Sam was eyeing Dean as they feverishly tried thinking up when best to pick up Samuel.
"Gotta be some time before he realized you had no soul, Sammy," Dean mused. "Meaning, before you threw me under the bus and let Boris turn me."
"Dean!" Sam hissed, looking around anxiously, hoping against hope nobody had heard it.
"Turn you?" John raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
"Into what?" Mary added.
"Great, Dean. Couldn't you just let the past be in the past?" Sam muttered.
"Funny you should say that," Dean looked around at their parents and grandfather. "Anyway, it's not like I stayed a vampire, thanks to..."
"A vampire?" both Winchester parents exclaimed, John glaring at Sam and Mary eyeing Dean suspiciously, hand on her knife.
"Relax, you two. Not like I stayed a monster," Dean tried to smooth over the ruffled feathers.
"How?" John's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"There's a cure," Henry - still sitting at the table - piped up. "As long as the turned human hasn't fed, there's a cure."
"Why doesn't it surprise me that the Men of Letters knew about the cure?" Dean mumbled. "I know you all have probably like a zillion questions, but let's address them when Samuel is here, too."
"So... how about during the year I... um, while you were with Lisa?" Sam suggested, feeling slightly uncomfortable. Dean stared at Sam a moment, then blinked his eyes.
"Okay." He turned to Cas. "You ready to take him?"
***spn***
"Are you sure?" Sam asked his grandfather, Samuel Campbell.
"Positive," Samuel replied with a frown. He'd found his grandson to be a more than capable hunter. But there was something about him that was off. He was cold, indifferent. At least he tried to care, but Samuel wasn't fooled.
"So those djinn are hunting in the area where Dean and Lisa stay?" Samuel nodded, not taking his eyes off Sam, who ploughed on. "And Dean caught onto them?"
"He noticed something is happening, he's a hunter, Sam. And your brother!"
"Yeah. I know."
Samuel knew about Dean, but he didn't know him. And he didn't know what kind of relationship they used to have. All he'd heard in the past year didn't match up with Sam's unwillingness to even let his brother know he's alive.
Samuel had looked down, waiting for Sam to continue. When it stayed quiet, he looked up again and immediately his hand shot to his belt to grab the silver knife in it. Sam was like frozen in time, like a statue, and next to him was another Sam. Older, different clothes, but undeniably Sam.
"Get away from him!" Samuel snarled at the newcomer, brandishing his knife while wondering what that creature had done to Sam.
Older Sam eyed the knife and smirked briefly. "I'm not a shapeshifter, Samuel."
"Then what are you?" Samuel wasn't willing to trust anybody running around with a face he knew didn't belong to them.
"I'm Sam," older Sam started, interrupted by an indignant huff of the older hunter. "Well, I am. I'm from the year 2016. An angel brought me back here, because we need your help defeating the most ancient evil of all."
Samuel knew of angels. He remembered Sam telling him about their ability to perform time jumps and that apparently, before he died by the hands of that yellow eyed demon, he'd met a time travelling Dean.
"Prove it. Prove that you're no shapeshifter. And tell me something only Sam would know."
Sighing, Sam produced his own silver knife and under the watchful eyes of Samuel, he cut himself across the arm. He even let Samuel sprinkle some holy water on him.
"You and I returned to Earth the same time. Something pulled me from Lucifer's cage and you down from up above. By now I know you were brought back by Crowley, wannabe King of Hell. I was pulled out of the cage by the angel Castiel."
At those words, Cas, who had stayed in the shadows, stepped forward. Samuel's eyes narrowed and he tensed. Castiel walked over to older Sam, held his hand over the small wound in his arm. There was a brief glow and then Samuel saw the wound had disappeared.
"I take it you're that angel, eh?" Samuel's voice still conveyed his wariness.
"He is," older Sam replied instead of the angel.
"So, run it by me again. What do you need me for?"
In few words as possible, Sam mapped out the dilemma, explaining how they have already recruited the other family members. Samuel's eyes got big when he heard about his daughter being there, and he was shaking his head at the mention of John Winchester.
"I still can't picture that boy as a hunter. A fighter he may be, having been with the marines and all, but a hunter?" Samuel sighed. "And his father was a Man of Letters?"
Sam nodded.
"I've heard of that organisation. But they were said to have disappeared by the time I was old enough to hunt. I think my own grandfather had been in that organisation briefly. He decided to forego it due to their disregard to hunters, and he preferred the hunting ways."
"Wow," Sam whistled. "It really is a family business. Way bigger scale than I had thought."
"Alright, my boy. I'm going to help. Now how does this time travelling business work?"
Castiel stepped up to the two men, stretched out hus arms, touched to fingers to each man's forehead and they disappeared.
***spn***
Amara was getting bored. And frustrated. She still couldn't get a pinpoint to the Winchesters location and it seemed that Dean had found a way to shut her out. Erected a mind shield or something.
Something was happening, though, because she noticed a definite rift in the time and space continuum, spanning a few decades and seemingly including several hot spots during that time. The Winchesters were up to something, and Amara had the distinct feeling she wasn't going to like it.
A flicker in her mind focused her attention and all of a sudden she had a clear reading on Sam Winchester. It was gone in the blink of an eye, but enough to give her a vague idea where he had been. Whatever conceiling spell the brothers were using, it seemed to be cracking. A predatory grin spread across her face.
"I'm going to find you, Sam Winchester. And I'm going to tear you limb from limb if that's what it takes to get your brother to cooperate."
***spn***
Samuel Campbell found himself standing on the solid staircase of a seemingly gigantic building. Looking around, his eyes finally settled on his grandson, who was starting down the stairs. Taking a deep breath he followed, with Castiel making the rear. At the bottom of the stairs a room opened up and Samuel's eyes landed immediately on his daughter.
"Dad," Mary whispered, choking back a sob. Last time saw her father he had been possessed by the yellow eyed son of a bitch who had stabbed her father, snapped John's neck and brought him back to her in exchange for her soul, ten years on.
Samuel hugged her tight, letting his gaze wander across the other people in the room. Dean, like Sam, looked older than his self he'd observed in the djinn infested neighborhood he'd just been snatched from. John looked a lot older than he remembered, but was still unmistakeably John. Only now, locking eyes with his son-in-law, he saw the hunter in him.
His gaze moved over to a neatly dressed man, presumably early forties, clean shaven, alert eyes taking in everything. Releasing his daughter, Samuel nodded at the man.
"Henry Winchester, I presume?"
***spn***
Dean sighed. He and Sam had just finished taking turns filling their extended family in on the Darkness dilemma. In the subsequent silence, Dean got up and snatched a beer from the fridge. Turning back, he hesitated, shrugged and grabbed the whole sixpack, placing it on the table.
"Help yourselves."
John immediately grabbed one and took a big sip. "I'd say we figure out who gets what done and formulate a plan to gank that Darkness."
Henry looked at his son, a frown forming on his forehead, but before he could formulate a reply, all hell broke loose. The bunker shook like an earthquake had hit and things started flying to all sides as if a twister had breeched the perimeter.
Mary managed to slip under the massive table, which was anchored into the ground. Henry felt himself hitting the counter behind him, his breath leaving him with a whoosh. Castiel, Samuel and Sam let themselves drop to the floor, protecting their heads with their arm from the flying debris. John felt Dean's hand grab his sleeve before being airborne. Both Winchesters sailed across the room, barreling into the wall with a thud that was bone crunching.
As sudden as the storm started it died down again. Sam sat up, looking around. John picked himself off the floor with a groan, while Mary cautiously crawled out from under the table. Samuel was rubbing his back and Henry was holding his ribs, still trying to catch his breath. Sam's gaze was scrutinizing the room. Castiel was nowhere to be seen, but he was an angel. He didn't exactly care to say good-bye when he left. Then Sam's eyes landed on his brother who was laying still on the floor.
"Dean?" Sam got to his feet, making his way through the mess. He got no reply, no moan, no movement. John, attention brought towards his eldest, knelt down, running his hand over Dean's head. Lifting it up, Sam saw it was bloody.
"DEAN!"