A/N: A little aside before I get into things. I'm looking for some feedback from readers. I've been re-reading some of my Season 1 "Highway to Hell" work and realised that the more unique thing about it was that I was writing it almost entirely from Beth's POV. Obviously with the introduction of more and more characters and subplots this has become a little more difficult. I would however like to go back to doing that a little. Maybe not every chapter, but as much as possible. My other thought is to try writing from Third Person but I think that's just going to really throw the voice of the series out a lot, so I think I'll be reserving that for Jefferson's Chronicles once I get stuck into them, or Gabriel's Story.

So,

1. Do you like the change in POV from character to character, like I've been doing the last few seasons… or

2. Do you prefer to see the story unfold from only Beth's (or maybe Dean and Beth's) POV - even if this means that a some of the key components of stories get 'cut' and 'summed up' but we see a little more 'behind the scenes' from these two?

Fell on my feet this morning
Two angels heard me cry
This is your fate hereafter
The future is my friend
It hurts, but it treats me well
Take hold and be its master

Got my feet on the ground
Your hands found me
Saw my blood on the ground
And it changed my life

So many parts that I have to play
A tangle with life set me up that way
Now I know
These are the words that I have to say
Won't you let me
Won't you hear me cry

THE MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK

1 Day Ago
Kripke's Hollow

Sam's POV

My investigations had led me to the comic book store. A little bell dinged to announce my arrival as I entered, and a big chubby guy looked over at me, watching as I walked toward him and pulled my FBI badge.

"Uh... can I help you?" He asked, looking at me curiously.

"Sure hope so. Agent Shaw. Just need to ask you a few questions," I said with a not. "Have you noticed anything strange in the building, last couple of days?"

"Like what?" He asked.

"Well, some other tenants reported flickering lights," I said and he shrugged.

"Uh, I don't think so. Why?"

"What about noises? Any skittering in the walls? Kind of like rats?" I pressed, and he raised an eyebrow in my direction.

"And the FBI is investigating a rodent problem?" He asked skeptically, the look on his face showing me that he wasn't convinced by my line of questioning. I pressed on.

"What about cold spots? Feel any sudden drops in temperature?"

The man suddenly smacked the counter. "I knew it! You're LARPing, aren't you?" He asked, his big round face breaking into a grin.

"Excuse me?" I asked, frowning.

"You're fans."

"Fans of what?" I questioned, starting to feel like I'd completely missed something. "What is "LARPing"?"

"Like you don't know," he laughed, taking in my confusion. "Live-Action Role-Play! And pretty hardcore, too."

"I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about," I said, shaking my head.

"You're asking questions like the building's haunted. Like those guys and girl from the books. What are they called? Uh... Supernatural. Two guys and a girl, use fake IDs with rock and other classic culture aliases, hunt down ghosts, demons, vampires. What are their names? Uh... Steve, Dirk and Barb?" He shook his head. "Uh, Sal, Dane and Bren?"

"Sam… Dean and Beth?" I asked with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

"That's it!" He exclaimed with a nod. "I mean, there not being three of you kind of threw me at first, but you're… you've got to be Sam, right?"

I blinked, searching for something to latch on to. "You're saying this is a book?"

"Books," he clarified. "It was a series. Didn't sell a lot of copies, though. Kind of had more of an underground cult following," he said, moving to a table that had a sign reading 'bargain bin.' I followed him and watched as he picked through the titles. "Let's see. Um... Ah. Yeah…"

"That's the first one, I think," he said, handing me a book. I turned it over in my hand and read the cover. Supernatural, by Carver Edlund. I stared at the cover, it was like a cross between a Fabio romance, and Goosebumps. What really caught my attention was the immaculate portrayal of the Impala. Flipping it to the back cover, I read the blurb out loud, "On a 'lonely California highway, a mysterious woman in white lures men to their deaths."?" Looking up to see the guy nodding at me with a smile.

I swallowed hard - what were the chances of that? "Uh, I'm gonna need all the copies of Supernatural you've got," I said, and then I grabbed my phone. Out or not, Dean and Beth were going to want to see this.

Present Day
Kripke's Hollow - Motel Room

Beth's POV

Dean was lying on the bed next to about ten copies of the different books in the Supernatural series, flipping through yet another book that Sam had acquired during his recent investigations of a haunting. A frown crossed his face again, followed by a grin as he looked up at me and then back at the book.

"What?" I asked, and he chuckled, turning the page. "Dean… what?"

"This is freakin' insane. How's this guy know all this stuff?" Dean said instead of answering my question.

"You got me," Sam said from his place at the table by the window. He'd been intently staring at his laptop since we arrived, encouraging us to simply read through the books, which were beyond accurate for someone who didn't actually know us.

"Everything is in here. I mean everything, even stuff from years and years ago with Dad... that… racist truck …when we lost the … the baby," his voice dropped and he looked at me strangely, swinging his legs off the bed. He leaned forward, his eyes locking with mine. "Not to mention me …and you..." I looked curiously at him.

"What do you mean?" I asked, looking up from the book I was reading. I was still on the early series.

"Page 165," Dean said, holding the book out for me. I took it, tossing him a questioning glance, and then flipped open to the section he was talking about, scanning the words on the page. My mouth grew dry, and I swallowed against a dry throat, sitting up myself from where I'd been lounging on the bed opposite Dean.

"Woah… he… how does he know?" I asked, scanning over the B&B stay Dean and I had after we'd lost our child, and the intimate moment of love making we'd shared - right down to the things we'd told each other. "This is incredibly accurate, not to mention personal, Dean, how the hell does anyone know about this?" I asked, looking up at him in alarm.

"It's not the only time either," Dean said with a frown, "the whole series is littered with us… errr… you know."

Sam snorted and I looked over at him. "How is this funny? This is private stuff!" I said sharply, and I could have sworn my voice pitched a little higher.

"Yeah, I'm full-frontal in here," Dean added, tossing another book on the bed. He stood up and squeezed my shoulder, leaning down to kiss my forehead before walking over to Sam. "How come we haven't heard of them before?"

"They're pretty obscure. I mean, almost zero circulation. Uh, started in '05. The publisher put out a couple dozen before going bankrupt. And, uh, the last one … No Rest For The Wicked," Sam turned his laptop screen around to reveal a website listing with all the books. "Ends with you going to hell."

"I reiterate. Freaking insane," Dean said, sitting on a chair and looking at the website. He started to scroll down the page and clicked on another screen. "Check it out. There's actually fans. There's not many of them, but still. Did you read this?"

"Yeah," Sam said, leaning back in his chair with a shrug.

Dean read through a few of the reviews and frowned. "Although for fans, they sure do complain a lot. Listen to this – Simpatico says "the demon storyline is trite, clichéd, and overall craptastic.""

"Yeah, well, screw you, Simpatico. We lived it," I muttered under my breath and Dean looked at me briefly before turning back to the screen.

"Yeah. Well, keep on reading. It gets better," Sam commented.

Dean scrolled down, reading out loud as he went. "There are "Sam girls" and "Dean girls" and … hey babe, there's even "Beth girls" here, now we're talking," he chuckled.

"Ha, just great," I said.

"Hey... what's a "slash fan"?" Dean asked.

"As in... Sam-slash-Dean. Together," Sam said.

"Like, together together?" I asked, standing up and walking over to lean on the chair that Dean had sat down on.

"Yeah," Sam said with a nod and grimace.

"They do know we're brothers, right?" Dean asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Doesn't seem to matter… seems… maybe they're not so worried since you married your sister," Sam replied.

"Oh, now come on, it covers in here that we're not really related," Dean said, throwing a hand up at the screen.

"Doesn't seem to matter," Sam reiterated.

"Oh, come on. That... That's just sick," Dean said, shutting the laptop in disgust. "We got to find this Carver Edlund."

"Yeah, that might not be so easy," I commented, returning to my own laptop and sitting down on the bed.

"Why not?" Dean asked, his green eyes following my every move.

"No tax records, no known address. Looks like "Carver Edlund" is a pen name," I said, clicking through a few more sites I'd had up as I was trying to discover the location of our biographer.

"Somebody's gotta know who he is," Sam said.

Next Day
Publisher's House

Although the Publishing company had gone out of business, it hadn't been hard to track down the publisher that had been handling Carver's portfolio. Dean was fuming by the time we reached her house. He'd been reading through the series and seen the vulnerable ins and outs of our lives, and he was unimpressed - maybe even more than me. A pretty young woman wearing the biggest cardigan I'd ever seen, opened the door and let us in. She seemed eager to have us here discussing her Supernatural series, although a little skeptical.

"Dean, let Sam and I do the talking, you don't want to rub this girl the wrong way before we get what we came for," I cautioned. Dean turned to frown at me.

"I don't want to rub her any way whatsoever. But this chick knows something about whoever is writing about us, not to mention our rubbing together and I want answers," he said.

"I do too, but we need to make sure we get them," I said quietly as we entered the living room of the woman, whose name was Cassie. Dean sighed and loitered at the back of the room while Sam and I talked to her.

"So you published the Supernatural books?" Sam asked.

"Yep. Yeah. Gosh. These books... You know, they never really got the attention they deserved. All anybody wants to read anymore is that romance crap. You know – Doctor Sexy, M.D.?" She scoffed. "Please."

"Right," I said with a nod. "Well, we're hoping that our article can... shine a light on an underappreciated series."

"Yeah, yeah, because, you know, if we got a little bit of good press then m-maybe we could start publishing again," she said excitedly.

"No, no, no, no. God, no," Dean interrupted from the back of the room where he was holding one of the Supernatural books and flipping through them, again. He stopped when I threw him a cautioning look, and backtracked. "I mean, why – why would you want to do that? You know, it's, uh, such a complete series, what with Dean going to Hell and all."

Cassie's eyes got all teary and she choked back a sob, waving her hand in the air. "Oh, my god! That was one of my favourite ones, because Dean was so... strong... and sad and brave. And Beth… she was so strong … and sad and brave too... how did she cope? Oh, the wedding, so unexpected and so … so perfect ...I cried my eyes out!" She nodded at me and I smiled awkwardly, twisting at my wedding ring self consciously.

"And Sam... I mean, the best parts are when they cry. You know, like in – In Heart, when Sam had to kill Madison, the first woman since Jessica he really loved. And in Home, when Dean had to call John and ask him for help." She turned away with a sigh. "Gosh... if only real men were so open and in touch with their feelings."

I snorted and looked over at Dean who was staring with a look of total offense on his face.

"Real men?" He asked.

"I mean, no offense. How often do you cry like that, hmm?" She asked, and I smiled softly. She had no idea she was talking about real events, real people.

"Well, right now, I'm crying on the inside," Dean said sarcastically.

"Is that supposed to be funny?" Cassie asked defensively.

"Lady, this whole thing is funny," Dean muttered, shrugging at me. I frowned at him, trying to get him to settle down. This had been exactly why I'd suggested he might like to stay in the car, but the reality was, Sam was still a bit moody with me and didn't seem to want to talk - even when he had been the first to call and get me out here. He'd said to me yesterday that he knew I'd have to be the one to convince Dean to leave, that his brother was stuck in some delusion about making me happy. Things were a far cry from how they were back at the start of these books in Woman in White, even with his promise to put things behind us. I wasn't quite ready to let go either.

"How do I know you're legit, hmm?" Cassie asked.

"Oh, trust me. We, uh... we're legit," Sam said with a smile.

"Well, I don't want any smart-ass article making fun of my guys and girl," she commented, walking behind a large desk and sitting down.

"No! No, no, no. Never," I said, shaking my head. "No, that's…" That's the last thing we want to do, I thought, wishing that I could just burn all the books that had ever been written… after all, the first time I had sex was written in black and white for the whole world to see. Nothing to make fun of there. I wanted to crawl under a rock.

"We – We are actually, um... big fans," Sam said.

"Hmm. You've read the books?" She asked.

'Cover to cover," I replied, and I could see Cassie's face starting to take on the same expression as a crazy teacher about to give a pop quiz. This was about to get messy.

"Um-hmm," Sam nodded.

"What's the year and model of the car?"

"It's a 1967 Chevy Impala," Dean answered. I almost wanted to laugh - she was going to have to do harder than that to trip us up.

"What's May 2nd?" She asked and Sam frowned.

"That's my – Uh... that's Sam's birthday," he replied. Cassie tossed him a curious look at the slip up, but Dean chimed in, distracting her .

"January 24th is Dean's, and Beth's is August 3rd," he said, which caused Cassie's interest to pique.

"And what does Dean do for Beth every birthday?" She asked, looking at him with narrowed eyes.

"He uh… well… you know he likes to give her something to …"

"Dean!" I interrupted, frowning at him and then seeing how Cassie had narrowed in on my outburst. "I mean, Dean! Dean, Dean, Dean. What a guy huh?" I asked, looking at the publisher. "He takes her to see the sunrise every birthday, and they always have pie."

"Isn't that so romantic?" She asked me wistfully, and I looked up to see Sam roll his eyes.

"Ahem, well… anyone would know that stuff, it's on the website bios of the characters. How about something to really test you," she said. "Sam's score on the LSAT?"

Sam looked at Dean with a shrug. "One...seventy four?"

"Dean's favorite song?"

"It's a tie," I said, smiling back at Dean. "Between Zep's "Ramble On" and "Traveling Riverside Blues.""

"Okay. Okay. What do you want to know?" Cassie conceded.

"What's Carver Edlund's real name?" Sam asked with big puppy dog eyes.

"Oh, no. I – No. Sorry, I can't do that," she said, shaking her head vehemently. I had kind of expected to get that reaction, Dean had even rambled on about privacy clauses and such, and Sam had snapped with the whole no such thing as doctor/patient confidentiality in publishing. Dean hadn't been impressed with the attitude.

"We just want to talk to him. You know, get the Supernatural story in his own words," Sam coaxed with his big brown eyes.

Cassie was having none of it. "He's very private. It's like Salinger," she said.

"Please," Sam said, continuing with the puppy dog act. "Like I said – we are, um…" He reached up to unbutton his shirt and pull back the material to reveal his protection tattoo. "... big... big fans." Sam turned to look expectantly at Dean who shook his head, but then sighed and pulled back his shirt to reveal his own tattoo. The woman licked her lips and turned to me, raising her eyebrow.

"Going to show me your chest too?" She asked and I smirked.

"Yeah, I don't think so," I said, lifting my hair and turning around to show her my own tattoo at the base of my neck. "Like we said… we're legit, big, big fans."

"Awesome. You know what?" Cassie asked, standing up. She hiked up her skirt, and turned her back to us, bending over to reveal the pale soft flesh of her buttocks where the same design was tattooed. "I got one, too."

Dean's eyes nearly popped out of his skull, and his mouth dropped open at the display. "Whoa. You are a fan," he said appreciatively.

"Okay," Cassie said, dropping her skirt and sitting down again. She reached for a pad of paper and scribbled down information on it. "His name's Chuck Shurley. And he's a genius, so don't piss him off."

Chuck's House

Dean pulled the Impala up to the curb and we all looked at the house curiously.

"Certainly doesn't look like what you'd expect from a published author," I commented.

"Well, it's not like these book made the best seller's list," Sam said derisively and opened the door, climbing out and shutting it before looking around the yard.

"Nyeh nyeah nyeah," I said with a grumble and Dean raised his eyebrow.

"You okay over there?" He asked and I sighed, nodding.

"Yeah… just tired of … I don't know. Let's go, huh?" I opened the door and Dean joined me on the curb. "Ready?" He nodded and frowned at me.

"Are you?" He asked.

"Come on you guys, what's with the girl chat?" Sam called out and walked up to the porch.

"Wouldn't it be ironic if we sold our souls to save him, only to have me kill him for being a dick?" I muttered and Dean snorted.

"You guys will figure it out," he said, putting his arm around my neck and pulling me over to him so he could kiss the top of my head. "Not like you guys haven't fought before."

I nodded and we started to walk up to the deck, Sam rang the bell when we joined him, an impatient sigh escaping his mouth. I decided to ignore him for a while and see how that went, falling silent next to Dean as the door opened.

"You Chuck Shurley?" Dean asked of the odd looking man standing in the doorway dressed in nothing but boxer shorts, overshirt and bathrobe, looking seriously hungover.

"The Chuck Shurley who wrote the Supernatural books?" Sam added.

The guy looked at us cautiously. "Maybe. Why?"

"I'm Dean. This is Sam, and this is Beth. The family you've been writing about," Dean said with a gesture toward both Sam and I.

Chuck didn't even hesitate, simply closed the door in our faces. We all glanced at each other and then Dean rang the doorbell again. Amazingly, Chuck answered it.

"Look, uh... I appreciate your enthusiasm. Really, I do," he said. "It's, uh, it's always nice to hear from the fans. But, uh, for your own good, I strongly suggest you get a life." He tried to shut the door, but this time Dean wasn't having a bar of it, putting his hand out to stop it.

"See, here's the thing. We have a life. You've been using it to write your books," Dean said, shoving the door and entering the house, forcing Chuck to back away as the rest of us followed and I closed the door behind us.

"Now, wait a minute. Now, this isn't funny." Chuck said urgently.

"Damn straight, it's not funny," Dean said angrily.

"Look, we just want to know how you're doing it," I said, putting a hand on Dean's arm and stepping around him.

Chuck looked at me and frowned. "I'm not doing anything."

"Are you a hunter?" Sam asked with a frown.

"What? No. I'm a writer," he said, the confusion showing clearly on his face.

"Then how do you know so much about demons?" Dean asked, pushing past me and advancing on Chuck. The man backed away quickly and fell back on to his couch, looking alarmed.

"And Tulpas, and changelings?" I asked, following and standing next to Dean.

Chuck looked from Dean to me and then his eyes filled with even more fear. "Is this some kind of Misery thing? Ah, it is, isn't it? It's a Misery thing!"

"No, it's not a Misery thing. Believe me, we are not fans!" I snapped, frowning at him.

"Well, then, what do you want?!" He asked.

"I'm Sam," our brother finally chimed in, his voice a little softer and calmer than Dean and I. "And that's Dean and Beth.

"Sam, Dean and Beth are fictional characters. I made them up! They're not real!" Chuck insisted.

Dean threw his hands in the air and stepped away in disgust. "He's good, I'll give him that."

I watched Chuck as he took us all in and frowned, chewing on my lip. He was staring back at me curiously.

"Get him up," Dean said to me, and I raised an eyebrow in his direction. "Let's show him." He didn't wait for an answer, stalking out the front door and down the pathway to the Impala. I gestured for Chuck to follow, and he stood up, looking nervously at us.

"You're not… you promise this isn't some Misery thing?" He asked and I nodded. Following me outside he started to gape when he saw Baby sitting at the curb. Dean had the trunk of the car open, revealing the arsenal of weapons we usually kept hidden. Chuck spluttered a few times, looking at it in shock.

"Are those real guns?" He asked.

"Yup. This is real rock salt, these are real fake IDs," Dean said.

"Well, I got to hand it to you guys. You really are my number one fans," he said nervously. "That's, that's awesome. So, I-I think I've got some posters in the house."

"Chuck, stop," I said, putting my hand on his arm as he went to walk away.

"Please. Wait. Please, don't hurt me," Chuck said urgently.

"How much do you know? Do you know about the angels? Or Lilith breaking the seals?" Sam asked, watching him like a hawk.

"Wait a minute. How do you know about that?" Chuck asked, looking at us with a frown.

"The question is how do you?" Dean asked.

"Because I wrote it?" Chuck said carefully, tossing us an incredulous look.

"You kept writing?" I asked, feeling myself go pale. I suddenly found myself curiously wondering just what he'd written… and then I remembered the time Dean had spent in Hell, and what I'd been like with him gone, and then when he came back, and… I suddenly wasn't sure I'd want to read that.

"Yeah, even after the publisher went bankrupt," Chuck said. "But those books never came out." He stopped, looking at us. "Okay, wait a minute. This is some kind of joke, right? Did that – Did Phil put you up to this?" He started to smile like he was finally starting to get the joke.

"Well, nice to meet you. I'm Dean Winchester, and this is my wife Beth, and my brother, Sam." Dean said. I smiled, I had to admit I still kind of got a kick out of being married - it was always a small thrill to hear Dean come out with the word wife. We didn't really get to say it that much.

"The last names were never in the books. I never told anybody about that. I never even wrote that down," Chuck said, his eyes starting to widen. He turned around and walked back into the house, shutting the door open as we all watched him.

"He's not much on good-byes huh?" I said.

"Or regular social conventions," Sam said with a shake of his head. We shrugged and went back to the house. This time we simply let ourselves in and found Chuck in the kitchen, pouring himself a large whiskey and gulping it down. He placed the glass on the sink and turned around, startling like a deer in the headlights when he saw us standing there.

"Oh! Oh, you're still there," he groaned.

"Yup," I said, raising an eyebrow at him. I for one was looking for a few more answers than "I wrote it" on how he'd gotten some of my most intimate life details into a book.

"You're not a hallucination?" He asked.

"Nope," Dean answered.

"Well, there's only one explanation. Obviously I'm a god," Chuck said with a nod.

Sam snorted and rolled his eyes. "You're not a god."

"How else do you explain it?" Chuck asked. "I write things and then they come to life. Yeah, no, I'm definitely a god. A cruel, cruel, capricious god. The things I put you through…" He looked apologetically from Dean, to me and then Sam. "The physical beatings alone."

"Yeah, we're still in one piece," Dean smirked.

"I killed your father," he turned to me. "Both your fathers! And your mothers… Sam I burned your mother alive. And then you had to go through the whole horrific deal again with Jessica," Chuck was staring at Sam in mild horror.

"Chuck…" Sam said carefully.

"All for what?" Chuck interrupted, throwing his arms in the air. "All for the sake of literary symmetry. I toyed with your lives, your emotions, for... entertainment."

"You didn't toy with us, Chuck, okay? You didn't create us," Dean said.

"Did you really have to live through the bugs?" He asked, looking at Dean and I, recalling the first job Dean and I had taken on our own, away from John.

"Yeah," I said, a shudder running down my spine. Chuck looked at me sympathetically.

"What about the ghost ship?" He asked curiously.

:Yes, that too," Dean said with a short nod.

"I am so sorry. I mean, horror is one thing, but to be forced to live bad writing... if I would have known it was real, I would have done another pass," he said, and I couldn't help but smile. This guy was kind of funny.

"Chuck, you're not a god!" Dean snapped.

"We think you're probably just psychic," Sam said, and Chuck scoffed.

"No. If I were psychic, you think I'd be writing? Writing is hard." He said, sitting down at a table where his computer was situated.

"It seems that somehow, you're just... focused on our lives," Sam said.

"Yeah, like laser-focused. With exceptional detail," I said and Chuck turned to look at me. "Are you working on anything right now?"

Chuck's face suddenly showed a shock realisation when I asked my question. "Holy crap."

"What?" Sam asked.

Chuck moved over to a desk and picked up some pages, flipping through them. "The, uh, latest book? It's, uh, it's kind of weird."

""Weird" how?" I asked.

"It's very Vonnegut," he said.

"Slaughterhouse-Five Vonnegut or Cat's Cradle Vonnegut?" Dean asked intently and Sam looked at Dean with surprise.

"What?" He asked.

"What?" Dean asked defensively, glancing at Sam. I chuckled - seemed there were still things Sam didn't know about us. We'd gone on a Vonnegut marathon years ago.

"It's, uh, Kilgore Trout Vonnegut. I wrote myself into it. I wrote myself, at my house... confronted by my characters," Chuck said and I exchanged an intrigued look with Dean.

Several Hours Later
Laundromat

I opened up the two washers we had commandeered for our second round of laundry and started to sort through Dean's and my dirty clothes, tossing lights into one, and darker colours into the other. Dean was sitting on a closed machine next to me, reading as it finished it's spin cycle.

"You enjoying that?" I asked with a grin, glancing over at him. Dean chuckled and shook his head, holding up Chuck's latest manuscript.

"I'm sitting in a laundromat, reading about myself sitting in a laundromat reading about myself. My head hurts," he said.

"There's got to be something this guy's not telling us," Sam said, tossing his dark clothes into the washer I'd designated for dark wash. Dean raised his eyebrow, turning back to the manuscript.

"'Sam tossed his gigantic darks into the machine. He was starting to have doubts about Chuck, about whether he was telling the whole truth.'" Dean quoted and I looked up sharply at the sentence.

"Stop it," Sam said.

"'Stop it,' Sam said'. Guess what you do next," Dean said with amusement. Sam's eyes narrowed and he turned away from us, opening a dryer and starting to pull his clothes out of it and into a basket.

"'Sam turned his back on Dean and Beth, his face brooding and pensive'," Dean read. "I mean, I don't know how he's doing it, but this guy is doing it. I can't see your face, but those are definitely your brooding and pensive shoulders."

Sam sighed and Dean looked down at the manuscript, reading furiously. "You just thought I was a dick!"

I looked up at Sam with a curious look. "The guy's good," Sam said, turning around with an impressed expression on his face.

Dean looked at me and grinned. "You want to know about what we get up to later?" He asked and Sam snorted.

"I am so getting my own room!" He exclaimed, Dean saying the line in exact unison with him.

I laughed, and shook my head, tossing a few coins in the machine and starting the wash cycle. "Laundry day never changes," I commented, leaning over to kiss Dean on the cheek.

"Oooh," Dean said, still reading the manuscript, and then looking up at me. "I like what you just thought."

The Next Day
Chuck's House

Chuck seemed nervous to have us back, he was pacing the dark and crowded living room holding a few more pages, and looking over at Sam and Dean, having just announced that he'd written more of our story overnight.

"So... You wrote another chapter?" Sam asked curiously.

"This was all so much easier before you were real," Chuck said, looking at us with concern.

"We can take it; just spit it out," Dean said, gesturing at Chuck with a bring it hand signal.

"You especially are not gonna like this," said the writer, looking at Dean.

"I didn't like Hell," Dean said stonily, as if to say anything else was a cakewalk. Maybe he was right, my memories of seeing him in Hell were pretty much up there with the worst form of torture I could think up.

"It's Lilith. She's coming for Sam," Chuck said, and we all looked at Sam who frowned and leaned forward.

"Coming to kill him?" I asked.

"When?" Dean wanted to know, frowning hard.

"Tonight," Chuck confirmed with a nod. It seemed a little random, to have Lilith just turn up in the same town as Chuck. There was nothing tying any of us to this location, no reason we were here other than a random haunting which we'd pretty much abandoned with the discovery of the Supernatural books. No one else knew we were here.

"She's just gonna show up? Here?" I questioned.

Chuck nodded and put his glasses on, skimming down the page of his manuscript. "Uh… let's see, uh. 'Lilith patted the bed seductively. Unable to deny his desire, Sam succumbed, and they sank into the throes of fiery demonic passion.'"

Sam laughed, shaking his head at Chuck. "You're kidding me, right?"

"You think this is funny?" Dean snapped.

"You don't? I mean, come on. Fiery demonic passion?" Sam asked with a smirk.

"It's just a first draft," Chuck said with a shrug.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," Dean said, holding his hand out. "Lilith is a little girl."

"No, uh, this time she's a 'comely dental hygienist from Bloomington, Indiana.'" Chuck said, once again consulting his manuscript.

"Great. Perfect. So what happens after the... fiery demonic whatever?" Dean asked. I was sitting on the edge of my seat, almost literally, waiting to hear what the hell was going on. I had walked in on Sam with Ruby in the past, but one of the things that I couldn't quite figure out was why Sam would be crawling into bed with Lilith.

"I don't know, it hasn't come to me yet," Chuck said.

"Dean, look, there's nothing to worry about. Lilith and me? In bed?" Sam asked skeptically.

Dean glared at Sam, clearly not as convinced as Sam was about his ability to avoid demons.

"How does this whole psychic thing of yours work?" I asked Chuck, who turned eager eyes to me.

"You mean my process?" He questioned.

"Yes, your 'process'." Dean said shortly.

"Well, it usually starts with a headache. A really bad headache," Chuck said. "Aspirin is useless, so... I drink. Until I fall asleep. The first time it happened, I thought it was just a crazy dream."

"The first time you dreamt about us?" I asked, and Chuck nodded emphatically.

"It flowed. It just, it kept flowing. It still does. I-I can't stop it, really," he said.

Sam was less convinced. "You can't seriously believe…"

"Humor me," Dean said, and he stood up while at the same time Chuck held up the manuscript for him. "Look, why don't we, we just…take a look at these and see what's ...what," he hesitated, realising that Chuck had handed him the papers before he'd even asked for them. He frowned, looking at the little man. "You…?"

"...knew you were gonna ask for that. Yeah." Chuck said with a nod.

Short Time Later
Impala

Dean pointed the car along the road and I started to flip through the manuscript, reading him the latest chapter.

"Uh, okay," I said, looking back to where we were. "'"The minivan accident wasn't that bad, but Dean was still seeing stars. He scratched absently at the pink flower Band-Aids on his face.'"

"Dean, come on…" Sam complained from the back seat.

"What?" Dean asked, glancing in the rearview mirror at our less-than-cooperative brother, who was now not happy with the attention these books were suddenly affording him.

"So, I've seen you gushing blood. You'd use duct tape and bar rags before you'd put on a pink flower Band-Aid," Sam said, throwing his arm up in the air.

"What's your point?" Dean asked, and the look he gave Sam was not indulgent at all, I was starting to think we had a full on believer, and after what I'd read last night in the previous manuscript, I was kind of with Dean on this one.

"My point is this – all of this – is totally implausible, it's nuts," Sam said.

"He's been right about everything so far. You think he's just gonna ground out at first now?" Dean asked.

Sam scoffed and leaned forward, reading over my shoulder. "Huh. 'Dean slid behind the wheel of his beloved Impala and drove off, the plastic tarp on the rear window flapping like the wings of a crow.'"

"A tarp?" Dean questioned, clearly taken aback.

"Yeah. On the rear window. And you drive it like that," Sam said, sitting back with a told-you-so look on his face. I just wanted to slap him. I glanced down at the manuscript, wondering if Chuck had documented my raged desire to slap some sense into our brother on a daily basis. I didn't see anything offhand, but we were ahead of ourselves now.

"Well, he might be wrong about the details, but doesn't mean he's wrong about the end result," Dean said determinedly.

"So we're just gonna run?" Sam asked.

"Dude, we are a long way from ready for a face-to-face death match with Lilith," Dean replied, and I nodded.

"He's right." I said as we came to a stop in front of a road block. A deputy walked up to the car, leaning in to look at Dean through the open window of the Impala.

"What seems to be the problem?" Dean asked, trying to see past the roadblock.

The Deputy looked at Dean, then me, and inclined his head in the direction we wanted to go. "Bridge is out ahead."

"We're just trying to get out of town," Dean said, frowning over at me.

"Yeah, afraid not," the deputy said with a shrug.

"Is there a detour?" I asked, and received another shake of the head.

"Nope."

"There's not a side road that takes us to the highway?" Dean asked skeptically, and I wondered if he was feeling the same amount of disbelief that I was. Like someone, or something, didn't want us to leave.

"To get to the highway, you have to cross that river. To cross the river, you have to take that bridge," came the reply and I could almost see the process going through Dean's mind.

"How deep's the river?" He asked and Sam snorted in the back seat.

"Sorry. Afraid you're gonna have to spend the night in town," said the deputy, standing up and tapping the roof of the Impala.

Diner

I was looking over the menu, my mouth watering at the promised 'best bacon cheeseburgers around' and thinking we would definitely have to try them. I was also craving a plate of curly fries, and some cheese curds, but apparently we weren't Midwest enough for that delicacy. Dean hadn't even looked at the menu, and was currently reading the next stage of the manuscript.

"Hey, this could be a good thing. I mean, if this is what puts us on the path to Lilith, then all we got to do is get off the path," he said and we both looked up at him.

"How do you mean?" Sam asked.

"It's a blueprint of what not to do. I mean, if the pages say that we go left…"

"Then we go right," I said and Dean nodded at me.

"Exactly. We get off-book. We never make it to the end. It's opposite day. It says that we, uh, we get into a fight. So, no fighting." He turned to me. "No research for either of you…"

I sighed, because I'd already read ahead. "No bacon cheeseburger for either of us," I said.

Dean looked a little put out, and glanced at the manuscript as if to check that we'd ordered burgers. He sighed and nodded. "Yeah, no problem. I'll just order something else," he said as the waitress approached our table. "Hi, uh, what's good?" Dean asked.

"Well, if you like burgers, Oprah's girlfriend said we have the best bacon cheeseburgers in the country," she said and Sam laughed. I pouted a little and Dean frowned, looking down at the manuscript again.

"Really?" He asked.

"I'll just have the cobb salad, please," Sam said, changing his order from the burger he too had ordered in the manuscript.

"I'll have the... veggie tofu burger," Dean said with a grimace, looking at me. "Beth?"

I sighed and nodded. "Make that two, thanks," I said to the waitress who smiled, taking our menus and leaving.

"This whole thing's ridiculous," Sam muttered.

"Lilith is ridiculous?" I asked. Again I just wanted to slap him.

"The idea of me hooking up with her is," Sam said and I smirked.

"Right. 'Cause something like that can never happen," I commented, thinking about how I'd found him in the arms of Ruby on more than one occasion.

Sam scowled at me, opening his mouth like he was going to retort, but then I could see that he was rethinking, and he turned to look pointedly at our brother. "Dean, for the first time, we have warning that Lilith is close."

"So?" Dean asked.

"So... we've got the jump on her. If we know when she's coming, we know where she's ... this is an opportunity," Sam tried to reason.

"Are you…" Dean's voice pitched a little and then he took a deep breath, clearly reminding himself that we were not allowed to get into a fight tonight. "It frustrates me when you say such reckless things," he said finally.

"Well, it frustrates me when you'd rather hide than fight," Sam said with the same anger in his voice.

The waitress returned with a smile. "Cobb salad for you. And two tofu veggie burgers," she said, sliding the plates in front of us.

"Thank you," I said and she left. Dean hadn't given up on the 'discussion' just yet. He leaned across the table, whispering to Sam.

"It's not hiding. It's being smart. It's picking your battles. This is a battle that we are not ready to fight," he said, and then he reached for his tofu burger, taking a big bite. I waited, expecting a negative reaction, but the look on Dean's face was nothing other than surprise. He turned to me, munching away.

"Oh, my god. This is delicious. Tofu is amazing!" He said. I looked at him dubiously and then down at my own plate, the burger looked a lot different.

Suddenly the waitress appeared by our side, a flustered look crossing her face. "I am so sorry. I gave you the bacon cheeseburger by mistake," she said, and she grabbed the plate from under Dean, taking it away.

SAM scowled, and stabbed his fork into his salad.

"Well… great," Dean said. "She could have at least left it."

Toreador Motel

I looked skeptically at the motel as we pulled up to it, even by our standards this place was very questionable. "Dean, this place charges by the hour," I commented, watching as a woman, in a skirt two sizes too small for her, laughingly entered a room with a man who was eyeing her off like she was a piece of meat.

"Yeah, well, the book says Lilith finds Sam at the Red Motel. Hence, the uh, hooker inn. It's opposite day, remember?" He said and I sighed, there was going to be no arguing with him tonight.

Once inside the room, which was just as questionable on the inside as the out, Dean dropped our bags on one of the beds and started pulling out items from his duffel. He tossed me a small string-tied bag, and then took another three and walked to the other end of the room with them, placing them on benches and cupboards as he went.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked, watching as he hung one by the door to the bathroom. I followed suit and placed the one in my hands by the window, hanging it from the curtain rod.

"Couple of hex bags ought to Lilith-proof the room," Dean commented, nodding with a pleased expression on his face.

"So, what? We're supposed to just hole up here all night?" Sam asked.

"That's exactly what you're gonna do, okay? And no research. I don't care what you do – use the Magic Fingers or watch Casa Erotica on Pay-Per-View." Dean said, reaching into Sam's bag and pulling out his laptop with a triumphant smile.

"Oh, dude, come on," Sam whined.

"Just call it a little insurance." Dean said.

"Wait, you said what I'm gonna do… well what are you two gonna do?" Sam queried as Dean started moving toward the door.

"Well, the pages say that Beth and I spend all day riding around in the Impala. So I'm gonna go park her, and we'll find… something to do." He grinned at me and I shook my head.

Dean turned back to Sam. "Behave yourself, would you? No homework. Watch some porn." He smiled, pleased with himself, and grabbed my hand, pulling me out the door with him.

Elsewhere

Dean pulled the car into a parking lot that was mostly abandoned near a residential area, and we exited together. Checking the doors, Dean locked the car and then took my hand, starting to walk us across to the sidewalk. "Been a while since we just took a demon-free stroll down to… somewhere," he commented as I smiled, slipping my arm around his waist.

"Have we taken demon-filled strolls before?" I asked and he laughed, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.

"Sugarpie, every damn thing we do seems to have demons involved somehow," he said. There was a noise of metal scratching behind us and Dean glanced behind us.

"Hey!" He yelled suddenly, his arm dropping from me as he turned around. I looked back to see two teens trying to break into the Impala, Dean started running toward them, crossing the road without looking and I saw a van appear almost out of nowhere.

"Dean!" I yelled, but it wasn't soon enough. I watched in horror as the van screeched to a halt, hitting Dean and sending him flying. I ran toward him, looking up at the Impala as I moved. The teenagers had panicked, a crowbar in hand, and tossed it back at the Impala. I grimaced as the back window shattered from the impact of the metal hitting it, and then turned my attention to Dean.

Motel

Chuck's POV

I glanced up at the flickering lights of the Toreador motel, noticing that many of them had shattered, and now it read as the "RE D Motel" and I shuddered. Even now my dreams were coming true. I knew about the conversation coming too. But I'd still play it out, maybe my intervention could help put Sam on the path back to the light, I hadn't seen far enough ahead to know whether I could have an impact on him.

I knocked on the door and Sam opened it. "You wanted to see me?" I asked.

"Yeah," Sam said, looking around outside and then opening the door wider for me to enter. After I entered, he shut the door. "Thanks for coming."

"Ah, sure," I said with a nod.

"Um... I was just wondering how much you know. About me," Sam said, and I decided to test him a little.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, you've seen visions of Dean and Beth together, without me… I… have you seen visions of me when I'm not with them?" He asked.

"You want to know if I know about the demon blood," I said and Sam looked a little shocked.

"You didn't tell Dean."

"I didn't even write it into the books," I said. "I was afraid it would make you look unsympathetic."

"Unsympathetic?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, come on, Sam, and you kind of abandoned her for Ruby man. Plus, I mean, sucking blood?" I queried. "You've got to know that's wrong."

Sam dismissed the comment about Beth, I hadn't even written it into the books - it was true, I'd figured if I'd put all the stuff I'd seen while Dean was in Hell in the books, it would make Sam less likeable - especially when he turned his back on her. I'd embellished a little here and there, and omitted other things.

"It scares the hell out of me. I mean, I feel it inside of me. I... I wish to god I could stop," Sam said, sitting down at the table by the window.

"But you keep going back," I said.

"What choice have I got? If it helps me kill Lilith and stop the apocalypse…"

"I thought that was Dean's job," I said as his voice trailed off. "That's what the angels say, right?"

"Dean's not... he's not Dean lately. Ever since he got out of Hell. He needs help," Sam said. "I mean, he's basically given up hunting for Beth. He put her before any of us." I couldn't help but notice the derision in his voice.

"Well, they've been through a lot," I commented. Sam sighed.

"Yeah, maybe… but I lost a brother too, you know? And maybe her… connection… or whatever it is, to the angels, has helped to get him out of Hell, but he's still got a job to do - and he's not doing it!"

"So you got to carry the weight?" I questioned.

"Well, he's looked out for me my whole life, Beth has too. I can't return the favor?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, sure you can. I mean, if that's what this is," I said.

"What else would it be?" Sam queried defensively.

"I don't know. Maybe the demon blood makes you feel stronger? More in control?" I asked, sitting down with him at the table.

"No. That's not true," Sam said.

I looked at him, taking in his comments and wondering what it would take to help him see the light.

"And why are you so mad at Beth?" I asked, curious to know the answer to this one. "I mean, she has stuck by you since she was fifteen, you're her brother and she loves you. Seems to me this obsession with the demon blood is ruining that connection with her."

Sam frowned, shaking his head. "I'm not angry at Beth," he denied, and I raised my eyebrow.

He sighed, looking down at the floor and rubbing the back of his neck. "Okay," he said, nodding. "Maybe I'm frustrated with her. She and Dean, they have this bond that's…"

"Unbreakable," I supplied and he nodded.

"Are you jealous?" I asked.

"What? No!" Sam denied, frowning at me. "But… it's just. Dean, he's weaker around her, lately. They are not strong like they used to be - if they ever were. Since they got together, things are different, hunting is different."

I contemplated what he had said. There were parts of it that rung true, but on the whole I felt that he was just over compensating for the fact that he'd turned to demons to save his brother, whereas Beth's faith had been the thing to see him freed, while Sam sunk deeper into the mire.

"I'm sorry, Sam. I know it's a terrible burden – feeling that it all rests on your shoulders," I said finally.

"Does it? All rest on my shoulders?" He asked.

"That seems to be where the story's headed," I said with a nod.

"Am I strong enough to stop Lilith tonight?" Sam asked.

"I don't know," I replied. "I haven't seen that far yet."

Middle of the Street

Beth's POV

The last few minutes had been like a tornado, everything just suddenly hitting at once. I watched as the woman driving the van jumped out of the car and rushed over, asking if Dean was okay. I looked him over, ascertaining that he didn't seem to be hurt too badly, he'd just hit his head on the bitumen when he got thrown back. The next thing the woman's daughter was beside us with a first aid kit, sticking bandaids to the side of Dean's face.

Dean's eyes started to flicker, and I could see the confusion in his face as the woman hovered over him. "Oh my god. Just take it easy, you're gonna be okay," she said.

"Stars…" Dean muttered almost incoherently, and I frowned until I noticed that she was wearing really long and sparkling star earrings.

"What was that?" She asked. Dean blinked, trying to raise his head. I moved behind him to help him sit, kneeling beside him. "I'm so sorry. I just didn't see you. Are you okay?" The woman asked again, prattling on nervously. Dean shook his head from side to side, leaning back against me and nodded.

The woman sighed with relief and smiled, "Oh thank God, that's great, I'm really sorry," she said again.

"I think he'll be fine," I said, and she nodded again, standing up.

"And sorry about... you know," the woman gestured to her daughter who was standing nearby, watching intently. "M-My daughter's going through a doctor phase."

"What are you talking about?" Dean asked, confused.

"You're all better now," the girl said with a smile.

"Come on," I said, helping Dean to his feet. I was feeling sick to my stomach, everything in the manuscript was happening, even when we tried to avoid it. Dean looked across the street as he stood, and I felt him tense under my hands.

"Oh, no…" he said and I cringed, watching as he approached the Impala, looking at the shattered back window.

"Beth!" He called out and I scurried after him.

"I know, I know, I couldn't stop them, they took off right after it happened…and you were lying in the middle of the road…" Dean stopped short, catching his reflection in the side window of the car. I would have laughed in a less stressful situation, watching as Dean saw all the floral band-aids plastered to the side of his face. He frowned, peeling one off and then looked back at me.

"This isn't good," he said. "We need answers."

Impala

"I can't believe my … my … the … oh my god it looks like crow wings. That damn little midget was right!" Dean cursed as we drove toward Chuck's house, a black tarp covering the rear window and flapping in the breeze as we moved.

We beat Chuck home, and were waiting for him when he entered. Hearing the lock click, I glanced up to see him walk into the room carrying a six-pack of beer and a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. He entered slowly, and didn't seem too surprised to see us there.

"Dean. Beth," he said.

"I take it you knew we'd be here," Dean commented, watching Chuck move around the small living area.

"You look terrible," he commented and Dean growled. I almost laughed given that Chuck looked perpetually hung over, probably a side effect of days full of whiskey trying to drown out the visions that he was having.

"That's 'cause I just got hit by a minivan, Chuck."

"Oh," Chuck said.

"That it? Every damn thing you write about us comes true; that's all you have to say is "oh"?!" Dean snapped and Chuck started to look like he had been sent to the principal's office.

"Please don't yell at me," he said.

"Why do I get feeling there's something that you're not telling us?" Dean asked.

"What wouldn't I be telling you?" Chuck questioned.

"How you know what you know, for starters!" Dean said, standing up. There was a barely contained rage seeping out of Dean and I looked at him with a bit of concern, letting him handle things as only he could, yet ready to intervene if he started to lose the plot on our little writer.

"I don't know how I know, I just do!"

"That's not good enough!" Dean said, and with a swift movement he shoved Chuck up against the wall.

"Dean!" I called out, standing up and moving toward them. I hadn't been expecting Dean to lose his cool this soon into the conversation.

"How the Hell are you doing this?!" Dean yelled, his hands locked into the shirt Chuck was wearing and shoving him back against the wall. I rushed to his side at the same time as I heard the sound of wings, and Cas appeared beside us.

"Dean, let him go!" Cas ordered, and Dean stepped back, releasing Chuck as I placed my hand against Dean's back. "This man is to be protected," Cas said.

"Why?" I asked, curious at the sudden appearance of our wayward angel.

"He's a Prophet of the Lord," Cas said.

"You... You're Castiel... aren't you?" Chuck asked, looking at the angel.

"It's an honour to meet you, Chuck. I... admire your work," said Cas, smiling and turning to pick up one of the Supernatural books, flipping through the pages.

"Whoa, whoa, what? This guy, a prophet?" Dean asked, gesturing to Chuck. "Come on, he's – he's... he's practically a Penthouse Forum writer."

"Sometimes he is…" I commented under my breath. "Did you know about this?" I asked, looking at the man who had stumbled over to his armchair. Chuck cracked open a fresh bottle of whiskey and poured himself a drink into an empty glass sitting on the table nearby.

"I, uh, I might have dreamt about it," I said, taking a drink.

"And you didn't tell us?!" Dean seethed.

"It was too preposterous. Not to mention arrogant. I mean, writing yourself into the story is one thing, but as a prophet? That's like M. Night-level douchiness," he said, taking another gulp from his whiskey.

"This is the guy who decides our fate?" Dean asked, turning to Cas.

"He isn't deciding anything," Cas said. "He's a mouthpiece – a conduit for the inspired word."

"The word? The word of God? What, like the new new testament?"

"One day, these books ... they'll be known as the Winchester Gospel," Cas said and I think I felt myself visibly pale.

"You gotta be kidding me," Dean and I said in unison, the shock evident on our faces.

"I am not... kidding you," Cas said.

"If you'd all please excuse me one minute," Chuck said, standing up. Still clutching at his bottle of whiskey, the man stumbled toward the stairs and disappeared up into what I could only assume was the bedroom.

"Him? Really?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at Cas.

"You should've seen Luke." Cas commented, still looking up at the stairs.

"Why'd he get tapped?" Dean asked, gesturing up the stairs toward Chuck.

Cas shrugged. "I don't know how prophets are chosen. The order comes from high up on the celestial chain of command."

"How high?" I asked, because we had already met some pretty high up angels. I was pretty sure Ezekiel was up there. And who the Hell was this Zachariah who had just shown up on the scene?

"Very," replied Cas.

"Well, whatever. How do we get around this?" Dean said.

"Around what?" Cas asked, looking confused.

"The Sam-Lilith love connection. How do we stop it from happening?" Dean asked.

"What the prophet has written can't be unwritten. As he has seen it, so it shall come to pass." Cas said.

Short Time Later
Motel

By the time we reached the motel it had gotten dark. I looked up at the sign that had earlier read "Toreador" only to see half the letters now black. We were now looking at the RED motel. Dean was staring at it too, I caught his gaze and he shook his head, walking to the room we'd left Sam in.

"Come on. We're getting out of here," Dean said as soon as we entered the room. He grabbed our bags from the bed where we'd left them as Sam struggled to sit up on the bed he'd been lounging on.

"What? Where?" He asked.

"Anywhere, okay? Out of this motel, out of this town. I don't care if we got to swim, we are getting out," he said, looking over at the bathroom door and then at the window. "Dude, where are all the hex bags?" He asked, and I glanced back to see that they were now missing.

"I burned them," Sam said.

"You what?!" I snapped.

"Look, if Lilith is coming, which is a big if…"

"No, no, no. It's more than an "if." Chuck is not a psychic. He's a prophet." Dean interrupted.

"What?" Sam said, stopping short.

"Cas showed up, and apparently Chuck is writing the gospel of us," Dean said.

"Okay…" Sam said slowly, taking this all .

"Okay. Let's get the hell out of here," I said, turning back toward the door.

"No," Sam said.

"Sam, Lilith is gonna slaughter you," I said, feeling my heart start to race.

"Maybe she will, maybe she won't." Sam replied and again, I wanted to slap him. Dean was watching things unfold, a frown across his brow as he listened to his brother.

"So what? You think you can take her?" He asked, crossing his arms.

"Only one way to find out, Dean, and I say bring her on." Sam insisted.

"Sam…" Dean's voice was low and growling, almost like John's used to be when he'd get into arguments with his youngest son. Right now it felt a lot like that, and I found myself wishing that John was alive for us to turn to.

"You think I'll do it, don't you?" Sam asked. "You think I'll go dark side."

"Yes! Okay? Yes. The way you've been acting lately?" Dean snapped.

"The things you've been doing?" I added, at which point Sam looked up at us, startled like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Oh, we know," Dean continued. "How you ripped Alastair apart like it was nothing, like you were swatting a fly. Cas told us, okay?"

"What else did he tell you?" Sam asked.

"Nothing we don't already know. That you've been using your psychic crap, and you've been getting stronger. We just don't know why, and we don't know how." Dean said.

"It's not what you think," Sam said, taking a step toward us.

"Then what is it, Sam? 'Cause I'm at a total loss," Dean asked. He hoisted the bags and moved toward me and the door. As he reached my side, Dean turned to look back at Sam. "Are you coming or not?"

"No." Sam said stubbornly. Dean looked at the floor, and I could hear him take a deep breath as he contemplated his actions. I shook my head at Sam, sighing and turned to leave. There was the sound of something hard hitting metal as Dean dropped our bags forcefully on to the chair by the door. I grimaced, hoping he hadn't just broken my prayer candle, but I didn't have a chance to think about it as he pushed me out the door, slamming it behind us.

Fuming, Dean walked us down to the end of the motel, dropping a coin into a soda machine and hitting a button.

"Have you ever? He would have to be the most … stubborn...stupid… idiotic idiot that we have ever had to put up with," he cursed, taking the soda from the machine and opening it, taking a long sip.

Well, I feel stupid saying this. But... I am fresh out of options," Dean said, looking over a me. "You want to get your rosary out and pray us up some backup?" He asked, and I raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I said pray, okay? Come on. Please."

I smiled and kissed his cheek, nodding as I reached up to touch the rosary beads hanging around my neck. I only had to think the name Castiel and he had appeared by our side.

"Prayer is a sign of faith. This is a good thing, Dean," Cas said to Dean, smiling.

"So does that mean you'll help us?" Dean asked.

"I'm not sure what I can do," Cas confessed, looking at a loss for why we'd called him.

"Drag Sam out of here, now. Before Lilith shows up," I said, though I had a feeling it wasn't going to be that easy, or he'd have done it already.

"It's a prophecy. I can't interfere."

"You have tested me… and Beth... and thrown us every which way. And I have never asked for anything. Not a damn thing - even when Beth was dead, I fixed it myself. But now I'm asking. We need your help. Please." Dean said, his eyes starting to get red as he considered what we had coming.

"What you're asking, it's... not within my power to do," Cas said.

"Why? 'Cause it's "divine prophecy"?" Dean asked.

"Yes."

"So, what, Cas? We're just supposed to sit around and, and wait for it to happen?" I asked. This sort of powerless situation had never sat right with me. It took me back to before Dean had gone to Hell, knowing it was coming and being unable to stop it.

"I'm sorry," Cas said, almost regretfully.

Dean was having none of it. "Screw you. You and your mission. Your God," he cursed, throwing his hands in the air. "If you don't help me now, then when the time comes and you need me... don't bother knocking." He brushed past Castiel and began to walk away, heading back to the motel room. Cas glanced at me as I started to follow, and then his voice stopped us.

"Dean. Beth."

"What?!" Dean snapped, spinning around to look at the angel.

"You must understand why I can't intercede," Cas said, and something in his voice, his eyes, made me pay closer attention. "Prophets are very special. They're protected."

"We get that," I said softly. "What are you getting at?"

Cas looked at me. "If anything threatens a prophet, anything at all, an archangel will appear to destroy that threat. Archangels are fierce. They're absolute. They're heaven's most terrifying weapon," he said, his gaze turning intent.

Dean nodded, stepping toward Cas. "And these archangels, they're tied to prophets?"

"Yes."

I was starting to see where they were headed with this line of thinking. "So if a prophet was in the same room as a demon…" I said, raising my eyebrow at Cas.

"Then the most fearsome wrath of Heaven would rain down on that demon. Just so you understand... why I can't help," he said, looking from me to Dean slyly.

Dean smiled at me, and I think he would have given me a high five if he could have. "Thanks, Cas."

"Good luck." Cas said, and then he disappeared.

"Come on," Dean said, grabbing my hand. "We gotta move."

Chuck's House

When we got to Chuck's house, Dean didn't even bother to ring the doorbell. He just opened the door, which wasn't locked, and walked right in. Chuck struggled to sit up from where he was lounging on the couch, watching TV. He looked at us, the surprise evident on his face. "What are you doing here? I didn't write this."

Grabbing Chuck around the collar, Dean pulled him to his feet, pushing him toward the door. "Come on. We need you to come with us."

"What? Where?" Chuck asked, moving with Dean as we hurried him down the path to the Impala.

"To the motel where Sam is," I said, opening the door to the back of the car.

"That's where Lilith is," Chuck pointed out and Dean nodded.

"Yeah, exactly. I need you to stop her."

"Are you insane? Lilith? I know what she's capable of, Dean. I wrote her," Chuck said, resisting Dean's hands that were trying to shove him into the car.

"All right, listen to me. You have an archangel tethered to you, okay? All you gotta do is show up and boom! Lilith gets smoked," Dean said.

"But I-I haven't seen that yet. Th-the story…" Chuck stammered, glancing back and forth between us.

"Chuck, you're the only shot that we've got left," I said, and it was true. We weren't strong enough to defeat Lilith, we didn't even know where to start.

"But... I'm just a writer."

"This isn't a story anymore, man. This is real! And you're in it!" Dean snapped. "Now, I need you to get off your ass and fight. Come on, Chuck."

"No friggin' way," the Prophet replied, shaking his head.

"Okay, well, then, how about this – I've got a gun tucked into the back of my jeans, and if you don't come with me, I'll blow your brains out," I said, reaching behind me. Chuck's eyes widened.

"I thought you said I was protected by an archangel," he said smugly to Dean.

Dean looked at me thoughtfully, and then raised his eyebrow at Chuck. "Well, interesting exercise. Let's see who the quicker draw is? I'm bettin' on her."

Motel Room

Sam's POV

She'd be coming for me, I knew that now. And I was ready. Dean and Beth might be too weak to take her on, but I wasn't. I had been preparing for this for months. There was a knock at the door, and my heart skipped a beat. Was I really going to do this? Of course I was, there was no time like the present. If I pulled this off now, it would all be over. I approached the entrance to the room slowly, turning the handle carefully when I reached it and flinging the door open. No one was there. I took a deep breath and closed the door, turning around.

"Hello, Sam," smiled a pretty young woman, standing in the middle of the room.

"I've been waiting for you," I said with a smile, watching as the woman's eyes turned white.

"Where's the knife, Sam?" Lilith asked, tilting her head to the side.

"On the nightstand. By the bed." I said, glancing over at where I'd put Ruby's knife.

Lilith started to walk toward the bed, stopped just short of the rug I'd placed by it. She stooped and lifted the side of it, revealing the devil's trap I'd placed underneath. She rolled her eyes, glancing back at me and then touched the edge of the trap with a finger. The mark flared to a flame and burned away while she turned to face me.

"You're gonna have to try a lot harder than that," she said with a smirk.

"How 'bout this?" I asked, reaching out a hand. I pooled all my concentration into that part of my mind that allowed me to achieve the unthinkable. I'd been training, hard, and managed to use this on Alistair, I sent that power toward Lilith now and watched as a wind rose, blowing her hair back. But it wasn't enough.

"You're strong. But you're not that strong. Not yet." Lilith said.

"So why don't you throw me around then?" I asked.

"Because I can't, and you know it. You're immune to my charms. Seems we're at a stalemate," Lilith replied with a shrug.

She knew she couldn't beat me, and for all intents and purposes she thought I was done too. That really only left one thing. "Why are you here?" I asked.

"To talk."

"Yeah, well, I'm not interested," I scoffed.

"Hmm... even if I'm offering to stand down? From the seals... the apocalypse... all of it?" Lilith asked, circling me like a tiger after her prey.

"You expect me to believe that?" I asked, shaking my head.

"Honestly? No. You were always the smart one. But it's the truth," She said, taking a few steps toward me. "You can end it, Sam. Right here, right now. I'll stop breaking seals, Lucifer keeps rotting in his cage. All you have to do is agree to my terms."

"Why would you back down? Why now?" I asked.

"Turns out, I don't survive this war," she said, looking at her nails then glancing up at me. "Killed off, right before the good part starts."

"What do you want?"

"For it to go back to the way it was. Before I had angels to deal with 24/7. The good old days, when it was all baby blood all the time," she said, smiling.

"And what do you want in return?"

"Your head on a stick. Dean and Beth's, too. Call it a consolation prize. So what do you say, Sam? Self-sacrifice is the Winchester way, isn't it?" She said.

"You really think I'm stupid enough to fall for this?" I asked, shaking my head. I wasn't born yesterday.

"I make a deal, I have to follow through. Those are the rules, and you know it," Lilith said. "Are you really so arrogant that you would put your life before the lives of six billion innocent people? Maybe it's all that demon blood pumping through your pipes. Man after my own heart."

"You think I'm like you?" I asked. "I am nothing like you."

"Then prove it." She said. "Going once." Lilith turned, walking to the bed. "Going twice," she continued, not looking back at me.

"Fine." I said, seething.

Lilith stopped, turning back to smile at me. "Swell. By the way, a contract with me will take more than a kiss," she added, sitting on the bed. "A lot more. Don't worry. The dental hygienist in here? She wants it bad." She patted the bed beside her and I approached. There was no way I was going through with it, I didn't care what Chuck had written, I just had to get close enough to kill her.

When I reached the bed, Lilith held out a hand, trailing it up my leg. I watched her eyes turn to white as she took me by the collar and pulled me down on to the bed. I moved with her, reaching out and grabbing the knife off the table, attacking as we rolled back. Lilith saw it coming, bracing against my downward swing, blocking it. She countered, flipping me over and grabbing the knife from my hand, much faster than I anticipated - seemed both of us had been out for something else. She raised the knife above her and then suddenly the door burst open, and I saw Dean, Beth and Chuck run into the room.

"I am the prophet Chuck!" Chuck declared and Lilith froze, looking at them.

"You've got to be joking," she said, rising off me and moving toward Chuck.

"Oh, this is no joke," Dean said, and the closer that Lilith got to Chuck, the more the room started to shake, trembling all around us. Suddenly a great white light poured in through the windows and I saw everyone start to look around uncertainly.

"You see, Chuck here's got an archangel on his shoulder. You've got about 10 seconds before this room is full of wrath and you're a piece of charcoal. You sure you want to tangle with that?" Dean asked.

Lilith looked back at me, the anger clear in her face - then she made her decision. With a scream, she departed the girl she'd possessed, and a cloud of smoke poured forth before disappearing. She was gone.

The rumbling stopped. We had won this battle.

Impala

Beth's POV

I was lying down in the back seat, listening to Dean and Sam as they talked, and trying to ignore the incessant flapping of the tarp still clumsily covering the shattered back window. I pulled Dean's jacket up over me and closed my eyes: it had been a long day.

"So a deal, huh?" Dean asked, and I heard our brother reply.

"That's what she said."

"To call the whole thing off – angels, seals, Lucifer rising, the whole nine?" Dean queried, the doubt clear in his voice - he wasn't convinced.

"That was the gist of it," Sam said. I opened my eyes to see him nodding in the light from the passing streetlights.

"Huh," Dean said thoughtfully.

"What?" Sam asked.

"You didn't think once about taking it?" Dean asked, glancing over at him. I sat up at that, looking curiously at Dean in the rearview mirror, his eyes met mine, and I could tell he was testing Sam, to get his reaction.

"You kidding me? Dude, you spent all day trying to talk me off the Lilith track," Sam said.

"I'm just saying…" Dean's voice trailed off and I wondered if he wasn't a little bit serious.

"She would have found some way to weasel out of it." Sam said, glancing at Dean.

"And all it would have cost us was our lives," I chimed in.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Dean said with a nod.

"Anyway, that's not the point." Sam countered.

"What's the point?" Dean asked.

"The point is, she's scared. I could see it. Lilith is running," Sam declared. I leaned forward, resting my arms on the seat in front of me, I trailed one hand along Dean's shoulders, softly stroking the side of his neck as I joined in the conversation.

"Running from what?" I asked.

"Don't know. But she was telling the truth about one thing," Sam said, turning his gaze back to the blacktop in front of us.

"What's that?" Dean prodded.

"She's not gonna survive the apocalypse. I'll make sure of that," he said.

I squeezed Dean's shoulder lightly and he tossed me a half-smile in the mirror. Leaning back I contemplated what Sam had said - somehow his new revelation that he was dabbling with his powers and had killed Alistair with nothing more than his mind was troubling, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought so.

Chuck's House

Chuck's POV

I was dreaming again, and the scenes running through my mind were terrifying. They were going to lose! We were all going to lose! I watched the scene unfold before me and then I jerked awake, the whole thing etched inside my brain like always. I was sitting on my couch, a half empty bottle of whiskey beside me, and a round faced man with twinkling eyes smiling intently at me.

"Did you see it?" He asked, and I startled further.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I'm Zachariah. You may know me from your work," he said and I nodded, recalling the latest 'test' that he'd put the Winchesters through. So far the guy had proven to be a bit of a dick.

"What do you want?" I questioned.

"Did you see it?" He asked again and I nodded cautiously.

"Is it true? Is all of that... really going to happen?" I asked.

"Have you been wrong so far?"

There was nothing more to it, I couldn't let the Winchesters walk into that trap, I had to act. I stood up, heading straight for the door. "I've got to warn them."

"I wouldn't advise it. People shouldn't know too much about their own destiny. You try... and I'll stop you," Zachariah said and I stopped. Dean had been right. Angels really were dicks. Sure, some of them seemed okay, the ones I'd seen with Beth - but this one. Well, two could play at that game. I started walking toward the stairs - there were some sleeping pills in the bathroom, I could wash them down…

"Where are you going?" The angel asked and I looked back at him.

"To go kill myself." I replied.

"Don't be melodramatic, Chuck. We'd only bring you back to life." Zachariah said and I hesitated at the foot of the stairs.

"What am I supposed to do?" I asked, feeling the cold grip of fear clutch at my chest.

"What you always do," Zachariah replied. "Write."

I sighed as the angel vanished and then sat down at my computer, opening a fresh page on the screen - the white emptiness stared back at me stark and cold. Zachariah's words echoed in my mind, telling me to write, and I started to do just that.

Dean and Beth sat out under the stars, enjoying the cool night's air while they sipped on a couple of ice cold beers. Dean smacked his lips and an appreciative sigh escaped him as he leaned back and looked into the dark sky. The sturdy wooden bench tucked away in the park, afforded them the privacy that their motel room didn't.

"That is hitting the spot," he said with a nod, glancing over at his quietly contemplative wife. "You okay?"

Beth nodded, staring down at the bottle of beer in her hands, lost in her own thoughts.

"You want to try that again?" Dean asked. "Maybe with words?"

She smirked, looking over at him and then leaning against his shoulder. "I'm worried about Sam," she said, and Dean sighed, nodding in understanding.

"Yeah, me too," he admitted, taking another drink. "We're uh… we might need to put the retirement on hold for a bit," Dean said, not able to look Beth in the eyes.

"It wasn't really us anyway, was it?" She asked, looking at him. "I mean, you think we were out of character in that mixed up corporate world Zachariah threw us into… settling down with veggie gardens, kids and a dog really isn't us either."

"Yes, it is," he said sternly, looking up sharply. Dean slipped his arm around Beth's shoulders and squeezed her against him. "I want to give that to you more than anything, Beth," he said. "To give you what Dad didn't give us."

"Seems like something, or someone, else has other plans for us," she said quietly, and she fought back her tears. She's always feared that they would die on the job, that a normal life was not in their destiny, and she'd been okay with that. Then she'd felt what it was like to have that little soul growing inside of her, and then lost Dean to the depths of Hell. It was a miracle just to have him back, and she worried about their constant impertinence, denying Heaven its Saviour.

When they had met Roy, the faith healer, he'd told them there was a destiny Dean had to fill, and the psychic Missouri had said almost the same. Now they were standing on the precipice of that destiny, and if they didn't act, then Sam seemed determined to step up and take on the role of stopping Lilith.

"Well screw Heaven and the angels, Beth," Dean said, taking another drink.

"How can you say that Dean? They're the reason you're here with me now!" Beth asked, tears brimming in her eyes.

"No, no no no, you are the reason I'm here, Beth, your faith, your belief in me," Dean argued and she smiled, leaning in to kiss him.

"Faith in angels, Dean, faith in God," she whispered.

Dean scoffed, but he didn't look away.

"Having me back doesn't mean much if I die trying to stop this," he said quietly, for the first time showing Beth his true fear. "Your faith could get me back, just to see me die all over again."

"I refuse to believe that Dean, we can do this," she said.

"I don't know if I'm willing to take that risk," he confessed, looking up at the moon. "In the last few months, I thought I had lost you - twice - and it nearly killed me, Beth."

"I know," she nodded, squeezing his hand tight as it rested on her thigh. "But we have a bigger responsibility. Reading those books has reminded me of that. We need to take care of Sam."

Dean sighed. "He does seem hellbent on getting himself killed," he agreed.

"And it's our fight," she said.

"My fight. I started this." Dean said.

"Your fight is my fight, Dean," Beth said, leaning over to kiss his cheek. "Just as Sam is my responsibility, like he is yours."

"Your tune sure has changed about him," Dean said. "Thought you two were having issues?"

"We are," she said, biting her lip. "Something's wrong with him Dean, I don't know what exactly, but he's not himself - he's not the brother I know. The Sam we grew up with would have never abandoned me after you went to Hell. Whatever is going on, I'm willing to bet that Ruby is involved."

I stopped, looking at the pages I had just typed, letting out a breath. "Phew," I said to myself. "If only they knew." Once again, I thought about calling them, letting them know what was coming - but like Zachariah said - maybe it wouldn't do any good. I flipped through the contacts on my phone, stopping at Dean's name. Knowing what was coming hadn't stopped Sam from ending up in bed with Lilith even though I'd gotten the reasons a little wrong. Chances were, what I'd seen was going to come to pass regardless. If that was the case, there was little hope for any of them.

Sighing, I closed my phone and returned to my keyboard.

Dean nodded, thinking back to the phone calls he knew Sam was making to the demon. She was still in the picture, she had to be. There was no other explanation as to Sam's erratic moods and selfish behaviour. He took all this in, his heart sinking as he realised that he was going to have to put the job before his own happiness, and that of Beth's, once again. He knew Beth was right, that Sam was a loose cannon right now, and whether their brother wanted to admit it or not, he needed them watching over him.

"There's more to Ruby than meets the eye," Dean said finally. He opened his mouth, wanting to tell Beth about what he knew - about how the demon had been the one and same to possess her when she was fifteen years old - but he couldn't. Beth frowned as she watched the emotions play across his face.

"What aren't you telling me?" She asked.

Dean sighed. "Nothing," he lied. "Just… freaking Sam…"

They sat quietly for a moment until Dean broke the silence.

"Okay," he said, leaning over to kiss her forehead. "We stick by him until we get more of an idea what's going on. But I'm not giving up on our quiet life, not yet."

Beth smiled sadly at him and nodded, letting out a deep sigh. "Here we are again."

"Here we always are, listening to what Dad wants more than what we do," Dean muttered.

"He trained us well," she smiled, looking over at him.

"Too well," Dean agreed. "Self-sacrifice is the Winchester way!" His tone was light, but the undercurrent of the statement was still there. Whether their brother was grateful for it or not, they'd given a lot for Sam, and would continue to do so. In fact, their destiny together was only just beginning.

I sighed again, closing the laptop. Maybe tonight I could just sleep without all the nightmares.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Song for this chapter is: I'm Alive - by Seal

I'm kind of looking forward to writing the next one. It'll be interesting to add Beth into the mix of the boys finding out about Adam.

As always, thank you to everyone who leaves comments and encourages me to continue, it's great to have the support!