A/N: Sorry for the delay guys, we've been dealing with everyone in the house being sick with various things and then passing it on, repeatedly. Ugh. Love back to school, germy season, lol. End of Me is a year old and I wanted to do something special to celebrate that but... not this chapter. This is a little out of it for me, the chapter feels like an attempt at getting back into writing and I'm not overly pleased with it. However, back to present Dean and Jane after this.
For everyone wondering: A Croatoan Future, all three parts, are set during season five, episode four: The End. Dean is sent to the future to see what is "going to happen", so these parts can be considered an alternate/possible future.
76: A Croatoan Future: Part 3
"All your prophet stuff… it's gone?"
Chuck didn't bother looking at Dean, busy ignoring everything around him in favor of making sure everything he needed was in its place, and loaded. They had parked and were gearing up for their raid on Satan. "Telling you stuff about this future doesn't really matter if you go back and change things." He said finally.
"Not all of it, but some of it might be useful."
Chuck considered that, finally nodding. "I like this you better." He said wistfully, looking around the SUV at his Dean, who was conversing heatedly with Jane. "Her abilities are still active."
Dean frowned, following Chuck's gaze and recognized the look on Jane's face. She had a migraine and was probably having psychic issues. "God sure pulled a fast one on her."
"What do you mean?"
"All that, the psychic mumbo jumbo, and her destiny is to be shacked up with me? Look at how, I, he treats her. Not cool."
"How does your future jackass self have anything to do with God? He hooked you up man, and her."
"Yeah, Cas and Jane told me all about it. Really, we just got lucky, we found each other."
Chuck smiled slightly. "I uh, I wouldn't write off anything about her just yet."
"What do you mean?"
"Ever heard the saying 'don't put all your eggs into one basket'?"
Dean was confused as hell at this point. "What do eggs have to do with Jane?"
Chuck facepalmmed himself and walked away, shaking his head. "Doesn't matter which one you are, apparently all Deans are hopeless."
"Yeah, I guess."
"There. Second floor window, that's where we're going in."
Dean still found it odd to be watching himself giving instructions, and he heard Risa asking if he were sure about this, silently asking that himself. He surveyed the area, his gaze coming back to settle on future Dean. Apparently he was not being on the up and up with everyone. "Hey uh, me, can I talk to you for a second?"
Other Dean considered him, shrugging Jane off when she placed a hand on his shoulder. "Not right now, Jane."
"Dean-"
"I'm busy. Pop something for your headache and get ready."
He watched the interaction, frowning when his future, jackass self reached out to stop her from walking away, which was what he had told her to do. Talk about mixed signals. He had no idea what was being whispered, but from the look on Jane's face, she was both shocked and… were those tears? He was confused. "Tell me what's going on." He demanded when other Dean finally walked away from Jane and to him.
"What?"
"I know you," Duh, they were the same person. "I know you're lying to these people and to me."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. See, I know your lying expressions because they're my expressions, I see them in the mirror every day." Dean wasn't overly pleased with himself. Hell, he hadn't been since meeting his future jackass potential self. "So what is it you're not telling us?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Jane."
"Cas." Jane accepted the bottle of water he was holding out and finished 'popping something for her headache', scowling as Dean's brush-off replayed itself. She had thought, when first finding out about past Dean, that it would be hard, having two of them around. Dealing with her Dean, her husband who pretty much considered them divorced, and who was now sending them all to die as well as past Dean hadn't been hard so much as bittersweet. She got the current, douchebag version and a reminder that things weren't always this way. "You already know how this plays out."
The former angel nodded grimly, not as high as he would have preferred right now. "With us dying." To them, the people who knew Dean, this was something that only a few short years ago would have seemed impossible. Now, however, being sold down the river so to speak wasn't so much a surprise but more something they were resigned too. In some messed up way, they both got Dean's logic. Send everyone in as fodder, test out what's coming without risking your own neck. Got the logic, didn't mean they agreed with it, especially since it was their necks on the line. "Don't go in. Stay out here, Jane, take one of the cars and just leave." He urged, reaching out to take her hand.
"Sure, you stay with me and I'll consider it." She shot back with a tired smile, squeezing his fingers gently. Honestly, death sounded a bit like a long, long nap and Lord knew she could use one of those. "What's heaven like?"
He contemplated that, and her, wondering if that was where she would go. It seemed likely she would, if anyone should get a free pass, it was her. "It's beautiful." He said finally, pulling her against him and pressing his face into her hair. "It's peaceful, there is no pain or illness… it is paradise, Jane."
"Sounds kind of boring."
"Boring," He smiled slightly. "Would be a nice change. I could handle boring."
"Only if you had a bong."
"And a harem."
"That too." Jane made a face when Cas bent down as if to kiss her. "Don't try being romantic, not after that joke. If going head to head with Satan wasn't already a mood killer, the harem thing would've nailed it." It sounded good, almost plausible, but the truth was, Jane had not missed the way past Dean kept looking at her, or Castiel. She felt bad for him, she felt her heartstrings being tugged, and had to constantly remind herself that this Dean, that Dean, wasn't hers. Her Dean could give two shits less who she was kissing. Heartstrings snapped. They were here, at the end, they had reached the goal, and he still held the whole 'engineered by God' thing against her.
Castiel's relatively clear blue eyes were studying her intently, correctly interpreting the misery that had taken over her face. She had aged so much over the past few years and he gently fingered her graying hair, knowing she was still relatively young for a human, also knowing it was this ordeal that had aged her. He didn't love her, not in the way that he knew she still loved her husband, but he did care for her, and here at the end, maybe was that enough. He knew she cared for him, in her own way, even with his philandering lifestyle.
His musings where interrupted when, over her shoulder, he seen their Dean knock past Dean right the hell out. "What the-"
Jane frowned, slowly turning to see what had gotten his attention. "Dean!"
Dean woke up to the sound of gunfire. He didn't open his eyes, instead taking a moment to just listen, and feel. He could feel the ground beneath him and there was something on his head. It took another moment before he realized it was someone on his head, a hand, petting him. He could hear crying and tensed. "Jane?"
"Sshhh…" Her hand, which was trembling, moved from his head to hover over his mouth.
His eyes focused on her hand, brows drawing together when he realized it was stained with blood and dirt. "Jane…" He pushed himself upright, away from that hand, and groaned, feeling where other Dean had jacked him. "That son of a-" He looked around, realizing it was just them. "Jane?"
Jane mimicked him, getting to her feet as he did, though she was more unsteady about it. "Everyone's gone ahead." She said quietly.
He looked at her, really looked at her, and prayed he would never have to see her like this again. She looked like she had been in a war. He had seen her bloody before, covered in crap, but this was different somehow. "What happened to you?"
"It's not mine."
Relief coursed through him at that.
"It's Castiel's." Her gaze shifted away from him, towards the body, Cas' body. He had shielded her, used himself to protect her from the bullets that had come at them seemingly out of nowhere. She had dragged him back, thinking to save him. Thinking it wouldn't be serious. He was an angel! Granted, an angel without mojo, nearly human, but an angel still. "He's dead."
"None of this is going to happen Jane," He promised after a long, gun shooting filled silence had passed. He was torn between grief and disbelief. Castiel had died before, but he had come back. He had lost track of how many times he had told himself he was going to do his best to murder Zachariah for all this, but he made himself yet another promise to do so. "I'm going to make this all right, understand me?"
"You'll hate me."
"I already know now and I don't hate you, sweetheart."
Her eyes widened and she smiled, sort of, crookedly. "Do you know how long it's been since you called me that?"
"Only days. Stay here, Jane. I'm going to-" Dean had no idea what he was going to do. He was going to go to where his doppelganger had said they'd head. "I'm going to fix this."
"I'm coming with you."
"No, you're not. It's suicide, you know that."
"I knew that coming into this mess. I knew what we were walking into, what he was going to send us into." The hurt in her voice and on her face were clear as day. "And now the one person left who I cared about it dead, what else do I have to lose, Dean? You're not even mine. You don't belong here."
"I'll make this right, sweetheart," He promised again, really hoping he wasn't just talking out of his ass and reached out to gently take her by the shoulders. The way she tensed under his touch felt wrong but he just pulled her into him, hands moving down to her hips. She was bonier than he remembered, his Jane had curves. His Jane didn't look like she was ready to lie down and die either. Wondering if this was a very messed up form of cheating, Dean leaned down to brush his lips against hers.
"Dean," She whispered, kissing the corner of his mouth with a sad smile. "When you get back, if you get back, to your own time…"
"Yeah?"
"Make it right with Sam."
