A/N: I am way behind replying to your reviews, but trust me when I say they are greatly appreciated. I've said it before, my internet access is acting up, which is why I didn't update yesterday. The connection seems stable for now, but I'm not sure it will remain that way =( So, Part three is finished (if not yet beta-ed), although I'd better not promise to update daily as I have been doing until now (explanation see above). Anyway, enjoy...

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Part Two: A Life in Passing

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Scene Six

~And back again to the small clearing in the forest outside of Seattle, July 14th 2007~

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They drove back to Seattle just in time for the new moon.

In twilight they moved along the same deer path they had taken that first time, only that this time Alec was taking point. Night vision came in handy sometimes and the small flashlights Sam and Dean had at the ready would hinder their genetically enhanced brother more than they would help. There had been a downpour only half an hour ago and thick water droplets came down from the trees like a second rain, soaking their hair and making splish-splashy noises when they hit the puddles on the ground.

Alec was as nervous and jittery as he had ever been and couldn't stop talking. He talked throughout the drive, he talked while making his way through the underbrush, he continued talking even when Sam told him in no uncertain terms to shut his mouth or else... Sammy was really inventive about the 'or else' part too.

During his time with the Winchester brothers he had seen some pretty strange, illogical, impossible things (bat-shit crazy was the only word to describe some of them properly, in Alec's humble opinion). Even so he still had trouble believing that stepping through a couple of weathered old stones during the right time frame would take him back where he belonged. It ranked right up there with stepping into a mirror and falling down a rabbit hole.

If he was completely honest with himself, though, it wasn't just the fear of never being able to leave, of being stuck here for good that kept his mouth running. It was the prospect of this whole insane theory actually working that didn't let him shut up.

Only four weeks and he'd already gotten in too deep, didn't want to leave these (his) two dysfunctional, loyal, smart-ass, headstrong brothers behind. He fit with them as he'd never fit anywhere before. Not into his unit, not with Max and Logan, not even Josh and Mole. Alec had gotten a taste of what having an actual family could be like and to his chagrin he was caught hook, line and sinker.

Even if his hair was still ridiculously, blinding red.

"Dude, shut the hell up, will you?" Dean finally snarled.

He sounded irritated, had been snappish and short-tempered for the last two days now.

"Either it's going to work or it's not," Sam offered, playing his by now accustomed role of referee once again. "If it's not, we'll deal with it. If it is, we'll see you on the other side."

That kind of brought Alec up short. He had never even thought of the possibility.

"You will?" he asked, hope and disbelief (and hope, hope, hope) mingling in his voice and painfully tightening his chest.

"Yes," Sam confirmed, that stubborn 'Watch me!'-tone in his voice that Alec had heard only a couple of times in his weeks with them, completely ignoring Dean's reproachful "Sam!"

"We will!"

Alec knew why Dean was so obviously reluctant to give a promise like that, or at least he had a good idea. Living their way of life, doing the job they did with no back-up but the arsenal in the Impala's trunk and the occasional help of another hunter, Dean probably never even expected to see thirty.

A sentence one of them had uttered in the beginning when they had still been teaching him the ropes stuck with Alec like nothing else they said: "Hunters don't retire; they are buried."

Alec just had to look at Bobby for that statement to ring true. The grizzly old man claimed he had taken himself out of the game several long years ago, but even he stayed on the up and up, lent a helping hand whenever the two Winchesters needed it. You just didn't turn your back on a job, no, a calling like that.

But Sam's quiet determination was heartwarming nonetheless.

"Listen," Alec began hesitantly just as the trees receded. "There's something I've been meaning to ask you."

In fact, he had been adopting and dismissing the idea for several days now. Alec still wasn't too sure about his decision but now that he had brought it up he plowed on, carefully keeping his back to the brothers, "Manticore, they... designed some of us as twins."

He stepped into the dark clearing and turned around to face the other two men at last. The penlights blinded him momentarily, but he recovered quickly enough to see realization dawning on Sam and Dean's faces as he continued, "There's another X5 with your DNA out there, Dean."

For a moment Dean's face was a blank mask. Then he nodded.

"Ben," he stated, and Alec had almost forgotten their little game of mistaken identity when all this had started. "Your brother."

"Yeah." Alec was never comfortable talking about his twin but hurried on nevertheless, thinking it would be best to get it over with fast, like ripping off a patch.

"The thing is, in 2009 a couple of us will be successful in running away from... from there. Ben was one of them."

"Alec," Sam interrupted quickly, a frown creeping onto his forehead. "I don't know if you should be telling..."

Alec talked over him as if he hadn't even heard his objection, "I want you to look for him, if you're, you know, still around."

Anxiously, he watched the two men, mentally crossing his fingers that this whole idea wouldn't backfire on him in some way. The expressions appearing on the brother's faces didn't bode well.

Dean had donned that blank look again, a look that Alec had noticed several times already but never sought to figure out. In hindsight, that might have been a mistake. The only tell of discomfort Dean showed at the moment was the nervous tick in his cheek. Sam on the other hand was clearly torn between the threat of unforeseeable consequences and wanting to promise Alec and to hell with anything else.

"Why?" he finally asked and Alec had to smile. Leave it to Sam to ask the easiest questions with the most complicated answers.

"Ben, he..." Alec began. Stopped and tried again, "I never even met him, but Max, she said that he was... lost in the world outside. He started to make human sacrifices for this make-belief deity of his. Max had to put him down in the end."

The two men looked appalled then and Sam was already taking a breath but before he could start with whatever accusations he wanted to throw at him, Alec hurried on, "I just think... I don't know what exactly I think. But I know what it was like for me when Manticore burned down and I was on my own all of a sudden. The excitement about my new-found freedom got old fast. I just wanted my unit back."

Which was one of the more important reasons Alec had tried to insinuate himself into Max's life. His unit might have been lost to him, scattered to all four winds, but at least he knew where to find that one of his own kind.

Most felines might be loners but humans usually weren't. And the donor of the human part of that DNA of his, of Ben's, depended on those he called kin more than any other human Alec had ever met.

"You want us to take him in?" the older Winchester guessed. Alec could only nod mutely, not sure what else to say to push his case.

"Alec, you know I... we can't make that kind of promise."

Dean's weary voice was followed by Sam's, "No kid deserves to have to live the way we do."

His bitterness was ill-concealed and Dean shot him an admonishing look, years of unresolved issues hidden in that one glance.

"X5s aren't cut out for your white-picket-fence dream, Sam. We were built to be soldiers and it's what we do best. 2007, I could disassemble and reassemble an AK 47 in less than two minutes. You really think growing up on the road could be worse than growing up as a secret government experiment?"

Only the sounds of the wilderness around them could be heard for a few moments after Alec made his argument. Then Sam sighed.

"Yeah. I guess you have a point."

"Sam."

Dean's warning cut his brother short once again, but he sounded more tired than anything. Helpless and completely irrational desperation welling up inside him, Alec pleaded, "I know you can't promise anything, Dean. I know, okay? But can you at least try? If you live through the next two years, can you at least try to find him?"

Alec didn't understand himself why he was so adamant about this. Ben had never caused him anything but trouble. He should have been asking the brothers to take him down when he was still a child, before he ever had a chance to go off on a killing spree. There was the vague notion that, if the Winchesters could keep Ben on the straight and narrow, maybe Alec wouldn't have to endure that last visit to Psy Ops. It was more than that, however, more than he wanted to admit even to himself.

Dean, who had been watching him intently for the last minute, finally nodded reluctantly.

"Alright," he said, rubbing the back of his head in a gesture that was so ridiculously familiar Alec almost laughed out loud in relief.

"Alright. But first let's see about getting you back, yeah?"

Not waiting for a reply, Dean shoved him in the shoulder in order to turn him around and get him moving. Out of the corner of his eyes Alec saw a small sad smile playing around Sam's lips.

In front of the gateway Alec stopped, turned around to face the two brothers (the closest thing to a real family that he would ever have) and faltered, not knowing what to say. He really wasn't good at saying goodbye. In the end, he didn't utter a single word and neither did Dean or Sam. Whatever any of them could have said, they all already knew anyway.

He made the rest of the way on his own, walking around the monoliths and stepping into the v they formed. The waterlogged ground clotted to his soles, making his boots heavy. Taking a deep breath, Alec cast one last glance at his friends and stepped through the gap in the stones. Only to find himself still face to face with them and, really, what had he expected? Any sane person could have told him that magic portals didn't exist.

Then again, if the last four weeks had taught him anything, being sane was totally overrated.

"Oh, come on!" Alec almost stomped his foot in childish disappointment.

"Sam?" he heard Dean turn on his brother and Sam answered, defensive and sheepish alike, "I told you guys I couldn't decipher some of the symbols."

"You also told me that all I had to do to get back is cross the threshold during a new moon!" Alec accused.

"No, I said I was pretty sure that that's all you had to do." Sam retorted, unrepentant and mulish.

"Great, just great!"

Huffing, Alec crossed his arms over his chest when the brothers started talking over each other once again.

"Oh, don't be such a wuss!" Dean razzed and gave him a good-natured punch to the shoulder for good measure.

Usually, it wouldn't even have made Alec trip. But the puddle and wet leaves beneath his feet were slippery and in his exasperation he hadn't paid attention. Hence, he found himself stumbling backwards through those bedeviled stones all over again. His arms shot out to grapple for a hold but the stones were frozen over and he slipped.

The last thing he heard before landing ungracefully and painfully on his butt was Sam's, "Well, what exactly happened when –"

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Interlude

~A small clearing in the forest outside of Seattle, July 15th, 2007~

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An owl was flying silently over the treetops looking for prey.

Droplets of recent rain dripped down the leaves and soaked into the earth, leaving behind muddy puddles and glistening on grass and spider webs.

The two men in front of the tall stones, the Devil's Gateway as it was known to the few locals who still knew their folklore, stood silently for a few minutes. The flashlights they held were the only source of light in the pitch black darkness of a new moon. It illuminated the monoliths for the most part, but some of it reflected off their faces. They both looked wistful, wearing bittersweet smiles that were so similar they could only be kin.

Finally, the taller one of them gestured slightly with the hand that held his torch.

"Well, I guess that answers that question."

The other one snorted in wry amusement. "Ya think?"

He sighed, then nudged his companion with his shoulder and turned around. As he was heading for a small deer path across the clearing he declared, "You know, I think I will kind of miss the kid."

His brother, younger despite his height, had to take long strides to catch up with him. "Maybe we'll see him again someday," he offered hopefully. "Like thirteen and a half years from now."

The older one was silent for a long time. Then, as he crossed over into the even darker shadows beneath the trees, he said quietly, "You will. Not me."

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Continuation Scene Six

~A small clearing in the forest outside of Seattle, about thirteen and a half years into the future~

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When he looked up to see why Sam had stopped talking, rubbing his throbbing tail bone, it was to see his own face smirking back down at him.

"You know, red really doesn't suit you, little brother."

Well.

Alec's eyebrows rose as he dazedly stared up at a very much alive, sane looking X5-493. Something metallic caught his eye as his twin bent down and offered Alec a helping hand up and when he looked closer, he recognized an old but well cared for Colt 1911 riding in the waistband of Ben's jeans; a Colt 1911 with an ivory handle and strange markings on its barrel.

I'll be damned.

~ End Part Two ~

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A/N:Originally, I intended to end the story here. But then Ben protested and demanded an explanation as to how he'd come by Dean's gun (Colt 1911 is a modell name btw, and not THE Colt; in fact, it's a semi-automatic I think). And then more scenes kept popping up, so the next part will mostly be about Ben and the Winchesters. Just thought I'd warn you ;)