Title: Whatever It Takes [5/?]
Author: alakewood
Warnings: Spoilers for Jump the Shark and The Rapture [from which a couple of lines of dialogue are repeated verbatim].
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~2300
Summary: Sam and Dean, Adam in tow, head out in search of Cas and find his vessel instead. Pretty much an AU version of The Rapture.
Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing.

oxoxo

"You sure that address is right?" Sam asked as Dean slowed the Impala down to a near-crawl trying to figure out which buildings was what number.

"Pretty damn," Dean replied, glancing at the scrap of paper in his hand once more. They were in an abandoned factory and warehouse district of the city and everything looked the same. At the end of the road, Dean turned around and headed back, a sign set a distance away from the street catching his eye. "There. This is it." He pulled into the drive and parked by the shipping docks. "Stay here. We'll be right back," he told Adam.

Climbing out of the car, Sam headed straight for the trunk, waiting for Dean to pop it open. "What do you think's going on?"

Dean shrugged, handing Sam a flashlight and taking the the .45 Sam held out to him. "Not sure. Cas seemed kind of...anxious."

Sam took point, wedging the toe of his boot in the gap between the doors and nudging one open, and followed Dean inside. The beams of their flashlights illuminated overturned machines and equipment, broken electrical lines spitting sparks overhead. When they reached the second level, Dean's beam fell across a sigil on the wall. "Is that...?" Sam began, tilting his flashlight so he could see his brother's face.

"Somebody got sent back."

"Cas?"

Dean shone his light over a pile of twisted metal, a pair of shiny leather shoes dully reflecting it back just out of the beam's reach. "Cas?" He rushed over to the body, Sam in tow, and shook the angel's shoulder. But the gaze that finally met his was full of confusion and disbelief.

"What...? No." The timbre of his voice was wrong. Off.

"Cas?" Dean tried again.

"No, it's me. Jimmy. Jimmy Novak."

oxo

Adam adjusted quickly to the latest turn in events, sitting quietly beside Jimmy in the Impala's backseat as Dean questioned the man that had been Castiel's human vessel. "You don't remember anything?"

"I don't remember much," Jimmy clarified. "But, look, he's gone and I'm...free of that duty," he shrugged. "I have a wife and a daughter and I'm going home."

In the passenger's seat, Sam shook his head. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Jimmy looked to Dean, hoping the eldest Winchester would disagree, glancing back at Sam when Dean didn't have any response. "Why not?"

"If we've got questions for you, you can bet the other side's got questions, too."

"Let's just. We'll stop for the night and regroup.," Dean finally said. "Let's just think about this, okay?"

They stopped at a fast-food restaurant before finding a motel, the attendant at the desk in the main office eying the Impala through the full-glass door. "This isn't for one of those Guys Gone Wild kind of things, is it?" the old man asked curiously, his attempt to sound disgusted failing.

"Uh, no. God,no," Dean said, digging a credit card and fake ID out of his wallet. "Just my brothers and a friend of ours." He shook his head. "We just need two doubles for the night."

"James Young?" the man asked, glancing between the ID picture and Dean's face before shrugging. He stood from his desk as the computer printed the receipt for Dean to sign and grabbed two keys from the hooks on the wall. He set the receipt and a pen on the counter in front of Dean, letting him sign before he handed over the keys. "To your left. Across from the vending machines."

Dean scrawled something that resembled 'James Young' on the dotted line and took the keys. "Thanks."

By the time Dean had returned to the car, Jimmy had finished off the burger and fries he'd ordered and had started on Adam's fries as well. "I haven't eaten in...months, I think."

"Couldn't wait?" Dean asked, turning the car around to park in front of their rooms.

Jimmy's response was unintelligible around a mouthful of hamburger.

"You and Adam can take that one, and me and Cas- Jimmy will take this one. But I need to talk to you for a sec," Sam said to Dean once they'd all unloaded from the car.

"Okay." Dean tossed a keyring at Adam. "You want to wait over there with Jimmy for a minute so Sam and me can talk?"

Adam snatched the key out of the air with ease. "Yeah. I guess." He glanced at Jimmy and nodded towards the door.

"So what's going on? What do we need to 'talk' about?" Dean asked when Sam had closed the door to the second motel room behind them.

"Jimmy. I know he says he doesn't know anything, but if there's a chance he does but doesn't know he knows it, then we've gotta find out what that is. I mean, if Cas got sent back upstairs, it had to have been for something big."

"Like bringing Adam back," Dean said slowly. "Maybe that's all it was."

"What if it wasn't though?"

"Why else?"

"I don't know. But you'd think if it really went against the natural order of things, Adam wouldn't be breathing right now."

Dean sighed. "So what are you saying?"

"That there's some other reason that Cas was sent back. Regardless, Jimmy's not safe on his own. Like I said, we're not the only ones that'll have questions for him. We should get him back to Bobby's. Maybe hole him up in the panic room for a while."

Dean bit at his lip, nodding slightly. "And what about his family?"

"Everybody's safer this way."

oxo

"Where is he?"

Dean sat bolt upright, turning towards the door as Sam burst in. "What?" he asked, still slightly hazy from sleep.

"Jimmy."

Dean reached over to turn on the lamp between the beds just as Adam was waking up. "Jimmy? He's not in your room?"

"No. He must've snuck out when I was...getting a soda."

Even Adam had difficulty believing that line. "He said he was from Pontiac, Illinois," he offered. "Maybe he's headed there."

"Pontiac?" Dean asked, sharing a glance with Sam. "That's where..."

"Yeah. Let's go."

oxo

On the ride towards Pontiac, Adam started asking questions, mostly about John but also about the significance of Pontiac. Dean had just started explaining when- "Holy shit!" Adam exclaimed.

"Hi, boys," Anna said from the backseat next to Adam.

"Jesus." Dean glanced in the rearview mirror. "Anna." He turned slightly in his seat to get a better look at her. "You look..."

"Not the time," she said, slightly annoyed. "You lost Jimmy?"

"Sam was his warden."

"Sam?" The way she regarded him let him know that she knew about his extracurricular activities with Ruby. "Nevermind. You've gotta find him before they do. And believe me, they're looking."

"He told Adam that he was from Pontiac, which kind of makes sense. So we're headed there," Dean said.

For the first time since she materialized in the car, Anna cast a glance at the young man beside her, but she didn't pay him any more mind than she would've any other stranger. "Any idea what happened with Cas?"

"You-you didn't know?" Dean turned even further in his seat.

"Know what?" She looked between both Sam and Dean, expecting an answer.

"It's because of me," Adam said. "I died and he brought me back." Then, to Sam and Dean, "We heard you talking earlier."

"I asked him to. It's not your fault," Dean told him.

"Regardless, you have to find Jimmy before they do. If they haven't already."

oxo

It was dark when Dean pulled the Impala up to the curb in front of the Novak's home in Pontiac. The front door was wide open. For the second time in just as many days, Dean ordered Adam, "Stay here." And he and Sam weren't gone long before they came running out of the house with Jimmy, a woman, and a little girl. "You take them in their car and we'll follow behind you," Dean called to Sam across the yard.

"What's going on?" Adam asked when Dean climbed back into the car.

"Demons."

"Demons," Adam repeated.

They rallied at a gas station on the outskirts of town, Dean approaching in the middle of Sam once again explaining exactly why it was best for Jimmy and his family to split up. "It's the only way for them to stay safe."

"If it's the only way..." Jimmy replied.

Then Amelia and Claire, Jimmy's wife and daughter, were driving away in their Volvo station wagon, headed for her mother's. "What now?" Adam asked when they'd all gotten back into the Impala and onto the highway.

"Bobby's?" Sam asked Dean.

"It's probably best." The interior of the car fell to silence after that, each man lost in his thoughts, Jimmy and Adam very nearly asleep, until the trill of Sam's cell interrupted the quiet.

"Hello?" He pulled the phone from his ear to look at the unfamiliar number on the screen. "Who is this?" His eyebrows drew together, wrinkling his forehead, and turned to reach into the backseat, nudging Jimmy with the phone. "It's your wife."

"Oh, my God," Jimmy whispered after a long, silent moment as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the line.

And everything happened rather quickly after that. They arrived at another factory and, again, Adam was instructed to wait in the car. But this time, he couldn't stand idly by while Sam and Dean went to go do whatever they were going to go do to save Jimmy's family. Adam had read John's journal and knew a little about demons and what they were up against. He got out of the car when Sam and Dean disappeared through the front door of the factory a couple of minutes after Jimmy went in. He knew the best defense against the demons was the Colt – a special gun – but it seemed as though Dean and Sam no longer had it, otherwise they wouldn't be so worried about protecting Jimmy. The next best defense was exorcism, but Adam could barely read John's script much less read the Latin scrawled in the back of the journal. He was halfway to the door, too far away from the car to run back to whatever safety it offered, when a guy about as tall as Sam with a build slightly heavier than Dean's rushed him from behind.

He was dragged inside, had just caught sight of Sam and Dean, who'd both been captured as well, when he saw Jimmy's wife shoot him in the stomach. It was clear that she wasn't herself, that she must've been possessed. He and the man holding him were still too far away to hear what was being said, but the man that had been restraining Sam was stalking past a severely wounded Jimmy towards the bound little girl.

Dean was the first to notice him. "Adam! What the-?"

Amelia turned in his direction. "Won't you look at that? Bagged all three Winchester boys. Must be my lucky day."

Then something was happening across the room with Claire. There was a light, then...all hell broke loose. Everybody was fighting, but Adam just stood there, shocked. He watched with awe as Claire touched the demons with a palm to their forehead and killed them. His awe turned to horror when his gaze fell on Sam. He was straddling the female that wasn't Amelia and...Adam wasn't completely certain what his half brother was doing until he sat up, blood dripping down his chin.

Dean's gaze followed his, landing on Sam, face remaining emotionless as Sam turned towards him with a knife in his hand. Then, with determination, Sam turned back around and plunged the knife into the woman's chest, red light crackling where she'd been stabbed and in her mouth.

Sam stood, chin still smeared with blood, and faced a slightly disgusted and confused Dean, Claire by their eldest brother's side wearing an expression of disapproval. Adam caught sight of Amelia rushing at Dean and Claire from behind a fraction of a second after Sam and watched as Sam raised a hand towards her, palm out, and she stopped abruptly mid-stride, clutching at her throat as she coughed up a roiling cloud of black smoke.

Whatever was going on with Sam was put on hold as they went to find Jimmy. Claire was leaning over her father and they were talking in hushed voices. "Take me," Adam heard Jimmy beg.

Then there was more white light, then Jimmy was okay. The blood was gone. He stood and stalked past Claire, past his wife, between Sam and Dean, pausing for the briefest of moments to glance at Adam, then he disappeared down the hall.

"Cas!" Dean called, running after Jimmy.

Not knowing what was going on, Adam followed after Dean and Jimmy when Sam did. They caught up with their brother in time to hear his short exchange with Castiel, Adam realized when the man- rather, angel, spoke.

"What were you gonna tell me?" Dean asked.

"I learned my lesson while I was away, Dean," Castiel said, voice deeper in pitch. "I serve Heaven, I don't serve man. And I certainly don't serve you."

Then he was gone.