Hey! Sorry this is late. I've had the most busy, stressful and mentally draining week but I've got this done finally!
The episode starts with Dean driving the impala whilst on the phone with Sam (who is back at their motel room). Sam peers out through the motel curtains nervously, telling Dean that there is a cop car out front. Dean reassures Sam that there's "nothing to worry about" since they ditched the Impala's license plates and all of the credit cards. Sam's not so sure the life of a fugitive is what he'd had in mind, but shifts to the current hunt asking Dean if he's found anything.
'You guys were still being hunted?' Mary asked, looking concerned. Dean nodded.
Dean scoffs, saying that Sam has him sifting through 50 miles of real estate. Sam tells Dean that he's figured out that they're hunting a djinn. Dean's wry grin echoes through his voice as he asks Sam if he thinks the "freakin' genie" can actually grant wishes.
'I hate Djinns' Dean muttered, darkly.
'Wait. Is this the one where the Djinn put you in that weird alternate reality where mom never died?' Sam asked and Dean nodded.
While Sam goes to the Quran, Dean muses about Jeannie (as in I Dream of…) being hotter than Samantha (from Bewitched). Trying to keep Dean focused, Sam tells him that djinns usually "flare up" in ruins – "bigger the better." Dean remembers a likely place a few miles back and ignoring Sam's request to pick him up first, he hangs up, a suddenly serious expression on his face.
'See, if you hadn't just gone off by yourself then this would never have happened.' Sam said, shaking his head.
'Yeah. Or mabye he gets both of us.' Dean replied.
'What? Two on one?' Sam replied, and Dean sighed.
The scene cuts to Dean walking through what looks like an abandoned warehouse. He has a flashlight in one hand and blood-tipped knife in the other. Dean slowly shifts his grip on the knife, then turns suddenly as if he heard someone or something behind him. Nothing. As he continues to walk through the warehouse, we see the figure of the djinn hiding in the shadows. Getting the jump on Dean, the djinn slams him against the wall, one hand on his throat, causing him to drop the knife. As Dean struggles against the djinn's grip, the djinn raises its free hand, electric blue light bouncing and crackling along its palm and fingers. It presses its hand on Dean's forehead. Dean gasps, his eyes roll up, and the screen goes black.
'Idiot' John said with a small smile.
'Whatever, it wasn't a fair fight.' Dean replied.
Dean suddenly sits up, shirtless, confused, blinking with honest shock at the scantily-clad, naked dark-hair woman sleeping next to him.
'Who is that?' Cas questioned.
'Her name is Carmen. I saw her picture in a magazine.' Dean replied
He stumbles out (fully-dressed) into a comfortable-looking living room, digs out his cell phone and calls his brother.
'Rude' Dean commented, with a grin.
Sam is surprised to hear from him. Dean misses that in his confused state and tells Sam that he doesn't know where he is – the djinn attacked him. Sam asks him if he's been drinking and Dean, frustrated, reminds him of the hunt, says it puts its hand on him and he woke up next to some hot chick. Sam asks him if he means Carmen and Dean is appropriately baffled. Sam tells Dean it's late, go back to sleep, he'll see him in the morning and hangs up on Dean's spluttering.
Everyone laughed, except Sam who looked confused.
Setting the phone down, Sam returns to the books he had been poring over when his brother called: Criminal Law and Procedure. Now thoroughly confused and more than a little freaked out, Dean begins to recon the room. He sees a stack of mail on a nearby table and with a muttered "What the hell?" sees that they are addressed to both this Carmen that Sam mentioned as well as himself – with a Lawrence, KS, address. Just then, Carmen herself emerges from the bedroom, sleepy and wondering why he's up. Dean makes up an excuse and promises to join her in just a minute. She buys it, kisses him, and returns to the bedroom.
'You had a proper girlfriend?' Sam questioned, with a small smile.
Dean begins to look around the living room at all the pictures of the two of them together. Glancing across the room, he sees another picture and a look of horrified disbelief crosses his face. He crosses the room, picks up and examines the picture, drops it, and tears out of the room.
'What did you see?' Mary questioned.
'A photo of you.' Dean replied.
Dean immediately drives to their old home and runs up to the door and rings the bell. The door opens and Mary Winchester is standing there looking sleepy and wrapping her robe around herself.
Mary gasped at her figure on the screen. John smiled as he realised that she was living a normal life.
Dean's face is a display of shock, hurt, and hope. He says "Mom" and she asks him if he's okay. With a very honest "I don't know", he allows Mary to pull him inside. She walks into the living room, saying that Carmen called, worried because he had just run out of the house. Dean, being Dean, asks his mom to prove she is who he hopes she is by asking what she told him before she put him to bed when he was a kid. With a small smile, Mary replies that she told him angels were watching over him, passing the test.
'Of course you wouldn't trust me, even though you just found out that I was alive.' Mary said, with a sigh.
'I was so freaked out. I had to check.' Dean replied.
Dean gathers her up in a hug and almost gleefully roams the room looking at the pictures. He discovers that not only had John once belonged to a softball team, but that he'd died in his sleep of a stroke earlier that year.
John frowned and sighed. Nothing ever worked out for them. Still, dying in his sleep was a lot more peaceful.
'You Winchesters get zero luck.' Bobby said, sadly.
His mother thinks he's been drinking, and says she's going to call Carmen to get him. Dean assures her that he's as sober as a judge and says he just wants to stay there. He sits on the couch and, as Mary touches his cheek and kisses his forehead, his face relaxes for the first time since Dead Man's Blood. He sleeps on the couch, waking up the next morning with a start. The first thing on his mind is Sam. Calling him, he reaches his voicemail. Dean heads to the University of Kansas and manages to talk his way into the anthropology professor's office to gather more clues on the djinn.
'You're getting better at lying I guess.' Jo said with a smile.
'Shut up' Dean retorted.
When he asks the professor if the djinn can really grant wishes, the professor assumes he's been drinking. Ruefully, Dean confesses that everyone has been asking him that, but the answer is no.
Sam smirked.
'To be fair it would have been plausible.' Bobby commented with a grin.
Finding out that mythology states the djinn could grant wishes, and wondering what, if that is true, is in it for the djinn. Dean looks in the Impala's trunk, which is empty except for a few trivial bits and pieces, and murmurs a bemused "who'd have thought it, baby, we're civilians".
'It's so strange seeing us as civilians.' Mary commented, and the others agreed.
He the trunk and catching sight of a decidedly out-of-place young girl in a white dress. He starts to cross to her and nearly gets creamed by a red car, breaking his focus on the girl. When he looks back up, she's gone.
'Who was she?' Bobby asked.
'One of the other victims.' Dean replied.
Back at home, Dean is happily inhaling what he declares to be the "best sandwich ever" (one assumes, because it was made by his mom), and talking to Mary.
Mary looked down, slightly embarrassed as she remembered Dean's reaction when she said that she couldn't cook.
'I was never taught how to cook, whilst I was growing up.' Mary admitted.
Mary asks why he wasn't at work at the garage.
John smiled, happy that Dean appeared to be making an honest living.
Covering easily, Dean says he had the day off, and offers to mow the lawn. More than a little amused by her son's apparently recent desire to hang around her house and do chores, Mary teases that he's acting as if he hasn't mowed a lawn a day in his life.
'I actually haven't' Dean said.
'Why would you want to mow the lawn?' Jo asked.
'I don't know. It looked fun.' Dean replied.
Obviously unsure as to the proper handling and steering of a lawn mower, Dean is undeterred as he treks back and forth in front of the yard gnome, waving to the neighbors and very nearly whistling with actual, genuine happiness as Joey Ramone's Wonderful World accompanies him.
Everyone smiled at Dean looking so happy.
Lawn manicured, Dean sits on the front steps relaxing with a beer when Sam and Jess pull up. He practically runs up to greet them. He wraps Jessica in a fierce hug until she gasps that she can't breathe. Dean is overjoyed to see Sam, and to see Sam with Jess. Sam speculates aloud that Dean's been drinking (and this time, it's hard to deny as he has beer in hand), and Dean is puzzled by Sam's apparent standoffishness. He wonders why they are there, and Sam asks with obvious exasperation born of several years of dealing with a wayward brother if Dean has forgotten Mom's birthday. Again.
'Man. I know you said we didn't get along but I never realised how much.' Sam commented. John and Mary frowned.
At a restaurant, the family is gathered to celebrate Mary's birthday. Dinner is served and Carmen proves how very well she knows Dean when she leans over and asks him if he wants to go for cheeseburgers later as he stares in horror at a dinner that is better dressed than he is.
'Wow. She knows you well.' Sam said, with a smile.
"Oh, God, yes", he replies and she smiles. Mary's birthday joy is made complete as Sam and Jessica announce they are engaged. Everyone congratulates them, and Dean's smile is genuine as he tells Sam he is "really glad he's happy".
Sam sighed and looked away, remembering Jessica.
His joy is short-lived, however when he catches sight of the girl in white that he'd seen on campus. He pushes past Sam and crosses the restaurant, but by the time he gets to her, she's gone. He's left with his whole family staring at him confusedly.
'We look so confused.' Mary commented, with a smile.
When the group returns home, Mary goes to bed and Sam suggest that he and Jessica do the same thing. Dean wants to go out and celebrate more, and Sam excuses them from the ladies, pulling Dean aside and revealing what had been obvious to everyone but Dean up to this point: the brothers don't get along. Not only that, they aren't close. Sam reveals that Dean not only once stole his ATM card, he stole his girlfriend and slept with her. On prom night.
'To be fair. I could so see you doing that.' Sam said with a grin.
'No I wouldn't!' Dean protested.
Sam's not mad about it anymore – and he doesn't expect Dean to change – he just doesn't really want to have anything to do with his brother. Sam is gone before he can see the heartbroken look that flashes across Dean's face.
'Dick move, Sam' Dean said, with a grin.
'Yeah. Kinda glad we became close.' Sam replied.
Back at their house, Carmen brings him his favourite brand of beer and he confides in her that he is upset he and Sam don't get along. Carmen says that they just don't know each other is all. Dean replies that he feels like he's been given a second chance – and he's not going to waste it. He's going to fix this thing with Sammy. Wooed by Carmen's concern, care, and the fact that she knows him so well, Dean falls into a kiss. Carmen pulls away after a bit saying that he can't do that to her; she has to go to work. She appears shortly afterwards in scrubs. Somewhat impressed with himself that he is respectable enough to date a nurse, Dean bids her adieu and slouches back down on the couch to veg for the night.
'You dated a nurse?' Jo said, almost laughing.
A report about the anniversary of the crash of United Britannia Flight 424 comes on the news. Sitting forward in shock, Dean mutters "we stopped that crash". This realisation draws him to the computer where he discovers to his increasing horror that everyone he, Sam, and John had saved from evil had died. All of them.
'Wow. I hadn't realised how many people you'd saved.' Jo commented.
Glancing up quickly from the devastating information facing him from the computer screen, Dean sees the girl in white out of the corner of his eyes and jumps up to follow her. He ends up back in his bedroom where he is very shaken by the sight of two decaying, emaciated skeletons hanging by their wrists in his closet. He sees the girl once more before both she and the skeletons vanish, leaving Dean trembling.
'That is so creepy.' Jo added.
At a cemetery, Dean stands staring down at his father's tombstone. He's working to keep the tears at bay, but too much has happened. His throat working convulsively, he begins speaking: "All of them... everyone that you saved, everyone Sammy and I saved… they're all dead. And there's this woman that's haunting me. I don't know why. I don't know what the connection is… not yet, anyway. It's like my old life is coming after me or something, like it doesn't want me to be happy. Of course, I know what you'd say. Well, not the you that played softball, but you'd say, Go hunt the djinn. It put you here. It can put you back. Your happiness or all those people's lives... no contest. Right?'
'No I wouldn't!' John protested.
'Yeah you would.' Sam replied.
'But why? Why is it my job to save these people? Why do I have to be some kind of hero? What about us, huh? What? Mom's not supposed to live her life? Sammy's not supposed to get married? Why do we have to sacrifice everything, Dad?" Thunder crashes."It's... yeah." Wiping the tears from his face, Dean swallows, nods, and turns to walk out of the cemetery.
Everyone was in silence, reeling in shock at the pure emotion that Dean had just shown. They all wished that their family could just live a normal life. But it wasn't possible.
Back at the Winchester family home, Sam wakes in the dark next to Jessica, tensing at a sound. Grabbing a bat, he creeps down the stairs and confronts the crouching figure bent over Mary's china cabinet. The figure barely needs to move before it disarms Sam, sweeps him off his feet, and plants him firmly on the floor, one hand on his chest. Sam blinks up with an astonished "Dean?!".
'That was just like that first episode.' Cas commented.
'Except that Sam clearly doesn't know how to fight.' Dean said, smirking.
'Yeah, you weren't exaggerating when you said that.' Sam realised.
Sam demands to know what Dean's doing skulking around in the dark, and Dean makes up a story (believable to this Sam) that he owes money to a bookie and was going to pawn some of Mary's silver.
'Neat excuse' John commented.
After taking one knife and slipping it into his pocket, Dean apologies to Sam for everything that happened between them over the years, asks his brother to tell their mother that he loves her, and then starts to leave. Dean pauses at the front door for one last, wistful look around before walking away from his deepest wish forever, leaving Sam alone to gasp and flail about the living room in confusion. Back in the Impala, Dean is sitting at the wheel, apparently gathering his will, when Sam drops neatly in the passenger seat.
'Oh good. I'm not a complete asshole then.' Sam commented.
Not at all happy about this turn of events, Dean demands that Sam "Get out of the car!" Sam's having none of it, insisting, "Whatever stupid thing you're about to do, you're not doing it alone, and that's that". With that, Sam raises eyebrows that clearly say, so there. "I don't understand," Dean protests. "Why are you doing this?". Sam sighs and primly admits, "Because you're still my brother". Dean's eyes hood themselves a little bit and he mutters, "Bitch". Sam is baffled when he replies, "What're you calling me a bitch for?" Dean, says, "You're, uh, supposed to say, 'Jerk.'" "What?" Sam shoots back. "Never mind," Dean mumbles, throwing the car into gear.
Both Sam and Dean laugh.
'There is definitely something wrong if we don't even have that.' Sam realised.
Whilst Dean is driving, Sam demands answers. Dean is reluctant to provide them for obvious reasons. Sam's knack for digging to the bottom of things persists when he discovers a plastic cup full of lamb's blood. He pales, swallows, and pulls out his cell phone and Dean calmly removes the phone from Sam's fingers and tosses it out of the window. He tells his brother that he's not crazy, that there are bad guys out there, and it's their job to get rid of them. Sam face is a canvas of doubt and not a little fear.
'It's so weird seeing you give me the talk.' Sam commented.
Outside the abandoned warehouse, Sam is sleeping and jerks awake when Dean stops the Impala in front of the djinn's lair. He demands to know where they are and Dean quips that they're not in Kansas anymore. Sam follows his brother through the abandoned warehouse, trekking nearly the same path that Dean followed earlier. Dean has the silver knife soaked in lamb's blood and is on high alert. Sam is freaked out. Dean demands in a low, careful voice that Sam stay behind him and stay quiet. Sam's reaction is to slide his eyes around as if he expects the boogeyman to jump them at any moment.
'I am actually embarrassed at the way that version of me is acting right now.' Sam commented, shaking his head.
The boys turn a corner off the corridor in which Dean was initially attacked to find the two dangling skeletons from Dean's closet. As they stare in horror, Dean sees the empty hospital blood bag still hooked up to the neck of one of the skeletons. Next Dean sees the girl in white that he's been seeing all around town. She moans and asks in a weak voice for her father. Before he can do anything, though, the djinn appears. The djinn uses its electric blue light of wish-granting and sleep on the girl, subduing her, then drinks some of the blood from the bag attached to her jugular. Dean has managed to get Sam behind some stairs, but when Sam sees this, he is unable to keep his gasp silent.
'Wow, Sam, you just gave away our position. Good job' Dean commented, grinning and shaking his head.
'It wasn't me it was the wussy, alternate reality me.' Sam protested.
The djinn turns at the sound, and approaches, but Dean gets them out of danger. The djinn leaves, and Dean approaches the girl, realising that she hadn't known where she was – she thought she was with her father. Sam is practically begging that they leave, but Dean is starting to get it. He's slammed by a disorienting, dizzying flash of himself, hanging in that very room by his wrists, pale, dying, with his blood being slowly drained from him to provide sustenance to the djinn. Sam, frantic now, promises Dean that he believes – he will believe anything if they can just go.
'I hope you weren't tempted to listen to
Lifting the knife, he scares his already terrified brother further by raising it toward his own chest declaring "die in your dreams, you wake up, right?".
'That might work but it's risky.' John said, looking worried.
Sam bellows "Wait!" but his plea is ineffectual. Dean is prepared to plunge the knife forward when Mary's voice stops him.
'You weren't thinking of staying were you?' Cas asked, looking confused.
'No' Dean replied, too quickly. Sam looked at him worriedly.
Trembling, Dean looks slowly to the side and sees his mother walking toward him. Not the mother from the birthday dinner, but the Mary from his memory, with the unlined face, flowing hair, and white nightgown. "Why'd you have to keep digging?" Sam asks, a bit sorrowfully, and no longer freaked out. Dean's eyes shoot to him, not in shock, more in disappointed realisation. Carmen steps up behind Sam. "Why couldn't you have left well enough alone?" Sam continues. Jessica appears, and Sam gently argues, "You were happy". Dean counters that none of it was real, but he is slowly buffeted by the gentle waves of argument from Jess ("You wouldn't have to worry about Sam anymore..."), Carmen ("We could have a family of our own..."), and his mom ("Get some rest...").
'Why are we all acting so creepy?' Mary asked.
'They're figments of his imagination I think.' Jo replied. Sam looked at Dean worriedly, having seen in his face how close he was to staying.
Dean knows that if he chooses to stay, he'll be dead in a matter of days, even though it will feel like years to him. Listening to them, wanting the rest, wanting the happiness, but knowing that he had to do what is right, Dean looks directly at Sam, whispers, "I'm sorry," and plunges the knife into his chest.
John and Mary gasp and look worried.
"DEAN!" Sam bellows when he sees his brother hanging, pale and still, by his wrists. He launches himself over to Dean, apparently unsure where to touch that won't cause more harm. Repeatedly begging Dean to wake up, Sam is finally able to rouse his brother who bleats a weak "Auntie Em" followed by "there's no place like home." Sam carefully removes the needle from his brother's neck confessing that he thought he'd lost him there for a sec. Dean replies "You almost did."
'I never realised how close I was.' Sam said, looking at Dean worriedly.
Sam begins to cut Dean down when Dean catches sight of the djinn lunging at his brother from behind. Calling out a warning, Dean begins to haul on his still-bound wrists while Sam struggles with the djinn, getting knocked around in the process. Sam is pinned to the stairs with the djinn's electric blue hand hovering above his forehead when the djinn suddenly arches back in pain and shock. Sam darts his eyes over to see Dean standing behind the djinn, twisting the knife in its back to finish the job. With a nonverbal check to make sure they were each okay, they head back to the girl in white, where Dean discovers that she is still alive and whispers for Sam's help to cut her down. Catching the girl in his trembling arms, Dean whispers to her that they are going to get her out of there, get her safe.
'Thank god she's ok.' Jo whispered.
Back in the motel, Sam is on the phone with the hospital and turns to Dean to assure him that the girl they rescued from the warehouse is going to be okay. Dean is looking through a magazine that features an ad for El Sol, in which "Carmen" is smiling up at him. Sam sits on the other bed and asks gently if Dean's okay. Dean recounts briefly what he'd seen, what he'd wished for, but what he hadn't had. He had Mom alive, but he and Sam had never gone hunting, so they'd never learned how to be brothers. Sam watches Dean closely and says, "Yeah. Well, I'm glad we do. And I'm glad you dug yourself out, Dean. Most people wouldn't have had the strength. They would've just stayed". Dean's unconvinced of the wisdom of his actions. "Yeah, lucky me. I got to tell you, though, man... you had Jessica. Mom was gonna have grandkids".
'It wasn't real.' Mary said, confidently.
'I know.' Dean replied, sharply.
Sam argues that it wasn't real. "I know," Dean says before confessing, "But I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay so bad. I mean, ever since Dad… all I can think about is how much this job's cost us. We've lost so much. And we've sacrificed so much." The raw emotion on Dean's face is too much for Sam who argues, "But people are alive because of you. It's worth it, Dean. It is. It's not fair, and, you know, it hurts like hell, but it's worth it." Dean lifts doubtful eyes and rests them on his brother. And the screen fades to black.
'You're right. It's worth it.' Dean commented, 'I know that now.' he adds as the others look unsure.