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“Is it just me, or is something missing?” Jimmy asked, feet propped up on a table as he pored over a book from the library. “I feel like something’s missing.”
Castiel shook his head. “I have the same general uneasy feeling, but I’ve already run through the list. You’re here. Dean took Jack and Claire on a training run, Mary’s backing up Jody and Donna on a hunt up north, Dean has the Impala, your car is in the garage, nothing appears to be missing from the library or the storage areas, and I even checked in with Hannah and Rowena. They say everything’s as it should be in their realms.”
“Maybe, but…” Jimmy closed his book, getting up to pace around the table. “Why does Dean have Jack? I thought we all agreed that Mary and I would handle Jack’s field training, after Dean held a gun on him fully intending to fire until Mary talked him down?”
“Claire’s with them…” Castiel started, but he frowned. “This doesn’t make sense. We did agree that. We also agreed on two fully-trained field agents if both Jack and Claire went. Why did we let Dean take them both alone?”
Jimmy grabbed his phone, just in time to hear it start ringing. Dean. “Something’s not right here,” Dean said, not even bothering with a greeting. “Jack’s terrified of me for good reason. Why aren’t you here?”
“Castiel and I were just wondering that. Tell Jack to fly home, and you and Claire get here when you can. Castiel’s calling Mary.” Castiel rolled his eyes at Jimmy’s prompting, but he did pull out his phone to make the call. “Do you have a sense that something’s missing?”
There was a brief pause. “Now that you mention it, yeah. And then I think there’s something up with Jack. When he saw me, he asked me where Sam was. You got any idea who Sam might be?”
“Nothing’s coming to mind. His mom was Kelly, Kelly’s parents were Jack and Lisa, if he has a friend named Sam it’s not one I know anything about.” He looked over to Castiel, who shook his head, but slowly as though he was trying to remember something. “I’ll ask Jack when he gets here.”
“What do you mean, ‘who’s Sam’?” Jack demanded, to Castiel’s great confusion. “Sam is Dean’s brother! You were dead when I was born, and Sam’s the one who convinced Dean to take me in and give me a chance instead of locking me down somewhere until he could figure out how to kill me! Sam’s my father just as much as you are!”
“Jack…” Jimmy interrupted gently. “Dean’s only brother was his half-brother Adam, the one who went bad and started the Apocalypse by working with demons to free Lucifer. You came to me when you were trying to find Castiel, because I was his vessel for so long you were hoping I would know how to find your father for you. You were able to use the lingering traces to bring him back, and he and I are the ones who stood up for you against Dean.”
“No,” Castiel interrupted before Jack could protest further. “Jimmy, you and I both felt that something wasn’t right, and Jack’s words have a ring of truth to them. Something is telling me that he’s right.” Jimmy frowned, but backed off, so Castiel turned to Jack. “None of us remember Sam at all, Jack. Think very carefully. What’s the most recent memory you have of him?”
“We were… no, wait, that’s kind of fuzzy and weird. So then… no.” Jack stopped to think. “The last thing I’m absolutely sure of is in the graveyard. Everything since then is kind of fuzzy and blurry, but that one and everything before it is clear. In the graveyard, after Dean held the gun on me and Mary convinced him not to shoot me, Chuck showed up. He was killing me, and Sam took the gun from Dean and shot him.” Jack physically recoiled as if he’d just been shot himself. “After that, everything goes black until I woke up here. You and Jimmy and Dean were here, but Sam… I think I see him there? But it’s fuzzy. Mary, too. She’s fuzzy in my memories after I accidentally killed her, except for the most recent ones.”
“Hmm.” It was something to work with, anyway. “Can you show me? Take me through time to the graveyard? Leave us invisible, but we can watch the aftermath of things.”
“I don’t know how to time travel,” Jack whispered. “I know I can, since it’s a thing angels could do, but…”
“It will have to be your grace doing the work, but I can guide you. Close your eyes.” Jack obeyed, and Castiel continued, “Remember the graveyard. Remember every detail you can of a specific moment. Feel for Dean and Jimmy’s souls.” Not Sam or Mary, since there were questions. “Take us there.”
At first, Dean wanted to blow off the sick feeling as being forced to relive the day he pulled a gun on his boyfriends’ son. It pissed him off so bad how Jack was just… kneeling there, accepting that he deserved it. He didn’t, not in the slightest, and Jack should’ve fought back. A small voice in the back of Dean’s brain pointed out that if Jack had fought, Dean would’ve pulled the trigger, Mary or no… wait. His brow furrowed. Mary wasn’t here. Instead…
Everything shifted the moment he laid eyes on his brother. Sam. That was why he was feeling so sick. How the hell had things gotten so wrong he’d forgotten his brother? If it weren’t for Jimmy grabbing him, he’d have gone over to hug the stuffing out of Sam and never let go. “Dean,” Jimmy hissed. “We can’t interfere. We need to know what happened, why we all forgot Sam and thought Mary was here.”
Dean seethed. What was going to stop it from happening again? He couldn’t forget Sam again. He wouldn’t. But now Cas was helping Jimmy hold Dean back, and so help him if they didn’t let go right this second…
He watched as Sam talked to the other him, as the other him’s resolve wavered and he lowered the gun. He watched Chuck arrive and start torturing Jack. He watched as Sam picked up the gun.
The gun was special. In killing Jack, Dean would have killed himself, too. If Sammy killed Chuck… it was enough for Dean to break free and run at Sam, screaming for him to stop. Sam didn’t. He leveled the gun and fired.
Dean was just in time. He bumped Sam’s arm, and Chuck went down with a bullet wound to the shoulder mirrored on Sam.
Sam sat up, a hand pressed to his shoulder. It hurt, but he couldn’t feel anything there that would cause the pain. He was in bed, in the Bunker, Jimmy sleeping pressed up against his good side and Dean hovering in a chair beside the bed. “What happened?”
“You shot God, you moron,” Dean whispered hoarsely. “If it weren’t for time travel shenanigans, it wouldn’t have just killed you, it would have completely erased you from our lives.”
“God had it coming.” Sam tried to figure out how to sit up without disturbing Jimmy, and upon failing, settled for glaring at Dean. “Where are Cas and Jack? Is Jack okay?”
“Jack’s…” Dean shook his head, and Sam felt his heart stop. “Jack’s scared you won’t want to see him. Cas is with him, trying to reassure him but mostly keeping him company.”
Now Sam did sit up, sending a rueful apology to Jimmy who protested losing his pillow. “Why the fuck would I not want to see Jack?! He’s my son, I wouldn’t let you kill him, I shot God to save him!”
“And then he killed Chuck himself, absorbing his essence and becoming the new God.” Sam shook his head. That didn’t make any sense. “You went unconscious, Chuck wasn’t, Jack wanted to know what the hell was happening, and Chuck gloated that you were gonna die because there was no way to heal you after what you did. Me killing myself to kill Jack, didn’t matter, I’d be dead either way… but there was more to that gun than Chuck told us. It doesn’t just rebound, it amplifies itself against the wielder.”
Sam closed his eyes. “Jack, you’re my son. Come here so I can hug you and tell you everything’s all right in person.”
Jack and Castiel both appeared quickly. Castiel came to Sam’s side, dropping a kiss on his cheek and a hand on his shoulder. “How does it feel? The physical damage is healed, but Jack believes the pain will never go away.”
Sam moved his shoulder experimentally. “Yeah, that sounds about right. I’m not sorry. I’d do it again if that’s what it took to save you, Jack.”
Now Jack dropped into Sam’s lap, hugging him tight. “You’re not mad? Because I… I killed God?”
“I was going to, if Dean hadn’t messed up my aim,” Sam pointed out, and Jack’s eyes widened. “Turns out Chuck was one of the biggest monsters we’ve ever faced. Dean says you’re the new God?”
“Something like that, anyway,” Jack said, face twisting a little. “I’m still figuring out being a half-angel kid, the God powers are not helping. I’m doing what I have to to keep the universe stable, and now that I know you’re okay I’m going to try to find Amara and figure out whatever I’m going to have to do there, but I didn’t want to start until I knew what would happen to you.”
“Well, you’re always welcome here in the Bunker.” Sam shot a glare at Dean, daring him to defy the statement, but Dean just nodded and patted Jack’s shoulder. “I think I’m going to get out of active hunting. Dean, I know you’re not going to be happy about it, but you still have Cas and Jimmy to hunt with, and with my shoulder I don’t think I belong in the field.”
“Time to make that transition to a full time Man of Letters you keep talking about?” Jimmy said.
“Exactly.” Sam rubbed his shoulder again.
Dean maneuvered through the others to get an angle to hug Sam from. “I get that, dude. It’s time.”