis I'd call him back after I talked to Charlie."

Big Sam unconsciously copied Sam's move from earlier and snagged a couple of pancakes to carry with him as he ducked out of the kitchen to answer the call, his departure effectively ending the uncomfortable conversation. Sam was relieved, taking the opportunity to finish off his coffee and fix himself a plate; he kept his head down as he ate, tuning out his parents as they carried on talking in hushed tones.

"I'll take care of it," Dad said finally. "Sammy can give me a hand after breakfast."

"What?" Sam grunted, the sound of his name drawing his attention.

Dad let out a plosive breath, passing a weary hand over the lower part of his face as mom got up and began to clear away the dishes, distracting herself with yet another domestic task.

"Ground's frozen," he clarified lowly. "It'll go quicker if we take turns."

Taken aback, Sam swallowed heavily and set down his fork, appetite suddenly gone.

"Yes sir," he gritted out hoarsely, dread settling in his gut.

The last thing Sam wanted was to spend the next several hours covered in grave dirt; the best he could hope for was that the backbreaking work might wear him out enough that he could catch a few hours of sleep when it was over. God, he fucking hoped so.


"Zoe" is Greek for life/life force.

I'm sorry about the long wait between updates; this chapter kicked my ass. Throughout the summer, I'm going to do my best to write/edit at least a little bit every day, so hopefully the next couple of chapters will come together more quickly!

ETA: Lovely & talented artist Oftennix did a gorgeous rendering of DJ for me; find it on social media by searching the hashtag #ahuntersherbalcompendium.