AN: Don't own Supernatural. Both Janes are mine, though.
Not even Dean can hold me up.
Lucifer greets him through the mouth of his brother, and I barely hear it. Lightning and thunder intensify, and I am aware only because the ground shakes beneath me. I feel that so clearly because I have fallen to my knees.
All I can see is Sammy's foot on Dean's neck. All I can hear is the keening sound I can't believe my body can make.
I've watched him die before. Right in front of me, he was torn apart by hellhounds. I lost myself completely that day.
On this day, I lost my life alongside him.
The shock of watching Dean die again shielded me for a moment from the sight of my own dead body. How does a person fathom that? How am I supposed to process it? My mind is breaking it down into smaller, but no less believable, pieces.
I was shot. There's blood all over me.
My eyes are closed.
I'm on my side.
Dean's eyes are on me.
My arm is outstretched, but I can't reach him. I'm too far away to touch him.
I stop screaming and drag in a breath as the tears start, shaking my head to clear the thoughts slamming against each other inside it. No, no, not I. Her. That isn't me, not the me I am right now. But though I still have my doubts that this reality is the truth and not just a dirty trick of Zachariah's, it still feels like I'm looking at a future I have failed to prevent. A future in which I die reaching for Dean. All the coldness, the fights that came before, the hurt, the chasm of fear and pain they allowed to separate them, meant nothing in their last moments.
She died reaching for him. He died with his eyes on her.
"Aren't you a surprise," I pick up the words drifting behind me, as the devil speaks to Dean. My Dean. The one who is alive and breathing here with me in this garden. I turn to look, to lay my eyes on him. I need the reassurance.
"You've come a long way to see this, haven't you?" Lucifer asks me, bending slightly to make sure I know it's me he addresses. Taking joy in the utter ruin of my future while faking concerned sincerity.
"Leave her alone," Dean growls, ever defending, always trying to stand between me and the danger. The growl is hollow, though. He can't manage the menace through the torment. I know the very moment he understands what has happened here. The moment he sees her. His agony is more vivid than my own.
"Are you going to kill us?" I whisper.
"Don't you think that would be a little...redundant?" Lucifer asks with a sigh. He turns to offer comfort to the stricken man to his right. "She went quickly, Dean. She felt no pain at the end."
"Shut up," Dean whispers through his teeth.
Satan considers the tears in Dean's eyes, his clenched fists, his defensive stance. "I'm sorry. It must be painful, speaking to me in this shape. But it had to be your brother. It had to be."
My Dean reaches his hand out to me, beckons me back to him. I hadn't even realized I'd inched closer to the others, the ones we can't allow ourselves to become, on my hands and knees.
"Get back over here. Now. Stand up. Please, Jay."
Lucifer takes in his efforts to bring me back to his side. "You don't have to be afraid of me, Dean. Neither of you. What do you think I'm going to do?"
"I don't know. Maybe deep-fry the planet?" My man. Always with the sarcasm, even at the end of the world.
"Why? Why would I want to destroy this stunning thing? Beautiful in a trillion different ways. The last perfect handiwork of God."
The fallen angel begins to talk, so calmly, so controlled. He spins the tale of his fall. It's not his fault, he loved God too much, he was wronged. I hear so little of it. I tune him out.
I can't stay still, down here on my hands and knees. I can't let the tableau before me remain untouched. I have to change it, to fix it, to make it as right for them as I can. They failed us, these two, these others. They broke us apart and were too stubborn or hurt or proud or tired to fix what they'd broken. But I won't leave them reaching.
I climb over my own body, the body that died here, and a wave of nausea hits so powerfully that I am almost derailed. But I can't stop. She's so close to Dean. Her Dean. Taking her hand and his, I bring them together. They touch at last. Joined as they should be, forever. I hope it brings them some peace, wherever they may be. I hope they are there together. I pray for that, to a God I'm not certain can hear me in this forsaken place, as I cry over them both.
Dean waits out the monster's monologue silently. We have heard so many of them. It's just so much worse coming out of Sam's mouth. "You're not fooling me, you know that? With this sympathy-for-the-devil crap. I know what you are."
"What am I?" the devil asks with challenge and interest.
"You're the same thing, only bigger. The same brand of cockroach I've been squashing my whole life," Dean spits. " An ugly, evil, belly-to-the-ground, supernatural piece of crap. The only difference between them and you is the size of your ego."
The devil smiles with none of the warmth Sam's smile should carry. "I like you, Dean. I get what the other angels see in you. Goodbye. We'll meet again soon."
"You better kill me now!" These words stop Lucifer from walking away.
"Dean!" I gasp, rising and moving toward him.
"Pardon?" Sam's shocked voice asks.
"You better kill me now. Or I swear, I will find a way to kill you. And I won't stop."
"I know you won't. I know you won't say yes to Michael, either. And I know you won't kill Sam. Whatever you do, you will always end up here. You can't save her, Dean," the horror in Sammy's body promises as he spares a glance my way. "And she can't save you. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up here. I win. So, I win."
"You're wrong," I whisper, finally making my way back to hold on to the man who anchors me.
The devil smirks. "See you in five years."
Thunder and lightning signal Lucifer's exit, and the appearance of Zachariah. So smug. So satisfied. As he reaches to touch us, to send us back to the world we left, my eyes can see only one thing.
Their hands. Together.
AN: Thanks for reading. One more chapter to go on this one. I don't know yet if I will write another in this series. If I do, I will complete it before I publish!