A/N: Don't own Supernatural.
I know the sound of his footsteps. I know the specific rhythm and cadence associated with his every mood. I know him wearing his trusty steel-toed shitkickers and in his stockinged feet. I'd know the sound of him anywhere, everywhere. You never know when something like that will come in handy, how important it might be to know who is coming around the corner. I recognize the sound of him right now.
But when I open my eyes, I see him not only walking across the wooden floor, but also next to me with one hand cuffed above his head, just out of reach.
I was able to calm myself after my breakdown in Bobby's library, and Dean and I had made our way from Sioux Falls to Camp Chitaqua with little problem. It hadn't been too long since the world stopped, and there were plenty of cars on the roads to steal. Waiting until after dark, we sneaked up to the barbed wire fences surrounding the camp. Baby, Dean's Baby, sat just within the beam from his flashlight, utterly abandoned. Broken glass, flat tires, mud everywhere. He was crestfallen. Then a blow to the back of the head. And I wake up to this.
"Jay? You alright?" The Dean next to me sounds really concerned, genuinely unnerved, and a bit groggy. And completely himself. This is bad.
"Yeah," I croak, rubbing the back of my head with my free hand. Seems I have a less than fashionable bracelet, as well. "What the hell-" I don't finish my question. I find it a bit hard to get the words out since I've just discovered I'm in Bizarro World. The one walking across the floor is totally Dean, too. I realize we're really in the future and I'm meeting Dean, Version 35.
"Jane, don't panic," Cuffed-Dean says, voice even in that get-your-shit-together way he has. "We're at Camp Chitaqua. We were sneaking in, remember? I, uh, guess I kind of got the drop on myself."
I look over at his smirk and say, "Last I remember, you were talking to your busted up car, Dean. Your attention was occupied."
"Yeah, she's Jane," Bizarro Dean concedes in a murmur I'm not sure we were supposed to hear.
"It bothers me that this doesn't actually seem all that weird to me. I guess you did all the tests?" I nod to the still-bleeding small cut on my forearm.
"I did," Future Man says. "Silver, salt, holy water. You're not any type of monsters I know. But you know what was funny?" he says, zeroing in on my Dean. "Was that you had every hidden lockpick, box cutter, and switchblade that I carry. Now, you want to explain that? Oh, and the, uh, resemblance, while you're at it."
"Zachariah. I'm you from the tail end of 2009. Zach plucked us out of bed and threw us five years into the future."
"Now that makes sense. Where is he? I want to talk to him."
"We dont know," I tell him.
"Oh, you dont know," Future Dean sneers
"No, we don't," my Dean snaps, then looks at me still rubbing my head. His eyes narrow when I pull back a bloody hand. "Who hit her? I want to see them."
"Calm down. Focus," the man standing over us snaps. "Are you sure you can't reach Zachariah? You really don't know where he is?"
"No, I don't know. Look, I just want to get back to my own friggin' year, okay?" My Dean is losing his patience.
"If you're me, then tell me something only I would know," the older one challenges his younger self.
Dean thinks, then smirks. "Rhonda Hurley. We were, uh, nineteen. She made us try on her panties. They were pink. And satiny. And you know what? We kind of liked it."
"That explains so many of your requests, baby," I say with a sigh.
Old Dean grins. "Touche. So, what, Zach zapped you up here to see how bad it gets?"
"Croatoan? When?" I ask. I know what he'll say. I hope he won't.
"Yeah. Croatoan. It's efficient, it's incurable, and it's scary as hell. Turns people into monsters. Started hitting the major cities about two years ago. World really went in the crapper after that." I can hear the weight of all that must have happened to him as the virus took over the world. I can see it. He wears it all like skin.
"Sammy?" I ask so my Dean won't have to.
The Other goes still before telling us, "Heavyweight showdown in Detroit. From what I understand, Sam didn't make it." So cold. He's so cold as he speaks of the loss of our Sammy. I find that the pain is too big to cry over.
"You weren't with him?" Dean can't accept that. Neither can I.
"No, me and Sam, we haven't talked in, hell, five years," the Other tells him, knowing the guilt he's serving up and not caring at all.
"We never tried to find him?" I just can't wrap my head around this at all.
"We had other people to worry about," the Other snidely informs me.
He stomps over to me and opens the cuff fixed above my head. Grabbing my freed wrist roughly, he pulls me up from the floor and begins to lead me out of the room toward a door in the back.
My Dean is not pleased. "Where you going?" he demands while pulling against his own restraints.
"I've got to run an errand."
"Whoa. You're just gonna leave me here? Where is are you taking her?"
"She isn't staying in here with you. I'd be stupid to do that. I got a camp full of twitchy trauma survivors out there with an apocalypse hanging over their head. The last thing they need to see is a version of The Parent Trap starring either one of you. So, yeah, you stay locked down. Separately."
"Okay. All right. Fine. But you don't have to cuff me, man, or take her away. Oh, come on. You don't trust yourself?"
"No. Absolutely not," he throws back at Dean as we leave.
"Dick," is all we hear.
"Where am I in all this, Dean?" I ask as he moves us into a small storage room. He needs to tell me; I need to know. "What happened to me? Am I dead?"
"God, please don't ask, Jane."
"No, dammit. Where AM I?"
"Gone. No, shit, not dead," he clarifies in response to whatever he sees in my face. He attaches m cuffs to a handrail and continues. "You're, she, now-you is out on a mission. Since Bobby . . . since you and Bobby went back to Sioux Falls about a year and a half ago, and Bobby died, well, you came back. It was ugly, but you made it out. But you're different. So different."
"How? Please tell me. Please."
He bends his knees, squats on the floor beside me, looks just past my eyes.
"Bobby died. You almost died, Jay. And I wasn't there at the end for him. Wasn't there to help you. I stayed here and you went through all of that alone. You and me, we ended it. Or we tried to, anyway. We decided not to be tied to each other. I started sleeping around and you shut down. Completely. You barely talk anymore. Not to me, not to Cas or Chuck. You're gone more often than not, but when you're here..." He sighs, and drags his hand down over his face in one of the few familiar actions he shares with my Dean, and continues. "When you're here, we can't stay away from each other. I still love you. With everything left inside me, I love you. Her. There just isnt that much left in here."
He taps his chest and my heart aches. I am devastated by the broken man in front of me who doesn't even exist yet.