A/N: Back to the ice-station while Sam and Ellen get the explosives. Dean is still here.
Howlround (Chapter XII) by frostygossamer
After Ellen and Sam depart in search of the explosives, Dean sets about clearing out the lab. Crowley perches comfortably on a high stool in cable-tie handcuffs while Dean does the heavy lifting. Again. Maybe he shouldn't have been so hasty to off those zombies?
He collects up every test tube, vial and canister in a big pile in the centre of the floor. Once in a while sniffing something, making a face, and tossing it on the heap, he adds whatever flammable chemicals he can find. This crap has to be vaporized for sure.
"You get your back into it, I'll give you that," comments Crowley. "I had three zombies and they couldn't crate up my movables half as fast." He sighs. "You just can't find decent living-dead labour nowadays."
Dean shoots him a glare that could kill.
"You know you don't HAVE to sit there on your fat ass, douchebag. You COULD try to help. The sooner this gets done the sooner we're all outta here."
Crowley muses on that for a moment. "Suppose I could point out you've overlooked a rack of important microscope slides up here on the cabinet behind me."
Dean grunts and reaches down the rack of slides, adding them to his pile.
"OK. Anything else you were keeping to yourself?"
They startle as a banging from the entrance alerts them to someone's arrival. Dean grabs his knife off of the bench and checks the passageway. He relaxes when he sees it is Sam stomping his boots in the entry.
"Find the Silly Putty, Sammy?"
"Sure. We also found Bobby and Rufus alive, would you believe. One in a bad way. One in a VERY bad way. Ellen's taken them directly to the snowcat garage. We're more than ready to get going."
With Crowley securely manacled in the lab, the two Winchesters go around the whole research station setting up the C-4 detonators on a time delay, meaning to be long gone when the place goes up. They take turns keeping a weather eye on Crowley, who is acting surprisingly submissive.
When they are almost done, Dean draws Sam to one side.
"Sam, I'm kinda feeling it now. The timey-whimey wibbly-wobbly thing. I don't know how much longer I'll be around."
Sam's eyebrows steeple. This should be an emotional moment for them.
"I, uh, Dean, I'm gonna miss you, brother."
Dean punches him on the shoulder. If he doesn't stop him the kid is going to cry. Not good.
"Don't be a wuss, Sam. I'm not going anyplace. This timeline's gonna end for me, is all. Gonna blink out here and, uh, whammo back to the nanosecond before... well, before everything. Something like that. Kevin explained it better. And he said I'm not gonna remember a freakin' thing. Shadows maybe."
Sam isn't completely convinced. An idea occurs to him.
"But, Dean, what about the Grandfather Paradox?"
"Dude, Grandfather WHO?"
His brother gives him a disbelieving frown. Is he really going to start this philosophy jive now?
"Dean, the timeline has changed. You came back here from your future to save me. Now you've saved me you won't need to come back. So what? Back to status quo? We all die just the same?"
He sounds genuinely worried. Dean doesn't like the doubt in Sam's voice. Or the pinched place between his eyebrows.
"Sam, you're NOT gonna die," he growls angrily. "I saved you and I'd keep on saving you whatever. Only that's NOT gonna happen because you were NEVER meant to die. I ALWAYS knew that. Knew it in my bones. All I did was make things RIGHT. That first time, THAT was the paradox. Freakin' demons messed up history and made that happen. And that was their BIGGEST damn mistake."
Sam nods. He hopes Dean has got it right and big brother sure sounds convincing. Feeling a sob welling up, he goes in for a hug. His brother allows the hug one last time. Dean feels good about this. This is what he came here for, to save his Sammy. And it really looks like the kid is going to make it through.
He whispers in his brother's ear, "Promise me, you get back home to Lawrence you'll patch things up with me... with the REAL me. You swear?"
"Sure." Sam sniffs. "Sure, I swear, Dean."
"Because, you know..." Dean looks away. "I should never have let you leave sore that way, Sammy. Hell, I never wanted you to leave at all. If I'd had my way I wouldn't have let you go to college much less overseas. I, uh, I wanted you home."
That is as much truth as Dean can manage right now. It is more than he has ever admitted before. Sam is taken aback.
"Uh, boys?" chimes in Crowley, who is getting a tad antsy in his cuffs. "You two done swapping promise rings? We're on a DEADLINE here. Or am I mistaken?"
They separate, a little reluctant to finally let go. Dean angrily tears off a big swath of duct tape from a roll on the bench.
"We don't need any more of your yak, douchebag."
Crowley ducks away from the tape. "You need me to recite the, uh, incantation."
Dean hesitates for a moment then points to his brother. "Tell it to him. He can do it."
"I can't just say it out loud, you nitwit," the small man complains. "It's a freakin' ritual. Here, Sam. Lemme whisper it in your shell-like."
Sam leans right down and allows him to hiss it in his ear.
"Got it," he says, with the faintest trace of doubt.
Dean slams the tape right over the little guy's yap. "Good. Now let's get to it."
When the explosives are wired up and ready, they all hotfoot it to join up with Ellen and the others in the tractor garage.
At last they are going home.
~O~
When the Winchesters and Crowley make it to the Quonset hut, they find Ellen nursing the two sick guys, Singer and Turner. Turner is still out and Singer is bravely but barely hanging on.
"Thank God," breathes Ellen, relieved to see them arrive. "I was about to go look for you guys."
Singer is sitting on a wood crate looking pale but attempting to keep up his spirits so as not to unduly alarm Ellen. Despite his bravado he looks close to passing out. Turner is lying immobile on the toboggan wrapped in a couple scratchy blankets. Ellen has been massaging his hands and feet to try to maintain some vestige of circulation.
She gives Dean an odd look because he is starting to get, frankly, out of phase with reality. There is a faint blue aura around him that makes him pop out against the background and somehow he seems almost hard to focus on.
"You OK, Dean?" she asks, uncertainly. "You look so-"
Sam interrupts her. "It's all right, Ellen. Don't you worry."
Slipping away from Dean, Crowley pushes past them both and hurries toward his Goblet. Once between the bowl and the others his manner changes. Despite his hand-ties, from someplace he picks up a Luger and trains it on the humans.
He tries to speak then rolls his eyes. Putting the barrel of the pistol to his mouth, he fires a shot through the tough adhesive tape that covers his face, bursting the gag open. The bullet enters his mouth and exits his left cheek, leaving a ragged hole which instantly knits up. Those who haven't seen that trick before quail in shock.
Crowley laughs wickedly. "This is the chapter where I make my dastardly escape from this frosty island continent and abandon you chumps to your chilly fate. Did I forget to mention I was always gonna need the energy of that big boom-bang-kerrang to jump me out of here? Nice of you both to set it up after Campbell's shower dropped out of the picture."
He moves toward the edge of the Goblet and crouches, stirring the coagulating blood with his finger and muttering a swift alakazam. The blood starts to boil and hiss and a red glow begins to rise around the bowl, roiling and flickering. After a couple seconds the flickering stops but the crackling, high-pitched whine continues, assaulting their ears. He has made a connection.
"Speak!" a deep, echoing voice booms over the din.
Crowley grins, turning to his audience. "Thank you, boys and girls, but now you've served your purpose I can handle the rest on my own. The fun question is, do I put a bullet in each of your skulls or do I leave you all to freeze to death on the ice? Hmm. Tough choice."
Ellen and the old guys flinch from the sight of the gun. Only the Winchesters stand tall and defiant.
"You bastard, Crowley," yells Sam, stepping forward. "We had a deal-"
Dean doesn't waste words. Shouldering Sam aside, he takes a flying leap at the diminutive demon doctor and tackles him to the hard cement floor.
Wallop!
"Oh, no you freakin' don't!" he growls.
They roll around on the ground as Dean struggles to wrest the Luger from Crowley's fingers. The smaller man is as hard to hold on to as an angry tomcat, but Dean succeeds in knocking the semiautomatic from his hand. Sam swoops to pick it up and aims it right at the demon's temple.
All at once, there is a tiny lurch in reality. Crowley, flat on his back, and Dean, lying on top of the demon using his weight to pin him, grasping his lapels in bunched fists, flip in and out of focus.
The onlookers see a weird twist in the image and a strange dislocation of the pair from their surroundings. With a gut-churning wrench and a nails-on-the-blackboard screak, Dean slips sideways out of this dimension, dragging Crowley with him. They are gone like the darkness when a light comes on. Snap!
"Jeez," shrieks Ellen, reaching out. "Where the hell did they go? Sam, your brother!"
"It's OK." Sam pulls her away. "Dean had someplace else to be."
With a bewildered Ellen supporting Singer and Sam carrying the inert Turner in his arms, they all step up to the Goblet and tightly link hands.
"We gotta do this while the line is still open," hollers Sam. "Don't worry, everyone. I know the incantation."
"Incantation?" repeats Singer, confused and a little alarmed. "What in hairy hell!"
Sam hopes what he remembers of college Latin will get him through. He repeats the magic formula praying it will work.
Again the blood boils and bubbles. The red glow rises and envelopes them then settles like a veil between them and their surroundings. The light play stills and again the voice is heard.
"State your destination," now sounding a little tetchier.
Sam takes a deep breath. "Get us to mainland Tasmania. Above ground. Today."
He doesn't dare try anyplace further. As it is he can't be sure Crowley didn't give him a crap pass code that will get them all killed. He can only hope Crowley realized he could have wound up travelling with them and hedged his bets.
They squeeze each other's hands as they wait for some kind of an answer.
Across the way the abandoned main complex of the ice-station stands deserted and silent. Silent save for a whisper of a click, click, click as the timer mechanism on the first C-4 charge counts down to the big finale.
Inside the detonator an electical discharge is triggered, swiftly succeeded by a chemical reaction within the explosive. In an instant, the C-4 ignites and reaches the point of no return. Detonation ensues.
BOOM!
Like a string of beads, the charges carefully hand-formed by Sam and Ellen observe the same procedure, destroying one by one sleeping accommodations, radio shack and mess hall.
BOOM-BANG-BOOM!
Cooking gas cylinders in the kitchen add to the devastation of the mess. In Campbell's office, papers, books, printouts burst into orange flame. In Ellen's lab, the exhaustive pile of flammables built by Dean go up.
BOOM-BANG-KABLOOEY!
Huge Attraction erupts in a tornado of brilliant fire and flame, and yeah, probably a little methane.
Less than a heartbeat later, a column of scarlet light shoots up from the Goblet and engulfs the survivors, a final desparate word on Sam's lips.
"NOW!"
The firestorm is so intense its reflection in the snow-filled clouds hovering over the southernmost continent can be plainly seen from Tasmania. A spike registers on seismographs all over southern Australasia.
TBC
A/N: Did it work? Just one more little chapter to come. Updating soon.