Catching Up, Season 2
Chapter 12 – Croatoan

A/N: Hey guys :D So happy to be back and doing what I love. Hope this finds you all safe and healthy. Just so we're clear, I completely made up that backstory to Roanoke but I did check the actual dates and timeline to make it match up. And yes, rumour was that Elizabeth Raleigh kept her husband's head until her death. History is wild like that. Also, keep an eye on my page as I'll be uploading a Supernatural oneshot once a day until the final episode when there will be a huge update, here and on To Free Will. ENJOY! R&R PLZ!

There wasn't much to be said really. Mary resignedly dragged the DVD case over, "Episode 9, Croatoan. When Sam has a vision of Dean killing a young man who seems to be possessed by a demon, the two brothers head to Oregon to search for answers. Dean decides to reveal what the boys' dying father had whispered to him."

"We're gonna need all the liquor," Dean got up and came back with bottles of scotch and whiskey. Sam made to dispose of his ever-lasting beer bottle only discover it was gone and a glass of whiskey in its place. Top shelf, you deserve it. "Thanks."

They skipped the intro and the show opened on TV!Dean loading his gun before entering an office filled with people. A man pleads with TV!Dean that 'it's not in me' but he says he has no choice and fires. It turns out to be a nightmare of TV!Sam's. "You know I really don't miss those damn dreams," Sam shook his head.

"I'm not surprised," Dean said over the TV!Winchesters conversations in the car. "Although looking back it was great for finding cases. Didn't need to pick up a newspaper with you around."

"Shut up," Sam lightly backhanded his brother.

The boys head to River Grove, Oregon and spot another man from TV!Sam's vision and ask him for information. It appeared to be tense for a minute but he eventually told them where they could find the boy. On the way, TV!Sam spots 'croatoan' etched into a phone pole. Nervous, they attempt to call for help but find that communication is blocked. "Okay boys, for future reference," Mary gave them a motherly glare. "That's the part where you leave and come back with reinforcements."

"That really should have been our first impulse." Sam's mouth twisted. Idiots. "Yeah, yeah don't rub it in."

In the show, the boys head to home of the young man, now identified as Dwayne Tanner. They meet his younger brother and father who are acting rather strange. They decide to double back and see the brother and father doing something to the mother who was tied to a chair. TV!Dean shoots the husband but TV!Sam doesn't get the son who escapes. The brothers then take the mom to the local clinic run by Dr. Lee.

"Dude I didn't even notice," Sam looked at his brother. "You literally just walked in with a dead body on your shoulders."

"Props to the doc, she didn't even flinch," Dean toasted her image onscreen.

"I want to like her. I'm going to cautiously like her," Mary said.

Meanwhile, the mom tells the doctor about the attack, saying that her family 'had the devil in them'. Off to the side, TV!Dean is not thrilled that TV!Sam didn't kill the kid and the doctor was not thrilled with what happened. With communications down, TV!Dean leaves to go to the next town while TV!Sam stays at the clinic. Unfortunately while on the way, TV!Dean comes across a crashed car, soaked with blood. A bloody baby carrier in back and a knife laying on the ground. That's just… "Yeah," Sam whispered.

Back at the clinic, Dr. Lee determines that Mr. Tanner was fighting off some kind of infection at the time of his death. TV!Sam speculates that the virus could have made him act so violently although the doctor doesn't know of any disease that would cause that. Moreover, it appeared as though the virus had begun to turn the blood into sulphur. "What is it with hell and sulphur?" Dean asked Crowley.

"Demons have sulphur the same way angels have grace," the King of Hell responded. "When Lucifer tried to be like his daddy and create life, he bastardized the process that God used to make humanity. Except he needed something to spark it. He didn't have the juice to manufacture grace after falling so he did the next best thing. He took earthly fire, an essential element for life, and made his demons. Humans and demons are actually quite close to each other creationally speaking."

"That explains a lot." Sam frowned. Back with TV!Dean, he reaches the town border only to find the road blocked with some menacing figures, including the Tanners' younger son Jake. One of them tries to get TV!Dean out of his car but he takes off amidst gunfire. That's terrifying. "Mhm."

Once more at the clinic, Dr. Lee talks to Mrs. Tanner about the virus and the potential of having it herself. At the mention of getting tested, she promptly attacks the doctor and TV!Sam knocks her out. "Well that answered that question." Rowena commented.

Elsewhere, TV!Dean meets another man, Sarge, uninfected, but they hold each other at gunpoint, afraid the other has the virus. Eventually TV!Dean gets the man to agree to come with him to the clinic but they're still pointing guns at each other even as they drive off. "Sweetheart," Mary began in a pained voice. "You didn't actually keep your gun on him the entire drive did you?"

"Well yeah, mom if you hadn't noticed, people were going ballistic."

"So then why didn't you tell the guy to follow you in his car?"

"Um…"

"Let's just slide past that," Sam encouraged. In the show, Dr. Lee's assistant wants to leave to check on her boyfriend but TV!Sam stops her just as his brother comes back. The brothers try to figure out what's going on. TV!Sam had consulted their father's journal where John postulated that Croatoan was another name for a demon known for plague and pestilence.

"John is right," Crowley confirmed. "I met Reshef once in Hell. Cocky S.O.B."

As it was, the hunters had other things to worry about since Mrs. Tanner was still infected and only bound to get stronger as the virus matured. With no cure, TV!Dean kills her point blank. Goddamn that was pure ice. Sam glanced at his brother who knocked back his drink in one go. Mary laid a hand on his shoulder, "It's okay sweetheart."

Dean rubbed his head, "Not really."

"No," she said quietly. "But it will be."Onscreen, Dwayne Tanner arrives but everyone is highly suspicious that he could be carrying the virus. TV!Dean seems all too ready to kill him, even locking TV!Sam in another room so he couldn't stop him. Fortunately TV!Dean changed his mind and let Dwayne live.

Woo remind me to have you around when Dean comes after me. "Don't be stupid," Sam whispered under the show where Dwayne was found to be clean and TV!Sam was trying to talk to his brother. "He won't shoot you."

One can hope. I am not that one. Sam laughed to himself as his TV self get attacked by the lab tech who was infected herself. It wasn't clear whether there was blood-to-blood contact and the group argue whether or not to execute him. How could you just sit there and listen to that?! "They were right. If I was normal – which I thought I was – I definitely needed to die." No excuse!

Ultimately, TV!Dean elects to send the others away and stay with his brother until he turned. TV!Dean begins to open up about how he feels but before he can elaborate the doctor returns. The town had completely vanished. "Roanoke all over again," Mary sighed.

"Alright," Dean paused the show and faced Crowley. "Obviously we don't beat the virus. So what really happened? To Roanoke and everything?"

"That was before my time but I heard about it. Nothing really extraordinary," the King of Hell shrugged. "At least from Hell's perspective, more human in-fighting than anything else. See Walter Raleigh was given his father's charter, basically the right and permission to colonize. He had a little less than a decade to make a colony or lose said rights. Add to that, he was shagging good Queen Bess at the time. Virgin my arse. She wouldn't let him leave so he had to send out expeditions to do it for him. Well there was someone else, Elizabeth Throckmorton, who also had eyes for Raleigh and would not take no for an answer."

"Wait, she's the one?" Sam gaped. "I thought she and Walter had this wild affair, got married in secret and all that."

"He was in bed with the Queen of bloody England man," Crowley scoffed. "Granted Liz I still had a torch for Robert Dudley but Raleigh had everything he could hope for while Throckmorton was only a gentlewoman and had very little to offer to begin with. She technically cut two deals but since the first failed to do the job, it didn't count and she was granted a few extra years on her next one. What was supposed to happen was that settlement would fail, Raleigh would lose favour and the lesser Elizabeth would step in. Except he didn't lose favour so they had to try again. As soon as John White left for supplies, Reshef made sure to raze Rome properly. The virus was stealthy and doctors at the time had no idea about blood borne transmission so it was too easy to infect everyone. The violence soured relations with the Natives and when sulphur overwhelmed the blood, they'd be fully demonic and taken straight to Hell with no evidence. Just to be sure, they made it so no one could investigate for years. People were a superstitious lot back then, saw hell and demons everywhere, it just so happened that that time they were right."

"All of that for a man," Mary grimaced.

"The woman was barmy," Crowley poured himself another drink. "Still she was able to use the drama to get him drunk and sneak into his pants long enough get pregnant. The only reason he married her Samuel was for the child even then he still carried on with the Queen. She HATED it. After all she only had a short time. She wanted – needed everyone to know she was Walter Raleigh's wife. She became obsessed with it. That's why she had Robert Devereux expose the secret of the marriage a few months later. After the Tower, she wouldn't let Walter sue for pardon for either of them, just to keep him out of favour and away from the Queen. She controlled his every move, tried to get as many kids out of him as possible."

"But she didn't die," Sam frowned. "Walter was executed after being implicated in a plot to James I." I love it when you talk smart.

"Yes, implicated," Crowley grinned wickedly. "Poor dear, never realized that Hell wasn't cut and dry. When the time was up, Reshef arranged for her husband to die instead of her. Of course, she thought she'd sent the love of her life to Hell for all eternity. She didn't by the way. But the idea drove her mad. Worse yet, her exact deal was for Walter Raleigh to be by her side for the rest of her life. So he was. She was made to keep his decapitated head with her until her dying day."

"I'd feel bad but she did sacrifice over a hundred people for herself," Dean grimaced. "Imagine being so gone on someone that you'd be willing to let others die for them."

"Mmmm" Cas hummed.

The voice snickered. "What?" Sam asked. Nothing. Cas is really funny when he wants to be. "Anyway back to show."

"Yeah let's finish this off." Dean pressed play and Dr. Lee found that TV!Sam was not infected even though he should have been. Moreover, the blood samples from the Tanner family had no trace of the virus anymore.

"It died with them," Rowena filled in. "Demonic pestilence ebbs and flows at the whim of whoever set it."

"So who was controlling it?" Mary looked between her boys.

"We never found out," Sam said simply. Dwayne and Sarge leave town together and Dr. Lee stayed behind to talk to the authorities. TV!Dean is not happy with the lack of answers but there is nothing the brothers can do so they drive off. The show then cuts back to Sarge and Dwayne.

"Hang on," Dean sat up. "What is this?"

The pair pull over to the side of the road and Dwayne kills Sarge to fill a bowl with his blood. It's not clear who he's speaking to but implies that the whole thing was a set up to test TV!Sam, revealing Dwayne as a demon. Before anyone could react, the show cut to the TV!Winchesters where TV!Sam asks his brother about what he said before. TV!Dean suggests taking a break but TV!Sam is suspicious and continues to ask until the elder Winchester reveal that John had told him something before he died. Something about Sam.

The screen goes black.

"OH COME ON!" the room cried despite all of them, save one, knowing exactly what the secret is.

Mary massaged her temples, "I have so many questions that aren't going to be answered."

"I can't believe they Tony Soprano'ed me," Dean flopped back against the couch.

"Wouldn't that be a compliment?" Sam supposed.

"What is Tony Soprano?" Cas queried.

"He's from another show that is famous for ending mid-"