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She hadn’t noticed it at first. She’ll always feel slightly guilty for that, that she couldn’t see something was wrong. But then again Alec acted just like he usually did - an immature jackass. But even she would have to be blind to miss the respect and deference the other transgenics in Terminal City were showing the X5.
They kept calling him ‘sir’. They didn’t even do that to Max, and most of them were still somewhat in awe of her, but they listened to Alec. He apparently used to be the CO of a platoon before he was assigned to deep cover solo missions. It had shocked Max, because he put up such a devil-may-care attitude that she now found it hard to believe he had been put in charge of an entire platoon.
It was only after Dalton - the little blonde kid from the situation with Gem and Jam Pony - had come to her, asking if he was okay - that Max realised she didn’t really know a lot about Alec, and had never really taken the time to look beyond his cocky façade.
Once Dalton had pointed it out, she could see it as well. Alec looked uneasy, looked stressed and worried and worst of all, he looked like he did when he had almost stuck a knife through her heart. He looked hunted. Worried. And ready to run. That’s when she had started looking further.
“I think Alec is going to kill someone.”
“Woah,” Logan says as the screen separating them flickers on, “Hello to you too.” Joshua’s place looks dark and gloomy behind him as Logan shifts into the camera’s view.
“I’m worried about him,” Max admits, “I mean - he already looked stressed and like he was getting ready to bolt, but I looked into what he’s been up to when he’s not working out where our next shipment of food is going to come from. It turns out he’s been compulsively searching through the databases to find someone. I think he wants to kill this guy.”
“Just because he’s looking for someone, doesn’t mean he wants to kill them…”
“You haven’t seen Alec, Logan,” Max’s voice is like steel, “Whatever this is - it’s important. We need to do something.”
Logan just sighs and switches the phone to his other ear so he can access the keyboard. “Who is it?”
“A transgenic. Designation X5-543. We found a bunch of our files from that Familiar complex and he was looking for that one, but it was missing.”
“Yeah, I’ve got it.” Logan double-clicks on the name, and a document pops up, blacked out sections and missing pages. “It’s corrupted,” he tells her over the phone. “It looks as if someone has gone through this erasing data. Give me a while to get it completely readable.”
There is a pause while Max says nothing.
Then there is an exclamation from Logan, “Oh… oh… look, it’s not much, but from what I can tell, X5-543 managed to escape from Manticore sometime in 2011. One of the guards betrayed them and smuggled the kid out, and they never managed to get him back.”
“So that’s good, right?” Max asks hesitantly. “I never knew more got out after us.”
“You know how they reacted to you Max,” Logan warns. “You’re a… what did they call you?”
“An 09’er.” Max sighs. “A traitor, rat, betrayer… they brainwashed them into hating us. Maybe they did the same for 543 and Alec’s training is just showing through.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’ll try to find the guy and warn him before Alec gets to him.”
With the information from Logan she tracks down the 11’er to a University in California. He’s attending Stanford with a law degree and a girlfriend, and is doing anything but staying under the radar.
It takes a while to spot him, long hair covering his barcode, but when she approaches him, he slips off into an alleyway to confront her.
“Why are you following me?” he snaps.
“My name is Max. My designation is X5-452.” She doesn’t want him to bolt. “I came to warn you. I think there’s a transgenic out to kill you.”
“What?” he shakes his head. “Why? I’ve been off their radar for eleven years. I heard the place went down a year ago. Who would send a transgenic to--?”
“I think it’s brainwashed into him. I know him, he’s okay most of the time, but lately he’s just been… well… obsessed.”
“What’s his designation?” 543 asks.
“X5-494.” She doesn’t understand why he looks so relieved, and almost happy at that.
“Thanks for the warning,” he tells her, “But I can look after myself.”
“If you ever need to find me, I’ll be in Seattle.” She hands him an address and phone number. He grips it like a lifeline and then walks for the alley entrance.
She realises she never even got his name.
Alec curses when his data search for the surname comes up with a marine record and about two police data files. It’s a dead end, either way he searches.
Max has been giving him funny looks, but then again that’s nothing new. She doesn’t trust him and never has, not since he waltzed in with Ben’s face. There had been a time when he had wanted to try and please her, to help her out because she was the hero, and he kind of admired that, but she had been glued to Logan like chewing gum that couldn’t be gotten rid of. Logan was her hero, and nothing Alec could do would ever make her see him.
He had more important things to worry about, tracking down his brother being top of the list. It’s been so long since he’s been free from Manticore’s clutches that he spends the time after the place burns relaxing, right up until the X6’s appear and wreck everything. Max is glued to their heels, and he wonders if there is Mother Hen in her cocktail, that and some ability to inspire him to try and be a better person, or maybe that last part was there already and he’d just forgotten it under years of Psy-Ops and Manticore.
She’s still calling him Alec, and he doesn’t tell her that his name is Dean, that he has a brother (two brothers) one called Ben (a twin) who is insane and dead, and another called Sam who is somewhere alive and safe (he hopes).
She’s called him Alec and for now he will stay Alec. He needs money, and that works oh so well until he gets himself caught and finds he owes Max an awful lot more than before. He also has no clue as to where to start looking, and so sticking around is in his best advantage. Max is rather interesting to follow, for an 09’er, and though she hates his guts and sees only her dead brother, he hates her just as much, for destroying his last chance to find Sam again.
That’s how it’s meant to be and that’s how it stays. She goes off and leaves him after being almost choked to death by 599 (Zack, 09’er CO, robot-dude) leaving him sprawled in the dirt. Hypocritically for all her talks about how one never left their unit behind, she turned her back on him.
(‘he’s not part of our unit’ Max says, and he watches her walk away).
Then there’s that time she thought he’d stolen the locket, was completely unwilling to even consider the fact that Manticore wasn’t anything but pain and bloodshed and that he wasn't always the bad guy on the scene.
Or maybe that incident with Mia from Psy-Ops, who he’d recognised. He had known her, but then one smile and he forgets. It's only days later when Max mentions it off hand that he remembers, and then he’s suddenly back in that chair with the red laser and sickly sweet voice and he has to excuse himself before he collapses. His limbs had shook uncontrollably with seizures he thought he’d lost. He'd curled into a ball in his apartment until the memories that overwhelmed him finally died.
Max is the sort of person who despite being like an impenetrable fog-bank, is someone you want to have on your side and he kind of hopes that he’s managed to earn at least that.
He kind of considers her a friend now, even if her priorities are skewed to hell. He’s been shot twice and beaten down by a Familiar while injured to carry out her stupid plans, and had to be saved by Logan of all people.
Terminal City is a fool’s dream, but Max dreams it. The transgenics, and transhumans don’t like her at first, because she’s an 09’er, and she has little to no understanding of anything anymore, so Alec steps in to sort things out, supplies and hierarchy, and Max doesn’t even notice. She ran off and left with her little rugrat siblings, and had no idea what they had gone through.
Vaguely Alec knows he got out, once upon a time. He was dragged back, away from Sam and back to Manticore. He was dragged back and broken back into a good little soldier, just like the rest of them. He thinks about Biggs and Cece and the rest of his unit. They had dead eyes. He remembers that most of all, the blank empty gazes of the ones who had given up. And the rest... he and Biggs joked about girls and laughed but at their core, they were all hiding broken souls.
He finds himself reflexively clutching for something that should be hanging around his throat, over his heart, but it’s not there and his fist clenches on empty air.
And Biggs and Cece are dead. Max got them killed. It's just him left.
And his brother. Somewhere out there, he holds onto the faint hope that Sam is alive. Eventually, hopefully, he might find him again.
He knows he hasn’t been whole since he lost Sam.
Sam has a watch that John gave him. It reads 12:05PM with the date of 01 06. It doesn’t need the year for him to know that it is 2009, when the Pulse hit. Sam himself remembers being barely aware of the change in the outside, only aware that the lights were out and that 494 was curled up next to him, with their unit mates whispering in the darkness.
It had been bad for them after the 09’ers escaped. 494 had been dragged away with several of the others who had been twinned with that group. When Sam had finally seen him again, he’d been their broken good little solider.
In hindsight it might have explained why 494 had followed John, the marine guard, like the man was his CO. Even when John had taken them away from Manticore, and renamed them Dean and Sam, instead of 494 and 543, Dean was still his good little solider.
There had been those five years of utter happiness. Of hunting, of freedom, of the scariest thing being a vengeful ghost and not a lab technician with a syringe.
Then they had lost Dean.
They had been avoiding Manticore for so long they had grown sloppy in their aliases, in their patterns, and they had been caught. Sam had been shot and Dean… he had been taken. He still had the scar at the bottom of his spine as a reminder, a warning, and a promise that he still had to find his brother.
And wrapped around his neck a small golden amulet reminds him that his brother is still out there somewhere. Alive.
From the moment they had been born 543 and 494 were inseparable. Their birth had been something of a fix to another mistake. 493 and 494 were naturally occurring genetic twins, instead of clones like the others. Knowing that twins would be close, the scientists had removed one of the embryos and implanted it into another mother, a mother who was already carrying an X5 foetus.
494 was born four minutes before 543. And somewhere along the lines, it was forgotten that they were born from the same mother, and they were assigned to the same unit. Twins were kept in separate units, but the siblings were overlooked.
After the escape from unit 2, they were discouraged to think of themselves as siblings. It kind of failed on the two naturally born from the same mother. They were the same age and it allowed them to form a stronger bond of attachment than with the others X5s.
John Winchester had been a marine turned hunter after the death of his wife in 2003 to a demon. He had been on a normal hunt for a ghost haunting a military base, called in by one of his old friends when he discovered the children.
Sam and Dean owed him their lives.
Dean had been the name of John and Mary’s unborn son who had died in the fire. Sam was what John thought 543 had been writing when he tried reading his designation upside down.
And maybe now that he thought about it, 543 SA3 SAM weren’t really that different. They were the same person, after all.
Looking back, Sam wonders if John had only helped them escape because they were genetically altered super-soldiers. That they’d just be an advantage in a fight against a demon, and John wanted to have every card possible. Now though, with John still hunting the demon, while Sam got to follow his own path at Stanford, he realises that somewhere along the way, John really did love them as his sons. Even Dean, who they hadn’t seen since he had been recaptured in ’16. It had been five years since Sam had last seen his brother. Now some hotshot 09’er whose face was all over the news shows up, and he knows she is a key part of Seattle’s Freak Nation. It means that Sam finally knows where his brother is.
The news is on when he gets back to his apartment. His girlfriend looks up from the face of 452 on the news. Both of them open their mouths to ask the question but stop.
“Jess?” he asks eventually, breaking the silence.
“Seattle,” she tells him.
“My brother is there,” he says, and then feels compelled to add, “I just met your sister.”
X5-210, more commonly known to him as Jess, and once called Jondy by her siblings, meets his gaze with clear eyes. “We’ll find them,” she promises him.
Sam wonders how he got so lucky to meet this brilliant girl who could understand him. There had initially been that nugget of hate for the 09’er, after he found her in San Francisco, but when she was forced to flee sometime in 2020, he realised they weren't that much different.
“We will,” he holds her close, fingers trailing over her barcode. “I promise.”
Max brings him the news of a transgenic stuck in the city. “There are two of them,” she tells him, already assuming he’s going to be coming along. “We need to get them here.”
Here being Terminal City, although Alec considers that the borders they set up are already dissolving as laws are made, unmade and remade to help integrate them into society. They’ve set themselves up here as if it’s a business, free for hire, with Max and Alec as the unofficial bosses.
Max doesn’t seem to remember that sometimes though. She seems to think she’s still off on Logan’s Eyes Only Missions with nobody else to worry about but herself.
“Okay, I’m up,” he yawns, grabbing a shirt and jacket. “Next time you want to see me in bed, just ask.”
They find the place the two transgenics were staying. It’s already been cleared out with broken glass. Alec finds a picture and holds it up, meeting a pair of hazel eyes. He freezes, staring at the photo of Sam, because that means that Sam is here, he’s found him, he’s not dead, and he’s so, so close now.
Max tears the picture from his hand. She’s giving him a look which says she doesn’t trust him. “Let’s head back to Terminal City,” she says curtly, and ducks out of the way when Alec moves to take the picture from her. “Come on.”
“I’ve got stuff to do,” he shrugs.
“You’re coming back. Now.”
“Listen, Mole is going to eat me alive if he discovers I was out here and didn’t get his cigars. And do you want new shampoo or not?”
She’s looking at him suspiciously, as if she thinks he is about to start pulling out teeth and killing people. Alec hates that look from her. No matter how many times he tries to prove himself, it’s never enough, and he’s just about given up trying. It’s not like she’s ever going to see him.
She trails Alec silently, and she thinks she is being pretty stealthy, but Manticore obviously taught them some extra classes about how to spot a tail for when she rounds the corner he’s suddenly not there anymore.
She curses because she knows he recognised 543, and she wonders what the hell the transgenic is doing in Seattle, unless he needed her help. Now she’s got Alec hunting him and whatever the other transgenic is doing.
Max takes a moment to contemplate where Alec would go. Where would 543 go?
She knows it and is already moving, tracing the familiar route back to Jam Pony. She doesn’t get that far when she finds Alec, the guy having gotten distracted by some old black car.
“Alec!” she calls, and moves forward to intercept him. She’ll drag his ass back to Terminal City if she has to. She doesn't want a repeat of the Berrisford incident, with a gun to his temple as he begs the man to shoot. She doesn't want to see her cocky smart-aleck so torn up or broken ever again.
“Thought you were heading back to TC?” he asks, running a hand along the car as if it is made of gold.
“I need to talk to you,” she says. “About the escape in 2011.”
His head snaps up. “What do you know about that?” he asks, glaring, defensive. She can practically see the barriers go up.
“I know about 543. About how you’ve been searching for him. You’ve got to stop looking.”
She sees helplessness swimming in his green eyes before it’s gone behind a blank mask of indifference. “You don’t know anything,” he responds, stiffly.
“543 escaped in 2011. He was your unit mate. Now you’re hunting him down because it’s what they trained you to do.”
He seems relieved almost when she’s finished talking. “I’m not going to hurt him,” he tells her. “Manticore probably wanted me to forget 543 ever existed. But I have to find him Max, I have to. Just like you had to find Zack and your crazy escapees.”
Max realises she’s gotten the wrong impression. There is something genuine she hasn't seen before in Alec's eyes. Something that was missing when he skulked around eating pork rinds while he tried to save the escapees. Something that hadn't been there even when he had taken to working in Jam Pony. She takes a step backwards. “You realise that 543 was staying in that place?” she asks, wondering if he knows he might be too late.
“He’ll be fine. He’s better than that.”
And Max can see he honestly believes that.
She believes it too.
Jondy tracks down 494, Sam’s famous brother, to a cheap messaging service. She feels Sam’s absence keenly.
She’s intending to just talk to the X5, but she’s underestimated someone who’s had more training than her. Her attempt to sneak up on him is turned onto her, pinning her against the wall. She struggles to breath, to choke out “Sam’s… in trouble…”
He lets go of her the moment the name leaves her lips. “Who are you?” he asks. He looks like Ben, she thinks, he looks like Ben.
“My name is Jess,” and it seems more natural than Jondy nowadays. “My designation is X5-210.”
He snorts. “Not another one.”
She ignores the flicker of hope which means he knows Max. “Sam got captured by these guys. I tried to help him, but they… they’re like transgenics…”
“Except without barcodes,” he runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it. “Familiars.” He growls. He glances at her. “My name’s Alec,” he grins, but it’s not nice, it’s a wolf smirk which promises blood and a hunt and despite herself Jess smiles.
“Sam calls you Dean.” She told him.
As suspected he downright flinched at the name. “Sam can call me that,” he says, not even letting the name pass his lips. “Everyone else can call me Alec,” he shrugs. “It’s kind of ingrained into me not to be called that.”
Jondy nods in understanding, even though she knows she has no clue. They’ve got other things to worry about.
“Do you know where he was taken?” Alec asks her.
She holds up a device. “I’ve got a tracker in his phone so we always know. I just need some help.”
“Well you have it. When shall we do this?”
“How about now?”
And when he laughs, Jess can see why Sam spent so long trying to find his brother again.
Alec and Jess find the warehouse White has recently acquired with his team. The guards they knock out are Ordinaries, and so he reckons there are only a few Familiars in the building. They sneak in through the ventilation system, which is surprisingly spacey and easy to navigate, taking them right up to the corridor where the prisoners are held.
Sam’s the only prisoner, curled up in his cell. It should be a joyous reunion except he’s so drugged up, he and the 09’er girlfriend barely manage to persuade him that he needs to begin walking to the exit.
His brother is certainly in no way able to go crawling through the ventilation shafts, so they fight their way to an armoured vehicle and hotwire it. Alec grits his teeth and tries to ignore the warm trickle of blood down his side, and checks to make sure Jess is secure with Sam before starting up and running down the nearest familiar with the heavy armoured truck.
He wonders, as always, if the Familiar could feel the exact moment the truck runs over his bones and cracks them into tiny, shattered pieces.
It’s a messy escape, and the bullet which is puncturing his lung would prove that alone. They make it to TC however, Alec still driving resolutely before Jess spots the blood.
“You’re both idiots,” she says, as they slip from the truck. Alec spots Max stalking up like an angry cat. She doesn't even recognise her sister, which should be funny, but it kind of hurts to laugh right now.
“What the hell were you thinking?” she snaps, and despite the tone and the fact she is probably wondering what a screw up he is, he can see the blatant worry in her eyes. He guesses that he made it onto that friend list eventually.
“Family reunion,” he grins. “S’all good,” and he wishes he could have thought of something more dramatic to say before he collapses.
Alec is an idiot. An almost dead idiot.
She gets him and 543 to the hospital they have set up in TC before turning to the female with them. “You’re not injured, are you?” she asks.
The girl is grinning at her, as if she’s just discovered the Pulse was a dream or something. “Max,” she says, full of wonder and joy.
That’s when Max pauses to look closely at the girl and her blue eyes and she frowns. “Jondy?” she asks.
“Hey, little sis!” the blonde chirps, before throwing herself forwards, unable to contain herself. Max finds herself wrapped up in a hug, and she relaxes into her sister’s embrace.
“What are you doing here?” she gasps out, stepping backwards to look at her sister properly for the first time in 13 years.
“I was with Sam, looking for Alec. And I was looking for you. I haven’t heard about any of us since Zack last phoned in.”
Max swallows.
“Do you know what happened to any of the others?” Jondy asks carefully. “Ben and Tinga and Zack? I haven’t heard…”
“They…” Max still finds it hard to admit to the loses. “Vada, Kavi, Tinga, Ben and Seth are dead. Zack and Brin are… lost. Jace, Zane, Krit and Syl are all okay.”
She watches as her sister processes that with a calm face. “Okay,” she says quietly. “I… I didn’t realise so many of us…” she swallows, turning away. “Do you mind if I just… process that for a bit? I… need to check on Sam and Alec.”
Max watches her sister go sadly, and then wonders who the hell Sam is.
It’s a big blow to know that so many of them haven’t made it. But there is still that hope that Zane, Krit and Syl are alive and happy somewhere. That Brin and Zack are alive, even if not happy. That Max is around and doing good. That Jace got out eventually.
She watches the sleeping forms of Sam and Alec. They’ve already treated the latter, and though it was touch and go he’s an X5. He pulled through with room to spare. Sam’s still fighting off the drugs so they’ve left him to sleep it off. Compared to Jess, he sleeps for ages, but then there was always the suspected shark DNA in her cocktail to produce restless nights.
Sam wakes first, as expected. She reassures him that everything is okay, that they’re in the place called Terminal City, and yes, that is Alec next to you.
“Alec?” he frowns.
She shrugs. “He told me that was his name. Listen Sam… he knows who you are but it’s possible they made him forget a lot about you. About your time together. You know Manticore.”
He grimaces because yes, yes he does.
Sam is restless for the next day or so, pacing around and she stays with him. Max hasn't yet come to visit, although loads of other TC residents have passed through to check on Alec.
“He’s got lots of friends then?” she frowns at the X6 - a blond kid named Dalton.
“He practically runs the place while Max vanishes to see her Ordinary boyfriend,” Dalton tells her. “If we had a vote, most of us would probably pick him over one of the Manticore escapees… uh… no offense.”
She laughs. “None taken. I wouldn’t want to be a leader. I’ve forgotten what it means to be a transgenic I’ve been hiding for so long. Max has too in some way, but she knows how to live out here. You need that balance.”
The other transhumans scare her a bit. She remembers Ben’s stories of the ‘nomalies in the basement. She looks to his twin and wonders how alike they are.
She wonders how Ben died. She remembered catching news reports of bodies with a barcode. His barcode. They’d panicked because Sam had recognised his brother while she had recognised hers. Then the trail ended at Seattle.
It is just one more thing of many to ask Max when her sister finally appears again.
Sam doesn’t go very far from Dean in the days it takes for his brother to wake. It’s not that long, but it feels long enough when green eyes finally open with a groan. “Did anyone catch the number of the truck that hit me?”
The X5 Max has finally decided to pay a visit, and is talking to Jess about the various fates of the 09’ers. “Nope. Got a bullet for you though as a souvenir,” and she proceeds to wave around said bullet.
“Is Sam…?” Dean pushes himself up and Max frowns.
“My twin?” she asks. “What do you want with her?”
“Sam,” Dean shakes his head to get rid of the drugs.
“My name is Max,” she says warily, and Sam can hear the fear in her voice that he’s forgotten her.
“You’re unforgettable,” Dean retorts. “Now where is my brother?”
He’s not scared, he isn’t. He hasn’t seen Dean in seven years and he has no idea how his brother will react. So he isn’t hiding out across the other side of the room out of view, he isn’t.
Jess is sitting nearby and looks towards him, and Dean follows her gaze. His whole body relaxes an inch as he chokes out “Sammy,” and he slips backwards.
Sam is barely aware he’s blurred, but Max steps backwards in alarm, eyes wide as she looks between them, Sam supporting Dean as he sinks back onto the pillows. “Hey, easy there,” he cautions his over-straining brother, who was just shot trying to rescue him. “I’m here, it is okay.”
“Of course it’s okay,” Dean grins weakly. “You’re alive.” He stares at Sam with wonder. “I thought you were dead,” he admitted, tentatively. “They said you were.”
“Not dead,” Sam’s hand found Dean’s shirt, burying itself into there as if he was never going to let go, as he sank into a chair Jess pushed up. “But you… I thought you were… you were back at Manticore. I knew what they’d do to you, and I was worried you…”
They fall silent, no words needed to fill this reunion. Eventually though Dean asks. “Is John okay?”
“You know him,” Sam laughs. “Still hunting. God Dean, when you got captured it almost killed him. He didn’t know whether to go after the…” he doesn't say ‘demon’ but the pair both know he means it. “He’s still around. We split after I found Jess and went to Stanford.”
“Congrats Sammy. What ya’ studying?”
“I’m a lawyer,” Sam says, embarrassed.
“Alec?” Dean looks up at where Max stands back slightly, frowning at them. “What is this about?”
Jess sighs and looks at Sam and then Max. “You heard about Sam’s escape, but you didn’t hear about Dean?”
“Dean? Who’s Dean?” Max frowns.
Dean relaxes back and Sam finally unclenches his hand from Dean’s shirt. “Me,” Dean says. “That was my name, when a guard named John Winchester smuggled out two X5’s in 2011.”
Max’s eyes widen in surprise.
“We were out about five years,” Sam took over the story telling. “When Dean got recaptured. I didn’t. We thought the other was dead.”
“They’re brothers,” Jess explains. “Alec wasn’t just a clone of Ben, they were actually twins. But Manticore decided to switch up the surrogates, and Alec and Sam were born together instead and ended up in the same unit. After we got out they weren’t allowed to call each other brothers and sisters but Sam and Dean never really lost the habit.”
“So are you Dean or Alec?” Max asks, later.
“My name is Dean,” Alec tells her. He'd never bothered to do that before. Alec McDowell had been enough. Dean Winchester had been dead, killed by Manticore. Now though… maybe now it was possible for him to come back. “But I’d prefer Alec,” he admits. “Psy-Ops was pretty thorough in making me 494 again.”
“I asked you for a name,” Max remembers their first meeting. “And you were insistent on being X5-494.”
Alec wants to try and make her understand about Psy-Ops, but he knows that she never will. She wasn’t there, and neither was Sam or Jess. So he keeps silent, and tries to forget how much time he spent there. First in ’09 where they checked he wasn’t like his twin, then again after they got him back in ’16. Once more after Berrisford failed and then another six months after Ben went psycho. He wishes he only had one name, and not 494 and Alec and Dean. They’re all different parts of him, the soldier, the sociopath, the hunter, but they’re all him.
He’s had to change to survive. He’s always been an unpredictable variant. Not even Brian the Brain could predict him being there with Max, because he could change his mind faster than Max could strip for that not-boyfriend of hers. Alec was a predator, a hunter, and predators were made to be unpredictable.
Max had named him Alec and he’ll keep that name, and wear it like a show. But to Sam he’s always going to be Dean.
She doesn’t know what to think. Alec had been the one person she thought she had finally figured out and then it turned out that she didn’t have a clue. He’s been out, with his own taste of freedom but then it had been snatched away.
That was almost worse somehow.
She leaves him with his brother, amazed at the love that existed between them. Jondy had followed her out. “He’s been looking for ages,” she admits. “Sam that is. As long as I’ve known him.”
Max doesn’t know what to say. She has no idea where she stands with Alec - Dean, now, she should probably get used to that - and she knows somewhere that now he has Sam and Jondy - Jess, now, she thinks. Somewhere along the way she lost him.
She’s partially right. Two days later Sam and Alec announce their plan to leave to find the man who helped them escape - John Winchester. She gets Logan to hook them up with a ‘last sighting’ back down in California to start them off.
Jondy however admits to staying to help out. “We’ve found our families, little sister,” she smiles. “Now we’re going to spend some time together after so long.”
Max watches the pair drive off in the ancient black car and wonders if she’ll ever see them again.
They search the whole country for John, working their way through hunting cases. Dean’s a bit out of practise with hunting, as is Sam, so they ease back into it, with a woman in white, a wendigo, a shapeshifter… It’s almost as if nothing has ever changed.
Except things have changed. Dean is Dean to Sam and Sam only. He introduces himself to people as Alec, but at least Winchester is now the surname tagged on the end. There are times when Sam’s about to go back to rescue someone and Dean pauses to ask why, confusion and self-preservation the first thing on his mind. There is a group they run into called Familiars, the guys who kidnapped Sam who they knock out and run three states before Dean even stops to explain.
It takes longer for Dean to start talking about what happened to him. And once he starts it’s like a broken dam. Sam hears about Rachel, about Psy-Ops, about Max and her smart-aleck and Jam Pony and re-indoctrination. He hears about how Dean could barely remember Sam, but that it kept coming back, no matter how much they tried to erase or twist the memories.
It is 2022 when they finally get a lead on John, after hunting a reaper and tulpa mindform and more vengeful ghosts than is sensible. So they swing by a place called the Roadhouse and chat to one Bobby Singer, who was good friends with John, and Sam met once.
“Sam,” Bobby smiles. “By god, you got tall. And this must be Dean.”
His brother has grown better at hiding the flinch and the rush of memories that accompany the name, hiding it with a smile Sam sees right through. “Alec,” he corrects. “Just call me Alec.” Seeing the confusion he adds, “I was told once I was a smart-aleck. It stuck,” he laughs it off.
“It’s good to see you two boys,” a woman leans over the bar. “I’m Ellen Harvelle. John used to talk about his sons all the time but we never met you two rugrats.” Once again Dean winces at something she said.
“Yeah, well after Mom died he was very protective of us,” Sam smiles, calling Mary ‘Mom’ instead of by her name, and when Dean asks where John is, they call him ‘Dad’.
“I didn’t think Mary had any kids,” Ellen frowns later when they’re pouring over information with Ash at the far end of the bar. They are talking quietly but the two transgenics still hear them. “I remember Bill telling me that.”
“Maybe they’re adopted,” Bobby shrugs, “Who cares. John thought the world of those two, and they’re good young men.”
“No records either,” Ellen pulls up a folder, “I took a look into it one day when the customers weren’t turning up.”
The pair fall silent, considering it. In the background, Dean impatiently steals Ash’s computer and hacks into the government files faster that the techie. “Okay,” he thanks them with a smile. “We’ll be seeing you around," and they leave.
But not before Bobby catches sight of the barcode on the back of Dean’s neck.
They meet a demon called Meg and finally have a trail for John. It’s growing cold when Ellen and Bobby phone them again, with news about the yellow-eyes demon’s lackeys who are paying them a visit.
They burst in just after Meg and her brother - Tom - throw the two hunters across the room. Ellen’s kid - Jo - is crouched behind the bar with a shotgun loaded with salt.
“About time,” the blonde sneers. “We’ve been waiting for the infamous Winchester brothers to show.”
“Where’s our dad?” Sam snaps, stalking forwards like an angry cat.
“Daddy dearest is a bit busy now,” the male demon laughs.
“We’ve been honestly starting to wonder where you’ve been,” Meg laughs. “It’s been so long since any demon has seen hide nor hair of you that we were starting to wonder if John made you up. Because you know… my dad is pretty sure he remembers roasting your mom on the ceiling along with her unborn child.”
Alec ignores the implications of that. He ignores the fact that Bobby and Ellen and Jo are looking at him and Sam with blatant curiosity as he moves towards the bitch. “Say hello to your dad back in Hell!” he snaps.
“Why Dean… who said anything about going back to Hell?”
“My name is Alec,” he tells her, because only Sam is allowed to call him Dean, and that’s when he moves, blurring across towards her and snapping her arm back around. She lets out a surprised cry, lashing out.
A crash from next to him states that Sam just managed to twist the other demon into the bar with a crash. Meg stumbles away from him, spitting blood and glaring at him. “You’re…” she lets out a shriek of rage, going for some good old fashioned punching, so he blocks and hits back, kicking out and spinning her over his shoulders and pinning the female meatsuit to the wall.
“You’re a freak,” she’s laughing. “Like us. Look at you Dean-o,” she whistles bloodily, and her brother crashes into the wall next to them and slides down weakly as Sam begins to chant the exorcism.
"Freak Nation?" Alec shrugs, "Yeah, I know. It's a place in Seattle called Terminal City. S'nice place sweetheart. But you can call me Alec. Only Sammy gets to call me Dean," and he punches her with his free hand, snapping her head back with the force of the blow.
"What's your designation?" Meg laughs. "Or are you one of the psychotic ones they throw in the basement and forget about?"
Alec narrows his eyes. "X5-494," he answers her despite his reservations. It's too ingrained into him not to, "You know a lot about Manticore for a demon," he whispers in her ear.
"Yeah? Daddy was interested in some of the kids there. After several of them lost their minds he decided against it. Kids like Sammy… I'm sorry… it's X5-543 isn't it?"
Alec punches her again.
The exorcism words are rolling off Sam’s tongue like water and it's not long before the pair of hell spawn let out agonising screams as black smoke is expelled from their mouth. The bodies shudder once and collapse, dead.
Bobby looks with wariness towards where Alec steps back from where he had pinned the one demon down. The body drops to the floor with a thud and the grizzled hunter flinches. He can see now with the collar turned down the clear black lines of the barcode on Dean’s neck. He knows he’ll find the same thing on Sam’s neck, and wonders now what to do.
The pair of transgenics are exchanging some silent conversation before Dean makes for the door. “Come on,” he mutters to his brother.
Sam casts a helpless glance around at them. “Sorry about the mess,” he gestures to the broken chairs he threw the one demon onto. “We won’t bother you again…” he checks to make sure Jo isn’t shooting at him before following after his brother.
“We can’t let them go,” Ellen says, and Bobby looks to her, trying to process everything.
“I’m not killing them,” he says. “I’m not. Not John’s boys.”
They might not have been born, and they might have been cooked up in a lab, but from what John had said those boys were the only reason he got up in the morning sometimes. They were the reason he kept coming back after a hunt, and they kept him going. They might not be his genetic sons by birth, but family didn’t have to be blood. John had obviously seen something in them when he picked them up, and the boys obviously respected him enough to keep hunting, when with their skill set they could do pretty much anything they wanted.
“I never said that,” Ellen snaps him out of his thoughts. “But we can’t just let those boys run off thinking we hate them because they’ve got a barcode tattoo.”
“It’s not a tattoo,” Jo sounds scared. “They’re mutants. Did you see what they did to those demons? They threw them around like they were the monsters.”
“Joanna Beth Harvelle I am not having you talk about those boys like that,” Jo flinches at her mother’s voice. “Tell me exactly what makes those boys so different from you an’ me?”
Jo swallows and shakes her head. She’s spent her life hunting monsters and the transgenics weren’t the monsters in this equation.
Bobby makes for the door. Sam and Dean are still outside, arguing about something over the roof of the black Chevy. He barely sets a foot outside before they’re both aware of him, the latter spinning around, green eyes flashing.
“Not at least going to give us a ten minute head start?” Dean jokes, and Bobby knows he’s called ‘Alec’ for a reason.
“Damn it, boys, I’m not going to shoot you.”
“I don’t like the idea of having another explosive bomb in my head either.”
Sam looks surprised at that admittance. Bobby just feels sick.
“It doesn’t matter to me if you two were underwater mermen,” Bobby tries to explain. “We don’t care.”
Dean snorts. “Yeah, right,” and pulls open his car door.
Sam doesn’t immediately. “You don’t?” he asks. Dean freezes, half-in, half-out of the car.
"Sam," he hisses.
“Family doesn’t end in blood, boys. And you two are my family. Just because you’re super-soldiers, doesn’t mean you ain’t my family. Just… you don’t breathe underwater, do you?”
“Ordinaries tend to get hurt around us,” Dean sounds like he’s repeating something he’s told someone else.
“I’m a hunter, boy. My life is already pretty dangerous and knowing you doesn’t change that.”
“Thank you,” Sam says, and the startled gratefulness on his face makes Bobby's old, tough heart swell a tiny bit. “We’re still going to give you some space to think, but thanks.”
“I want to see you again soon,” Bobby calls out, as Dean slides into the Impala. “And if you find John let me know so I can wring his neck!”
It’s a nice change to be accepted for once. Sam can’t understand why Dean is so damn prickly about it, but Dean won’t talk and Sam won’t pry.
They’ve found a trail for John that one of Dean’s Seattle friends phoned them up with. They find John at the end of the trail too, but they’re days too late, and the man they could have called father was already dead, with nothing but a single bullet for an old Colt and a name for the yellow-eyed demon.
They find out that the bullet belongs to a gun that can kill anything, but they don’t have the gun anywhere handy and the demon isn’t around to kill or, in continued lack of the correct gun, Dean had every intention of punching the bullet through the hell spawn's heart.
They keep finding kids though who talk about the yellow-eyed man that they’ve seen. They dream about him, they whisper; he haunts them and they can do stuff...
It's not much, but it's something. They’ve got a lead, they’ve got a path, and along the way they can hunt and visit Bobby and try to get back to being Dean and Sam, and not Sam and Alec or 543 and 494.
It’s just them and the open road and that’s how it is meant to be.