A/N: So sorry it took me so long. I lost ALL my notes for ALL my stories. It was a bit discouraging. I also lost Jane's voice. I hope I'm hearing her right again. Don't own Supernatural.

"What the hell is all this?" Dean drawls slowly as we reach the steps of Cas's cabin. Not only can we smell what has to be weed and incense, but there is no door where the door should. There are beads. Hanging beads.

We stop and listen at the "door" and hear the strangest thing. Cas is leading a group discussion about hive mind and bug eyes. Something. Whatever. Weird. Candles everywhere. We slip into the cabin and hear him set up preparations for an orgy when he sees us.

"Excuse me, ladies," he says to the four women who are positively enraptured by our scruffier than usual friend. "I think I need to confer with our fearless leader and his lieutenant for a minute."

Dean and I both raise our eyebrows at that as the orgy girls file out the doorway. Lieutenant? New-Dean forgot to mention my elevated role.

"An orgy, Cas? Really?" I ask, shaking my head. He just smiles and does some yoga stretches.

"They play along?" Dean asks in respectful disbelief. He earns a smack to the back of his head for that. I have to reach up pretty high to deliver it. Wisely deciding to changes gears, he asks, "What? Are you a hippie?"

"I'd thought you'd gotten over trying to label me." Cas turns around and stops his wiry fidgeting to stare at us. "Whoa. Strange."

"Thanks, Cas," I say. I don't look that bad.

"You," he begins, moving his finger back and forth between Dean and me, "are not you. Not now you, anyway."

"Exactly," Dean confirms.

"What year are you from? Judging from Jane's hair, I'd say five or six years ago."

"What's wrong with my hair?"

"Bigger fish, Jay," Dean says, cutting me off before I can get going. "2009."

"Who did this to you? Was it Zachariah?" Cas asks with a knowing look.

"Of course, it was," I answer. "Who else?"

"Interesting."

"Oh, yeah, it's friggin' fascinating," Dean throws out.

"No, it's really not," I have to disagree in a whisper, missing Bobby all over again. Dean wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me tight to his side.

"Cas, just strap on your angel wings and fly us back to our page on the calendar," Dean demands, a seemingly reasonable solution.

Cas's reaction tells us that might not be true. He looks away, looks heavenward, and wears a smile that is so far removed from happiness that I think I need a new name for it.

"I wish I could just, uh, strap on my wings, but I'm sorry, no dice."

Dean is as taken aback by Cas's demeanor as I am. This is definitely not the Cas we know. He asks, "What, are you stoned?"

"Uh, generally, yeah."

"What happened to you?"

"Life."

"Alright, Snoop Cas, what the hell is going on with you?" I need some answers, damn it. I hate Bizarro World.

"Look around you, Jane!" he almost snaps. Such desperation. "You've changed, he's changed, the whole damn world has changed from the one you know. What makes you think I would be different?"

"Because you're Cas," I tell him. It's the only reason I have.

"Not anymore, Jay," he says, eyes sad and showing his incredible age.

Dean cuts his eyes sharply toward me, and I give a small shrug. The angel has called me Jay before, a while back, in another incredibly tense situation. It felt wrong then, our friendship not yet formed. But now, he says the name the boys use like he's one of them. One of mine. And I think this Cas is. I can feel my expression softening as I look at this new not-angelic-Cas.

Then he speaks and ruins it.

"You know, Jane, there's room for one more. The ladies will be returning from the showers soon-"

"You can shut up right now, Cas. Present or future, stoned or straight, I will punch you in the neck," Dean warns.

"Jealous of Cas," I say in an I-told-you-so kind of way.

"When he invites you to join his orgy, I don't like it," he explains. I get that.

"it's not meant to be disrespectful, Dean. See, we're all just a fragment of the group mind."

"Stop talking." Cas goes still at the tone of Dean's voice. Even if he was somehow able to miss that, the look in my man's eyes would have made the point easily enough.

"Okay." Smartest thing Cas has said.

"Why don't we get some air, Dean," I suggest. We need to get out of this hippie haven.

"Sure, but let's try not to be too conspicuous. Don't want to answer a lot of questions, right?" I nod as we go out onto the porch. Given a quiet moment to look around, we can appreciate more of the camp. There's so much going on here, but it seems to run smoothly. Militarized, in its way.

"It's like MASH," I comment, earning a grin and a bemused nod from my man. Other Dean, and I guess Future Me, have done a good job setting up what passes for a safe place in this new world.

"Look, babe, you drive a Jeep," I tease Dean when we see through the trees the other him and what must be his recon group returning. He groans. "I like it," I continue, chuckling.

He starts walking toward the convoy and I follow, picking on him a little as we watch the men in front of us crack open some beer.

"The thigh holster is hot, to-"

And then the other pulls a gun on one of his own. My Dean runs and shouts. It's too late. There's a dead man on the gravel and all eyes are on us.

"I'm not gonna lie to you," says the trigger man. "Me and him, it's a pretty messed-up situation we got going. But believe me, when you need to know something, you will know it. Until then, we all have work to do."

The men go back to whatever work they have, and future Dean shoves us into what must be his cabin. My Dean is angry. I can't even speak.

"What the hell was that?" he asks us.

"What the hell was that? You just shot a guy in cold blood," my Dean grinds out, as disbelieving as I am that he could ever do such a thing.

"What is happening here?" I ask for millionth time in my head, and not for the first time out loud.

"We were in an open quarantine zone," he explains, looking at me though it seems painful for him. "Got ambushed by some Croats on the way out. One of them infected Yeager."

"How do you know?" Dean demands.

"'Cause after a few years of this, I know. I started seeing symptoms about a half an hour ago. Wasn't gonna be long before he flipped. I didn't see the point in troubling a good man with bad news."

My Dean is incredulous. "'Troubling a good man'? You just blew him away in front of your own people. Don't you think that freaked them out a little bit?"

"It's 2014. Plugging some Croat, it's called commonplace. Trading words with my friggin' clone, that might have freaked them out a little."

"All right, look -" I begin.

"No, you look. This isn't your time. It's mine. You two don't make the decisions. I do. So, when I say stay in, you stay in."

"All right, man. I'm sorry. Look, I, I'm not trying to mess you, me, us up here. I'm just trying to figure this, me, us out."

"I know," the other says, pouring us some awful whiskey.

"It's just been a really wacky weekend," Dean says, kissing the top of my head.

"Tell me about it," I answer then shoot the gasoline in a glass. "What was your mission, anyway?"

The other Dean pulls something out of the duffel he'd taken from the Jeep.

"The Colt?"

We all turn to face the new voice in the room. But not really new. An echo of one already here. Just who I've been waiting to meet.

An echo of me.

"I hate that damn thing," the other me says from the doorway. Not a hint of surprise in her cold eyes when she sees me.

"We need to talk," I say and stalk toward the bitch who ruins everything.

AN: Please leave a review - if you're still reading, that is. Thanks for all the patience!