"Hold on. What do you mean – you can send me back in time?"

Not that Dean had never traveled in time before, but he had a feeling that this time Death meant something different from the usual go back – fix it – return to present routine.

"That I can send you back in time. If your brother doesn't go to the Cage, he will never lose his soul."

"But you said you could raise his soul from the Cage and return it to his body."

"That's what I indeed would have done if you had succeeded. You didn't – though you didn't fail completely either. So, I decided to give you another lesson. And another chance."

"I don't understand," Dean said cautiously. Death couldn't seriously suggest that he go back in time to prevent Sam from diving into the Cage just to give him another lesson. Throwing him at least two years back was hardly that much easier than retrieving Sam's soul directly from the Cage, so why bother?

"You're quite familiar with time-traveling."

"Yeah. But those times I changed the past so that the present would remain the same. I just prevented some shit from happening and immediately went back. That's not what you're suggesting right now, is it?"

"No. I suggest something on a larger scale. You go to the past with all your knowledge, you will stay there, make wiser decisions, and hopefully, we all will end up in a better universe."

That sounded pretty much like he had a carte blanche to fix all his past fuckups. Too good to be true. He had just had to watch everything spiraling out of control because he hadn't killed a girl. How the hell could he make wiser decisions if that would be the result?

"And what happened to this importance of 'natural order' you talked about?"

"Nothing. Today you learned how unpredictable the consequences of well-intentioned actions can be. Once you're in the past, never forget about that. Your travel is supposed to maintain the natural order. You'll prevent events that are never supposed to happen."

"Bad news then – they've already happened," Dean snapped and immediately wished he could hold his tongue for once. There was something about Death that always gave Dean chills down his spine – a clear sign that you'd better not piss him off. He still remembered Death's words when they had met for the first time, about him basically being a bacterium that had started to get snarky.

"You're going back in time, so nothing has happened yet," explained Death patiently.

Dean considered whether punching Death in the face and breaking his nose -or nasal cavity, rather, would mean immediate death for him. Nothing has happened. His brother turned into a freaking robot, Ellen and Jo sacrificed their lives, hundreds of people had been killed and there was a civil war in Heaven. Nothing at all, yeah.

His anger must have been mirrored on his face because Death sighed and elaborated.

"What has already happened will be undone and remain only in your head. Like a dream."

"And in your head, too, right? I mean, you can't – or maybe you can, but don't think you will – erase your own memory, so you in the past will know the future, right?"

"I exist in all times and in all places at the same time." Of course, Death couldn't just answer without being cryptic.

"Like Tralfamadorians?"

"Vonnegut came very close to understanding the concept of time," Dean could swear Death voice sounded warmer as if he was speaking about somebody he knew.

They sat in silence for some time. Death looked utterly content as if he was being served a fancy meal at a three-star Michelin restaurant, not sitting at Bobby's cluttered kitchen table eating a hot dog and drinking cheap beer from a plastic glass. Dean was trying to wrap his mind around Death's suggestion, which even for him was a whole new level of crazy. But if Death wasn't messing with him – and for some reason, Dean did trust Death – it looked like he had a chance to prevent a lot of shit from happening and to save Sam.

"So, you are giving me the chance to go back and fix everything, right?" Dean watched Death expectantly, and after he nodded, leaned back and demanded, "What's the catch?"

"There's no catch. You don't seem to understand what you've signed up for," Death sounded amused, "Adding a catch would be unfair."

Apparently, Death wasn't optimistic about his chances to succeed, but Dean decided not to think about it. Death was about to give him a chance to fix the past, and he wasn't turning it down. He just needed to clarify a couple of things, and if everything was not too bad he would be ready to go any second. He was too done with this life – especially after Sam had almost killed Bobby today.

"And what will happen to this universe? To these people? Will they die?"

"No. They'll never exist."

"Meaning they'll die."

Death sighed.

"You're going back in time. None of these exists there. What you know will exist only in your memory."

"Okay. But what about the butterfly effect? I don't want to screw up again just because I – I don't know – order bacon to my eggs instead of sausages."

That was definitely the question Death waited for.

"Here comes the interesting part," he said, leaning forward and looking directly into Dean's eyes. "I'll help to keep the sequence of events in order as long as you show that you really understood today's lesson. Do not change what doesn't want to be changed, Dean."

The last sentence was definitely a warning, if not a threat.

"Does not want to be changed?" repeated Dean, not quite sure what to make out of these words.

"Like in King's 11/22/63."

"In a what?"

"Oh," Death furrowed his brow as if trying to focus on some elusive memory. "Never mind, he hasn't written it yet."

"Okay. Whatever. I'll try not to change anything that doesn't want to be changed," Dean promised, not completely sure he understood what exactly Death meant by all this.

"Good. Are you ready, then?"

"What? Right now?"

"This universe will cease to exist after you're gone. Whatever you want to do – there's no point."

Dean wanted to protest, but then realized that Death was right. There was no point saying goodbye to anyone if they wouldn't even have time to notice his absence – they would just spend their last minutes worrying about him. Well, except for Sam – Dean had no idea how this soulless robot that used to be his little brother would react, though he doubted that even the news about their universe collapsing would make him feel anything.

"Fair enough. To what point exactly will you throw me?"

"That's a surprise. A pleasant one."

Dean was pretty sure it would be better if Death gave him heads-up on when and where he was going to pop out, but kept his opinion to himself.

"Just don't zap me to the moments when I am at the wheel or firing a gun, all right?"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was like dreaming and being aware that you were sleeping. Dean saw a huge crowded hall, but the vision was blurred so he couldn't recognize the place. He heard loudspeaker announcements, but again he couldn't make out what exactly was said, and he was stressed out and knew that, for some reason, they must hurry up. Everything around him started to feel more and more real – he felt it when he bumped into people, felt the chemical smell of a floor cleaner as they ran past the janitor, felt the chill of the metal railing against his palm as they climbed up the stairs. Then he realized they were boarding a plane.

"What the hell?!" he tried to shout, but no sound escaped him.

He wanted to turn around and run away, but his body didn't respond to the impulse – instead, his hand gave a stewardess his boarding pass and felt his facial muscles moving to fake a smile. It was another fifteen minutes until he regained full control of his body and realized that he wasn't going to wake up in another place – sitting in a plane was the reality. At first, Dean panicked. Something must have gone horribly wrong – he hated flying, he never traveled by plane. He looked around and saw Sam in the next seat to him. A much younger Sam who still wore bangs. Dean stared at his face – he had forgotten how Sam used to look like with this haircut.

And then he remembered why and where he was.

"Holy shit. It worked," gasped Dean loud enough for half the passengers to hear. He didn't care – it's not every day that you go six years back in time, he had every right to be emotional.

"Dean?" Sam sounded concerned. Like for real concerned, not just using "I am supposed to be worried" tone like soulless Sam did.

"I mean, we've just taken off. The engine worked," Dean answered, smiling like an idiot and trying to contain hysterical laughter.

Sam – and God, had he really looked that young in the past? how could anyone in their right mind have believed they were from the FBI? – Sam looked as if he regretted having brought Dean on board. He managed to look concerned, sympathetic, and slightly suspicious, all at the same time. It was such a nice contrast to robot Sam from his future that Dean grinned and almost hugged his brother, but checked himself.

"Dean, the plane has four engines. And it can fly perfectly well even with three of them out of order. Calm down."

Oh, that was comforting. The idea of a plane losing three engines made his blood run cold. That's ridiculous. He had literally been to Hell and prevented the Apocalypse, why was he still afraid of flying?

"So. There's some kind of ritual to exorcise a demon, right?" Well, as far as Dean remembered, there must have been.
"Yeah," Sam flipped through the pages of dad's journal. "Here. The first part sets the demon free. But the second part sends him back to Hell. For good."

Dean chuckled at the words 'for good'. Yeah, for good. How naïve they used to be.

"So I guess he'll be really pissed off after we finish the first part," Dean still remembered how helpless and horrified he felt in a huge falling metal box. No narrow escapes this time.

"Well, yeah. But if we perform the second part fast enough-"

"Sam. Once we free this thing, it'll just toss dad's journal to the other end of the plane and we're doomed. Learn this shit by heart. We still have about half an hour before this huge metal coffin crashes, so I hope you'll learn it in ten, college boy."

"Right. Then you learn it, too, because it could knock one of us out. But since you've never had to cram for exams, I'll be kind and you only need to learn the second part, jerk."

Dean pretended to be memorizing the ritual, although everything related to exorcising had already been seared into his brain, thanks to tons of practice after all those sons of bitches had busted out from thought things would be easier if air companies painted devil traps in the aisles and in front of the cockpit. And perhaps they should bless all the water, too.

This time everything went smoothly. Dean didn't give the demon a chance to mention Jessica, so Sam was in a good mood. Everything was put down to some serious turbulence. The stewardess who had survived the previous plane crash brought them miniature bottles of whiskey. Dean was thrilled. He even thought he was happy – but he wasn't sure because he forgot what being happy felt like.

After they landed, Sam bought him a pie at the airport café and Dean was so touched that he actually hugged Sam. Sam was clearly confused – Dean had never been a touchy-feely kind of person. He didn't question him, however, and Dean was grateful because he wouldn't be able to explain. What could he say? Nice to see not-soulless you?

They were sitting in a cafe waiting for the return flight. Sam was surfing the net, finally able to stretch his long legs comfortably. Dean was exhilarated. Nothing had happened yet. Holy shit, they hadn't even died yet. Everything around him seemed so bright and colorful, he was looking around and taking in all the details and he couldn't help grinning.
Dean desperately wanted to discuss everything with Sam. To tell him all the things he had managed to pull off. He bet 22-year-old Sam would be impressed.

HEY, SAM, YOU KNOW WHAT, I'M FROM FUTURE FROM 2010 CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT
HEY, SAM, I KNOW EVERYTHING THAT WILL HAPPEN TO US IN THE NEXT 6 YEARS
HEY, SAM, ANGELS EXIST
HEY, SAM, CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT WE PREVENTED THE APOCALYPSE
HEY, SAM, WE HAVE A HALF-BROTHER BY THE WAY
HEY, SAM, YOU BEAT LUCIFER, I'M SO PROUD OF YOU
HEY, SAM, I SAT AT BOBBY'S AT THE SAME TABLE WITH DEATH HIMSELF AND WE ATE HOT DOGS

But he couldn't make a sound. He didn't want to bring up all the shit they had been through. In this world, Sam deserved to live his relatively carefree life for a little longer. So Dean was just staring at Sam, giggling occasionally, imagining what young Sam's reaction would have been to some of the crazy stuff that had happened to them in the future. He still couldn't believe he had just successfully gone back in time six years.

"You're in a good mood," Sam noticed when he couldn't pretend to ignore Dean's strange behavior any longer.

"We're alive and kicking. What else do you need to be happy?" And that's the truth, though Sam couldn't know how much Dean really meant by this and what he had been through that he had learned to appreciate the fact that they both were alive. Sam eyed him suspiciously but didn't ask anything, so he probably put it down to stress.

Dean took advantage of the free time on their way back and tried to extract some useful memories and typed some notes on his phone. He quickly became frustrated because he could hardly remember anything relevant. He was positive that dad wasn't going to show up for at least three months. And before that, they had worked a bunch of cases and had had monsters to kill. And he couldn't remember anything. Fuck. His mind continued to show him memories of recent events – fairies, that creepy parallel universe with Misha and alpaca, turning into a vampire, that truth curse, but that all didn't matter now. If he played his cards right, all these things wouldn't happen at all.

Damnit. What had they been doing six years ago? It was so strange to imagine the world without the Apocalypse, Horsemen, Lucifer. Holy shit, they didn't even know that angels existed – and he felt like he had known this forever. After several hours of racking his brains, he managed to remember something that might be relevant. Well, at least he was sure that it all happened before Sam died for the first time. So he typed "electrocution", "Lawrence", "burn the tree", "Meg", "the colt, vampires", "Gordon". He could only hope that he would remember more in the process of solving cases.

Dean looked at his brother, who apparently had no aerophobia and was napping now. Sam didn't know about the nature of his visions. Had he seen them already? He didn't know about Azazel's blood in him. He didn't know that he was supposed to be Lucifer's vessel. Dean knew he wouldn't be able to keep that secret forever, but he had no idea how he was supposed to break this news to Sam. The scale of what he had got himself into began to dawn on him. He had just voluntarily signed up for preventing the Apocalypse for the second time. Dean knew his own life was already screwed – there was no way he could distance himself from his old universe and pretend it was just a dream. But at least he had a chance to make Sam's life better. And to save more people.

So, I hope you're intrigued :)
Dean's memories of the events from six years ago are vague, but he'll do his best, I promise.

I'm also nervous bc as you've probably noticed English is my second language, so let me know if something is wrong (I'm a geek when it comes to languages, so you're welcome to correct my grammar or clumsy wording) (but don't be too harsh haha). Feel free to dm :)

Comments are very very appreciated

P.S. I know that Sam wasn't soulless in "The French Mistake", so Dean isn't supposed to remember that, but I love this episode too much so I decided to give him these memories. Btw, I'd really like to watch this episode with soulless Sam xd