"Sam!"
Piper fell to her knees next to her brother-in-law, gently cupping his face in her hands. "Sam, Sam, come on, Sam."
Dean was on his other side, shaking Sam by the shoulders more harshly. "Sam! Come on, god dammit!"
After what seemed like an eternity, Sam's eyes fluttered open, and he groaned, long and loud.
Piper smiled in relief, tears standing in her eyes. "Hey, hey, take it easy. Are you with me, Sammy?"
He groaned in response, and Dean started to haul him up. "Come on, Pipes, we've got to get him out of here."
xxxxx
In the car, Piper insisted that she and Sam sit in the back so she could keep an eye on him. "How are you feeling?"
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Like I got hit by a… Planet."
Dean huffed. "Well, lucky for you, I'm a doctor. We'll stop and get some joe, some grub, and I have these." He shook a container of pills.
Piper frowned. "Dean…"
Sam was staring at the container. "What are they?"
"Effective?"
Sam chuckled. "I'm okay, thanks."
A shrug from the front seat. "Suit yourself."
Sam looked over at Piper. "How long was I out, again?"
"Two or three minutes, tops. Why? What did it feel like to you?"
"About a week, give or take."
Dean's eyes found Piper's in the rearview mirror, then back to Sam. "You wanna talk about it?"
Sam's brow furrowed. "'It?'"
"Whatever that was. I mean, it was like you were freakin' electrocuted."
Sam sighed. "Look, I mean, it wasn't fun, but I… I'm fine."
Piper's temper snapped at her. "Fuck that," she said vehemently. "Sam, no, fuck that shit. You could have died."
He scoffed. "Oh, come on."
"No, Sam WInchester, I will not 'come on.' You just had a flashback of hell, and it could have killed you. So no more of this 'it's just a flesh wound' nonsense, because we tried it your way. From now on, we let the past stay in the past. We're not picking at the wall again."
"So, what? I'm just supposed to ignore it?" Sam sounded angry, which was okay with Piper, because she was angry, too.
"Yeah," Dean said from the front. "That's exactly what you're supposed to do."
"Guys, I might've… I mean, who knows what? And you want me to just forget about it?"
"Yeah, I do," Piper said testily. "You forget about it, because we sacrificed a lot to get you back. And you are not going to waste that."
"This is not a debate, Sam," Dean said softly. "You were a soulless dickbag, and now you're not. So, we good?"
There was a long silence, then, "Yeah. We're good."
xxxxx
Piper was flipping through news websites idly, looking for a case. It was strange to be able to be so… Still, as a hunter. They'd had periods of rest when they were out of the life, but not really since they'd been back, and certainly not before they'd left. It was nice, she thought as she ran her fingers through Monster's thick fur, to be able to quietly look for a case while her men wandered around the house.
Sam came through the door into the living room where she was situated, as if summoned by her thoughts. "Where's Bobby?"
She smiled. "Supply run."
Sam looked out at the raging storm that was sending piercing rain to beat on the window panes. "In this?"
Dean, coming in from the other side, nodded. "Yeah, man's a hero. We were officially out of hunter's helper." He gestured with the empty whiskey bottle in his hand. Piper rolled her eyes.
Before she could comment, a familiar blonde angel materialized in the doorway. "Hello, boys, Piper, dearest." He immediately walked to Bobby's desk and started rifling through the drawers. "You've seen 'The Godfather,' right?"
Dean was frowning hard. "Balthazar…"
The angel nodded, waving one hand in the air. "You know, the end, where Michael Corleone sends his men to kill his enemies in one big, bloody swoop?" He was pulling various spices and containers out of the desk and placing them on the top.
"What's going on?" Piper asked, finally standing and letting the cat leap gracefully to the floor with an irritated mrow.
The angel ignored them both as he pulled out another container from Bobby's desk. "'Dead Sea brine.' Good, good, good." He began to pour the contents into a bowl he'd placed at the center. "You know, Moe Greene gets it in the eye, and Don Cuneo gets it in the revolving door?"
"Hey," Dean growled, more forcefully this time.
Balthazar made a beeline for the kitchen. "Blood of lamb, blood of lamb," he muttered as he opened the refrigerator door and perused the contents. "Beer, cold pizza, blood of lamb. Yes! Blood of lamb!"
Sam came to stand next to Piper. "Why are you talking about 'The Godfather?'"
Balthazar spared them barely a glance as he walked back to the desk. "Because we're in it, right now, tonight. And in the role of Michael Corleone? The archangel Raphael."
Dean stood on Piper's other side, so she was effectively bracketed. "You mind telling us what you mean?"
But Balthazar was busy panicking. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." He shoved his hand back into the desk drawer, rummaged around, then sagged in relief. "Yes. Bone of a lesser saint. This vertebra will do very nicely." He finally looked back over at the three of them. "Your Mr. Singer does keep a lovely pantry."
"So, Raphael is after you?"
"Raphael is after us all," Balthazar sighed as he continued to mix ingredients "You see, he's consolidated his strength. And now he's on the move."
Piper tensed. "Where's Castiel, then?"
"Oh, Cassie? He is deep, deep underground. So, good old Raffy put out a hit list on every last Samaritan who helped our dear Cas, including the two of you." He pointed at Sam and Dean. "And so much more importantly, me, and the lovely Mrs. Winchester. See, he wants to draw Cass out in the open."
Sam crossed his arms. "And you expect us to just believe you?"
The angel shrugged. "Oh, don't. Or do. You'll go where I throw you either way."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean growled.
Lightning flashed so close that the house shook, and Balthazar smiled enigmatically. "That's all the time we have, children." He opened his jacket, presumably to pull something out of the pocket, revealing blood that soaked his entire side. "Where is it?"
Concerned, Piper strode forward, intending to help. "Balthazar, what happened?"
He blinked, then grinned rakishly. "Oh, garish, I know. You see, uncle Raffy sent one of his nastiest to handle me. I'm flattered, actually. And down a lung at the moment, but that's all right." He handed her a set of keys he'd pulled from the jacket pocket. "Oh, here's for you, darling."
She frowned. "What are we supposed to do with this?"
"Run with it."
Before she could demand an explanation, Balthazar was tossed to the other side of the room as another man appeared.
Balthazar smiled. "Virgil." He then turned to the three Winchesters. "I said, run!"
He pushed the three of them through the window, which was smeared with blood for a sigil.
Piper braced for impact, because she hated going through windows, but it was much softer than she'd anticipated. As was the landing. It was dryer, too, considering that it was raining like crazy outside…
"Cut!"
She opened her eyes to see that she was lying between Sam and Dean on a mattress… In what looked like a warehouse… Surrounded by what looked like a film crew?
They stood slowly, looking around. A man with a headset on approached and patted Dean on the ass. Piper giggled a little, but it might have been hysteria more than humor.
"Real good," the man was saying. "Solid fall. Way to go."
The director, who had yelled cut, waved from his chair. "Jared, Jensen! Outstanding! And you, Allison, that was just great."
Piper felt her eyes widen and herself go dizzy with shock as someone shouted, "'Supernatural,' scene one echo, take one. Tail slate. Marker!"
xxxxx
"It's a TV show."
Dean was reeling. He wanted to scream, or punch something. Probably punch something.
"What do you mean?" Piper was frowning up at Sam. She seemed to be taking most of their situation in stride, but he could see the tension around her eyes, the slightly stilted way she was walking. His wife was just as nervous as he was.
He pulled her close with an arm around her waist and pressed his cheek to her temple as he listened to Sam.
"Well, okay, whatever this twilight zone Balthazar zapped us into is, for whatever reason, our life is a TV show."
Dean could hear the frown in Piper's voice. "Well, huh."
"Why?"
Sam shrugged. "I don't know."
"No, seriously. Why? Why would anybody want to watch our lives?"
"Well, I mean, according to that interviewer, not many people do." Sam shrugged again. "Look, I'm not saying it makes sense. I'm just saying we, we landed in some dimension where you're Jensen Ackles, Pipes is a woman named Allison Dale, and I'm something called a 'Jared Padalecki.'"
Dean snorted as they started to walk toward the door of the studio. "So, what, now you're Polish?" He looked down at his wife. "Kitten, does any of this make sense?"
She shrugged as they walked out. "I dunno. I don't know why he'd said us into a place like this."
When they walked outside, his eyes landed on is Impala, and he grinned. "Hey, at least my baby made it."
"I thought I was your baby," Piper protested with a smile.
He pressed a hard kiss to her temple. "I meant my baby on four wheels made it."
"Uh-huh," she said skeptically, but he was distracted by the sight of someone flinging mud onto Baby's windshield.
"Hey, hey!" He shouted, irritated. "What-"
Before he could continue with his questions, he saw that the vehicle he had thought was his was parked in a line next to three identical Impalas. He felt his stomach roll, and he pressed a hand to his mouth. "I feel sick. I'm gonna be sick. I want to go home. I feel like this whole place is bad touching me."
Sam was wincing and nodding. "Yeah, I know. Me, too." He looked over at them. "So, what do you think? Cass?"
Piper shrugged. "He's our best shot, if he's still alive."
Decision made, Dean closed his eyes and tilted his head down. "Dear Castiel, who art maybe running his ass away from heaven, we pray that you have your ears on. So... Breaker breaker…"
Piper's hand on his arm made him open his eyes. "Dean, look, there he is."
His head whipped around, and Dean spotted the angel walking toward them. He jogged to catch up with his friend. "Cass! Hey, Cass!" When Castiel stopped and turned around, Dean smiled. "Oh, thank god." He waved his hand around. "What is all this, huh? What did Balthazar do to us?"
Cass frowned. "To keep you out of Virgil's reach, he's cast you into an alternate reality, a universe similar to ours in most respects, yet dramatically different in others."
Dean glared at him. "Like, like, bizarro earth, right? Except instead of having bizarro Superman, we get this clown factory." He gestured again around them.
"Um… Yeah, well.. Anyway, no time to explain. Do you have the key?"
Sam nodded. "Yeah." He handed it over.
"What does it do, Cass?" Piper asked.
"It opens a room."
Dean waited a beat, and when no clarification seemed to be forthcoming, he prompted, "What's in the room?"
"Every weapon Balthazar stole from heaven."
Piper frowned. "And he gave it to us?"
Cass nodded. "To keep it safe until I could reach you. With those weapons, I have a chance to rally my forces."
Sam nodded. "Oh. Okay, good. Yeah. So, now, uh, what's the deal with all this TV crap?"
Cass frowned. "Pardon?"
Dean chuckled. "Yeah, Padaleski."
"It's 'lecki,'" Piper corrected. "His name is Padalecki."
"Man," Cass said emphatically, pulling out a booklet of papers from his trench coat. "Did they put out new pages?"
Dean looked at Piper, who was staring at Castiel. "That… Is a script," she said softly, her eyes not moving. "You're… You're Misha Collins, not Castiel."
"Misha?" Dean asked, horrified. "Your name is Misha?"
Misha was frowning. "Are you guys okay?" he was in the process of unbuttoning the dress shirt that was his costume, revealing a new-age t-shirt beneath it. "You wanna run lines?"
Dean turned on his heel, completely unable to process the man in front of him, and the differences between him and the angel that they had fought beside for so long. Piper hurried to catch up, slipping her hand into his.
"Hey, come on, we're going to… Hey, 'J. Ackles,' isn't that you?"
He turned to follow her gaze to the trailer they had stopped next to, which did, indeed, have a sign bearing the name "J. Ackles."
"Yeah, that's fake me. This must be fake mine."
xxxxx
Hours later, sitting in the "Padalecki's" mansion, in the library, Piper kept track of the list of ingredients they would need to reverse Balthazar's spell, while also eyeing the giant portrait of what looked like Sam dressed as a cowboy.
"What's next?" Dean asked.
Piper dragged her attention back to the list. "Um, 'wrist bone of saint and holy reliquary.'"
"Oh, hey, got it here. 'Museum quality, from diocese in Oaxaca.' Looks legit."
Dean nodded, reading over his shoulder. "All right, auction house is in Mexico City. We could be there day after tomorrow. We, uh, case it, yank it, be back here by the end of the week."
"Or we could just buy it." Sam held up a black credit card.
Dean whistled. "Hello, Jared Padalecki."
Piper had the phone to speak to the auction house. "Cubrir a su amigo en la aduana. no? Bueno."
Dean was on the phone, too. "Triple rush. No problemo. Because money is no object."
Piper hung up. "They said it should be at the airport first thing in the morning."
Dean grinned. "Money, man, there's nothing like it."
The appearance of Genevieve in the doorway startled Piper. The other woman smiled kindly, which was disconcerting, because Piper didn't remember seeing that expression on the demon Ruby's face, ever. "Hey, guys," she said softly. "Can I borrow mine for a sec?"
Piper smiled back and nodded, then looked over at Sam and widened her eyes at him until he got the hint that he was the one that Gen was talking about.
He gave a full body flinch, but nodded to cover. "Oh, uh, yeah. Coming, uh, honey?" He stood and followed the short woman out of the room.
When the door shut, Piper moved to sit next to Dean. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, and she willingly leaned into his warmth. "Hi," she said softly.
He smiled. "Hi, kitten." He kissed the top of her head.
She snuggled close. "You know, none of the people on the set, and Gen, either, none of them thought twice about us being together."
He was silent for a second, then hummed. "You're right."
She looked up and smiled at him. "You just can't get rid of me in any universe, baby."
He grinned and kissed her forehead. "Because I'm not trying to get away. Not once, not ever."
xxxxx
After realizing that the universe they were in had no magic, because the spell hadn't had any effect whatsoever, they were on their way back to the set, a little bit disheartened.
"What do we do next?" Dean asked angrily. "I just… What the fuck are we going to do?"
Piper put a placating hand on his arm. "Hey, calm down, Dean. We'll figure something out, okay?"
A gunshot rang out. Before she could properly think about her reaction, Piper was already running toward the sound. The three of them dove into the studio and toward the commotion.
They got there in time to see someone dodge a bullet fired from the gun that the angel Virgil was aiming.
"Hey!" Sam shouted. Dean tackled the angel, and Piper dove to grab the gun. She couldn't get it, but she kicked it away.
While Dean and Virgil grappled on the ground, Sam managed to get into the angel's coat and get the key. "Dean! I've got it!"
Dean wrestled himself away and ran toward them, but before he got there, Piper looked up and saw the glowing sigil that they'd painted on the window. "Dean!" she cried, "Dean, it's Raphael! We have to run!"
Before they could, they were thrown by an invisible force through that window.
xxxxx
When Dean came to, he looked around to see Piper and Sam standing next to him. He immediately grabbed Piper's hand, letting his wife's touch ground him a little.
He opened his mouth to ask if she was okay, but was interrupted by a female voice.
"You three… Have the strangest luck."
Dean turned to see a shorter woman staring at them. The way she held herself told him everything he needed to know about who she was. "Raphael? Nice meatsuit. Dude looks like a lady."
Raphael raised her hand, closed it into a fist, and whatever she did next was lost to Dean as he doubled over in pain. He fell to his knees, and while he only vaguely sensed that Piper had fallen next to him, but he heard her cry crystal clear.
"The key," Raphael intoned, walking over and picking it up from where Sam had dropped it as he fell.
"And that," Balthazar's familiar voice came from somewhere behind the, but Dean couldn't find it in himself to look back. "Will open you a locker at the Albany bus station."
"Really."
"You see, I needed a modest decoy to make it more convincing."
"Give me the weapons." Raphael was starting to sound angry. Dean's vision was beginning to grey out at the edges.
"Sorry, darling, they're gone."
"What?!"
"I said, too bloody late. You see, they were so well hidden that I needed time to find them. So, I volunteered these two marmosets, and the lovely wife, for a game of fetch with Virgil." Balthazar waved a hand and the pain stopped. Dean looked up to meet his eyes. "You three were such an adequate stick. Thank you. Thank you, boys and girl."
Dean stood on shaky legs, helping Piper up at the sametime, as the angels continued to argue.
"You've made your last mistake" Raphael snarled.
Balthazar chuckled. "Oh, I've got a few more up my sleeve, honey."
"Step away from him, Raphael." Castiel's comfortable, gravelly voice rang down the street. "I have the weapons now. Their power is with me."
"Castiel."
"If you don't want to die tonight, back off," Castiel said sternly, no compromise in his tone.
Raphael disappeared, and Balthazar moved his gaze to rest on the dark-haired angel. "Well, Cassie. Now that you have your sword, try not to die by it." Then he disappeared, too.
Castiel stepped forward and pressed two fingers to Dean's head, and the world dipped and swirled around them. When he opened his eyes, he saw they were back in Bobby's living room.
"Thank God," Piper groaned as she made to sit behind Bobby's desk.
"Cass, what the hell?!" Sam shouted. "You were in on this, using us a diversion?"
"It was Balthazar's plan. I would have done the same thing."
Dean frowned. "That's not comforting, Cas."
The angel glared at him, the most emotion he'd shown the whole evening. "When will I be able to make you understand? If I lose against Raphael, we all lose. Everything."
Dean was about to snap, but Piper got there first.
"Cass," she said gently. "We know the stakes, but we want to help. If you tell us more, we can help with this."
The angel winced. "I'm sorry about all this. I'll explain when I can." In a whoosh of angel feathers, Castiel disappeared.
Dean scowled. "Fucking angels."
xxxxx
Hi, beautiful readers! Here are my notes:
I own only Piper Finley, the original character. I don't own Supernatural or any of the characters. (heartbroken).
Reviews, comments, and kudos give me life and keep me going.
And, as always, thank you for reading, you beautiful, beautiful people.
**I have no excuse for the wait. I'm sorry.
**If this chapter feels stilted or forced, it's because it was, in fact, stilted AND forced. For some reason, sometimes, no matter how I wrestle with it or rewrite it, it comes out that way.
