Photo courtesy of JensenAcklesFans.com
SUPERNATURAL's Sam Winchester meets DARK ANGEL's Alec in the "Five Years" universe. Truly a "crossover" story, as named. -- author's note
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Photo courtesy of JensenAcklesFans.com |
*****
“Max, he’d better wake up in time to get out of our bed ‘cause I’m not gonna sleep on the couch tonight.”
“Be quiet. He’s weak ... maybe sick.”
“He’s also an Ordinary. As in not one of us.”
“Which means we protect him. Or have you forgotten what one of those bracelets you wear means, Alec? The Breeding Cult tried to kill him ... did kill his brother from the sounds of things. He needs our help.”
“You’re not dead,” Sam mumbled as he opened his eyes and focused on Dean. “You’re standing right here.”
“And I’m not Dean, kid.” His brother glanced over at Max, with what Sam would swear was affection and maybe more. “My name’s Alec,” he said, still looking at the girl, “or if it’s easier you can call me 494.”
“And I’m Max,” she said. “Or 452. Our friend that you came across in the woods is Joshua. What’s your name?”
“Sam,” Sam said. “Doesn’t he -- the dog guy -- have a number?” he asked groggily, not understanding any of this but going with the flow.
“No,” Max said, answering Sam’s question. “Joshua was first. Special. No designation. Only the later soldiers were branded with bar codes.”
“Bar codes?” Sam said, remembering how she’d talked about that before when looking at the back of his neck. His eyes went to his brother. “Dean, man, what’s going on? Why are you calling yourself Alec?”
“I’m not this Dean you’re looking for,” Alec said, hazel-green eyes exactly like his brother’s boring into his unflinchingly, conveying truth. “You said the Familiars killed him, remember?”
“Familiars?”
“That’s what the members of that Breeding Cult you came across call themselves,” Max said. “But don’t worry. You’re safe here. They’re afraid of us and only attack if they think they can catch us off guard.”
“No,” Sam said adamantly, sitting up in the bed but not pushing off the blankets because he was still cold. “No. This is wrong. I cast a spell. One that would take me back in time so I could keep you from dying.”
“I’m not dead,” the guy who was Dean but who insisted on calling himself Alec said. “And I haven’t been to L.A. in awhile. Nothin’ there but outlaw gangs, hookers, drugs, and trouble. The Pulse hit that city hard. And, by the way, you don’t mind sleepin’ on the couch, do you?”
“Alec!” Max said sharply.
“What? I’m just sayin’ ...”
“Look,” Sam said. “You say you’re not my brother. You’re not Dean Winchester?”
“Never heard of him,” Alec said blithely, raising his chin a fraction.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“So’s Dean.”
“You said you cast a spell?” Max said. “What kind of spell? Are you a witch or a sorcerer or something.”
Alec snorted. Joshua, the dog demon who was peering through the doorway, looked impressed however.
“One that would take me back in time so I could save my brother’s life,” Sam said, shaking his head sadly. He looked up at her. “What’s the date? You said it was February?”
“February 17,” Max said.
“And I’m in Canada?”
“The frozen north,” Alec quipped, his voice and the sarcasm so much like Dean it made Sam want to cry.
However, Sam was beginning to accept this person truly wasn’t Dean. And then he realized the question he really ought to be asking. “What year?” he asked, swallowing hard.
“2027,” Max said, as if it were the most normal answer in the world.
“Oh, shit,” Sam whispered. “Shit, shit, shit.”
*****
Sam was feeling better, and they let him join them for dinner, plain fare -- spaghetti and meat sauce topped off by a surprisingly good apple pie that Max said she’d brought home from her job as a waitress in a local diner (logical since Sam hadn’t pegged any of the odd trio as a “Suzy Homemaker” type with the exception of the dog guy who seemed to enjoy doing the dishes).
However, he couldn’t stop staring at Alec. “I don’t understand,” Sam said as he sat slumped on the living room couch in front of the fire Joshua had started in the fireplace to help warm the cold room. “An electromagnetic pulse bomb was detonated over the east coast in 2009 and now all of the U.S. is essentially a third world country?”
“That about sums it up,” Alec said. Sprawled in a threadbare, seat sprung armchair across from Sam, the guy who was apparently his brother’s twin was regarding him quizzically.
“You still think I’m nuts, don’t you?” Sam said quietly.
“Wouldn’t you if you were me?”
“There has to be a reason for you looking exactly like my brother, and for me being here,” Sam said. “Even if you think I’m crazy about the spell stuff and this cult--”
“Oh, I believe you about the cult,” Alec said. “But time travel?” He shook his handsome head, golden-green eyes as skeptical as his crooked smile. “Sammy-boy, that’s stretchin’ it, even after all the weird shit I’ve seen in my lifetime.”
Sam looked over at Joshua who was seated on the floor by the hearth drawing in a sketch book. “What is he?” he asked quietly. “I thought he was a demon, but he’s not.”
“Josh?” Alec said, turning his head to regard his friend. “Like Max told you, he was first.”
“First what?”
“The first Manticore creation.”
“Manticore? This military organization you thought I was part of?”
Alec licked his lips and shook his head. “Don’t you read the news, man? Me and mine have been headlines more’n once the past few years. Seattle? Terminal City? Supersoldiers? Freaks?”
Sam shook his head.
“Oh, yeah,” Alec said, his eyes mocking. “But then you don’t know any of this ‘cause you’re from-- What year?”
“Two thousand six,” Sam said. “You could be Dean’s biological twin, but the time frame is wrong. Maybe I’m in a parallel universe as well as the future or--” A thought struck him ... one that Sam didn’t like.
“Or what?” Max said, speaking for the first time as she sat curled up on the other end of the couch, coffee cup in hand.
“Reincarnation?” Sam said softly. “If you were born in 1999 that’s the same year Dean was 21-years-old. Maybe one of our hunts went wrong and he was killed and you’re the reincarnation.”
“Nice try,” Alec said dryly. “I’ve always admired a man who could twist the facts to suit his needs. But there’s a hitch in that theory of yours too. I was born in 1999, but I kind of imagine the egg and sperm that made me hooked up a long time before that.”
Sam shook his head, not understanding.
Max explained. “Transgenics like me and Alec are human-animal hybrids, the result of decades of genetic experimentation. Sandeman -- the so-called father of this cult that seems to be the same one you tangled with -- started things way back in the 1950’s.” She looked at Alec. “Us X5s weren’t born until the late 1990’s and early 2000, but the eggs that made us were probably harvested long before. I once heard Lydecker say that Manticore often used leftover genetic material from fertility clinics to create the base bodies of its soldiers. You know ... in-vitro stuff. Then they messed with the DNA, adding a feline component and some other things in the case of the X5s.” She looked over at Joshua. “They used canine DNA earlier.”
“Mom and Dad went to a fertility clinic before Dean was born,” Sam said slowly. “They had problems.”
“Was your father military?” Max asked.
“Marines. It was the base clinic that sent him to a specialist, I think,” Sam said.
“If your brother was conceived through in-vitro fertilization and egg harvesting,” Max said, “then it’s not impossible that some of those eggs were twinned and frozen, then later used by Manticore. We know that the program scientists had the ability to clone just about any embryo they wanted, even back in the ‘70’s.”
“You could be Dean’s twin brother then,” Sam said, a possibility he found more palatable than reincarnation. “Which would make you my brother too.”
Alec shrugged. “I stopped worryin’ about who my genetic mom and pop might be a long time ago,” he said lightly. “Hey, so far as I’m concerned, my parents were test tubes.” He looked down at himself. “Nice finished product though, if I do say so myself, the sum ending up being more than the parts so to speak.”
“The animal DNA,” Sam said understanding, his eyes going to Joshua and his obvious dog-like features.
“We’re not even human, Sam,” Max said gently. “Not really. Alec and me ... we’re part feline, plus we’ve had other ... enhancements.”
“It’s just too coincidental that I ended up here, with you,” Sam insisted after thinking about that a moment. “I must have done something wrong with the spell ... sent myself into the future instead of the past ... and it sought out the closest “Dean” it could lock onto.” He cocked his head to one side, then sat up straighter and put his coffee cup down on the end table. “I need to go back ... get it right this time. I can still save Dean. This is just a detour.”
*****
“Hey,” Alec said to Sam as their guest settled in for the night on the couch. The X5 had just tossed another log on the fire and the flames were burning brightly enough for him to see the younger man’s eyes. “What’s your last name again?”
“Winchester,” Sam said.
“Like the rifle?”
“Yeah.” Sam thought a moment. “Guess that would be your last name too -- if my theory’s right.”
“Alec Winchester,” Alec said out loud, pronouncing each syllable carefully as if trying something on for size. Then he smiled. “I can live with that. ”
Sam smiled too, even though his eyes were troubled. “You’re an awful lot like Dean,” he said. “Your voice ... the way you move ... your sarcasm ...”
“He’s a handsome devil I gather?” Alec quipped.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “He is. And he lets everyone know it too.”
“A man after my own talents then,” the X5 replied as he headed for the bedroom where Max was waiting.
“Hey, Alec,” Sam said.
“What?” Alec paused, leaning on the door frame.
“You and Max ... the two of you are together?”
“Most of the time.”
“The way you look at her--”
“Whatdaya mean?”
Sam smiled. “I can tell you love her, man.”
“Did your brother, Dean, have a lady?”
“Not really,” Sam said. “With what we did, that wasn’t really possible.”
“What you did?”
“Things like hunting down those cultists, and other ... supernatural things.”
“Like ghostbusters?”
“Kinda,” Sam admitted.
Alec made a wry face, then he shrugged. “To each his own, kid. So long as there’s a profit in it. And, like I told you, it’s not like I haven’t seen some plenty strange shit in my own lifetime. G’night.”
*****
Sam tried the spell the very next day, standing alone in the woods in the clearing where he’d appeared before.
Nothing happened.
He tried it again ... and again ... and again ... reciting the words from his father’s journal that had made the journey with him safely tucked inside his jacket.
No flash of light, no dizziness, no threatening cultists ... no Dean.
And then he cried ... for a very long time Sam cried.
Alec and Joshua were waiting for him back at the cabin at dusk -- Alec about ready to leave for his shift at the bar. Max was staying home that night.
They let him stay on the couch -- again. It was almost becoming routine.
*****
“I should leave,” Sam said on the fifth day.
“And go where?” Max asked as she held up one of Alec’s dirty t-shirts, sniffed it, made a face and tossed it into a laundry basket.
Sam shrugged. “I know how to take care of myself. I always have.” He regarded her more carefully. “You wouldn’t know where I could plug into the internet would you?”
Max’s eyebrows rose.
“I want to do some research ... find out more about this cult ... maybe even find a record about what happened to Dean and our father.”
“I can get you all the information you want about the Breeding Cult,” Max said matter-of-factly. “As for a modem connection ... we don’t have that out here, but you could try in town ... maybe the library.” She smiled. “We may be a third world country but we aren’t totally in the Dark Ages.”
Sam wanted to know something. “Alec,” he said. “If this craziness I’m going through is true, and I’m not really hallucinating or insane, then he’s my brother too. Would Manticore have records to prove that John and Mary Winchester were his biological parents?”
“If you’re delusional then you know they would,” Max pointed out. “Because it’s what you want and it’s your mind making the rules.”
“And if it’s real?” Sam countered. He spread his hands out, encompassing the cozy kitchen and Joshua seated at the table munching on potato chips and working on another drawing.
“Then we could ask the Colonel next time he contacts us,” Max said.
“The Colonel?”
“Colonel John Lydecker,” Max explained. “He’s pretty much in charge of Manticore now, as well as ... back then ... when X5s were first made.”
“Couldn’t you call him yourself?”
Max pursed her lips, her long dark hair glistening in the light of the setting sun shining through the window. “Alec and me ... we try to stay out of ‘Deck’s way. We don’t want him calling in any of the favors we owe.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re the kind of favors that might very well get Alec killed,” she said simply. “Alec’s a lot of things,” she went on. “But first and foremost he’s X5-494 ... a warrior ... a soldier ... and technically he’s still under Manticore command, as am I. They could call us to active duty if they want, and that would be very, very dangerous.”
“Who do they want you to fight?” Sam wondered.
“Who do you think?”
“The Breeding Cult?”
Max nodded.
“Then it looks like we have something else in common besides my two brothers,” Sam said quietly. “We have the same enemy.”
*****
“It came in the mail today,” Max said as she snuggled against Alec in the bed they shared.
“What came?” he said. “Besides me,” he added with a smirk.
She elbowed him in the ribs. “Sam Carr’s report on our Sam.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“What did it say?” Alec asked, his eyes not quite meeting hers -- a habit he had when the X5 wasn’t sure he’d like the answer he was asking for.
“I haven’t opened it yet,” Max said, handing him the manila envelope. “Figured you deserved the honors.”
Alec tore it open and his eyes skimmed the letter, then he looked over the data sheet.
“Was the saliva sample I sent enough?” Max asked. “Could he run the DNA?”
“Yeah,” Alec said quietly. He looked up at her, a line furrowing between his brows. “The kid’s not Cult, and he’s not crazy.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sam’s DNA is a real close genetic match with mine,” Alec said slowly as he continued studying the medical workup. He looked up at Max, their eyes meeting this time. “We’ve got the same biological mother and father, no doubt about it.”
“Which means his brother Dean really probably was your twin,” Max breathed. “Just like Ben.”
“Only Ben and I were twinned after we got our X5 genetic material,” Alec said. Dean and I were twinned when I was still human.”
It sounded funny, Alec putting it that way, Max thought. As if he’d ever been anything but X5. However, he had ... been human once ... and so had she ... long ago before the Manticore scientists had gotten hold of them as embryos.
“I guess this means Sam’s gonna stay,” Max said simply.
“Do you mind?”
“Not at all. I like him. He’s nothing like you.”
“Gee, thanks, Max.”
“He’s my brother too,” she added. “In a way.”
“One of these days we ought to tell him about Ben,” Alec said.
“I know.”
“But not yet,” he added. “Let the kid get settled ... accept the fact he’s stuck here out of his time and that the brother he really loves is dead as a doornail.”
“Sam also needs to accept something else,” Max said quietly.
“What?”
“That he might have lost Dean, but he’s still got you.”
*****
There was a storage room off the back hallway of the old farm house that Joshua cleaned out and fixed up for Sam. Alec helped with the carpentry, and Max scavenged for furniture.
Sam, for his part, mostly did research ... at the local library and online when he could get internet access. He had trouble believing just how much information had been lost in The Pulse ... how everything was scrambled and so many records missing. Looking for something that related to a “Dean Winchester” from the year 2006 was probably futile -- he knew that. But still, he had to try.
“Do you really believe him?” Max asked Alec one afternoon after he’d helped her move a standard-sized double bed into the newly repaired room. Tonight their house guest wouldn’t have to sleep on the couch.
Alec glanced out the window to where Sam was seated on a wooden box beside the barn’s big double door, his head in a book. The nights were cold, but the day had been unseasonably warm and the sunshine welcome. The kid wasn’t even wearing a coat.
“He believes it,” Alec said astutely, straightening and stretching his back.
“Time travel?” Max said. “Spells? Another twin for you?” She shook her head and looked up at him. “Genetics aside, he’s still probably nuts.”
“Nuts or not, that DNA test isn’t lying,” Alec said as he wiped a hand across his beard-stubbled jaw. “He’s family.”
“Which means we take care of him,” Max said quietly. “I just wish he could be more content.”
“He needs a job,” Alec said. “Something to do besides worry over those old books. His eyes brightened. “Moe needs a bus boy. Tim walked out in a snit last night.”
Max’s shoulders rose and fell in a heavy sigh. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask Sam if he wants to be gainfully employed, and it’s not like we couldn’t use the extra money. Even after that score we pulled off last week in Seattle we’re still going to be shy next month’s rent.”
Sam looked up as Alec approached. It always bothered the X5 the way the kid’s eyes brightened, then dimmed, when he first saw him -- as if he was glad to see his “brother,” then suddenly realizing it wasn’t the brother he really wanted to be there.
I’m sorry I’m not him, Alec sometimes wanted to say. I’m sorry I’m not Dean. But apologizing for things he had no control over wasn’t exactly in 494’s character. “Your room’s ready,” he said instead. “And the bed Max scavenged has got to be more comfortable than that couch.”
“I really should be going,” Sam said quietly, glancing up from the pages of the old book he’d been reading.
“Go where?” Alec said , the leather of his brown jacket creaking as he jammed hands into his pockets and hunched a bit, the sun still warm but the breeze suddenly growing chilly as it whipped around them.
Sam shrugged. “Somewhere where I can find my way back to my own time. I need to save Dean. What happened was a mistake. It was stupid. We walked right into a trap. If I’d known--”
“Maybe Dean was supposed to die,” Alec said abruptly. “Maybe you shouldn’t be tryin’ to play God.”
“God has nothing to do with this,” Sam said with a bitter chuckle. “If anyone’s playing with things they shouldn’t it’s that cult.”
“Agreed,” Alec said. “And people like me and Max shouldn’t even exist. Transgenics are about as unnatural as things can get, but you don’t see me whinin’ about it do you?” He shrugged. “I figure I’ve got a life to live and I’m gonna live it. Period. And if part of that livin’ includes takin’ down the Breeding Cult, then so be it.” He regarded Sam a moment longer. “You want a job? There’s an opening at the tavern.”
“Thanks,” Sam said. “But like I told you, I think I’m gonna move on. My answers aren’t here. And it’s not like I have all the time in the world.”
Alec’s brows drew down in a puzzled scowl. “Whatdaya mean you don’t have time? That’s one thing you do have. If you’re talkin’ about goin’ back to 2006 it doesn’t matter when you do it. Dean will still be there, right when you left him.”
“Yeah,” Sam returned, stretching his long legs out tiredly as he snapped the book closed. “Dean has an eternity to be dead. But I don’t have an eternity to be alive. Every day I’m here I’m getting older. I could die of old age here before finding a way to make that spell work again, and that scares the hell out of me.”
Alec had been thinking about the spell Sam kept talking about. “You must be doing something different,” he said. “For it to not work.”
Sam shook his head. Then he stood up and sniffed, obviously depressed. “I’ve performed the ritual over and over again, saying the same words just like I did before but nothing happens. That one time only I did it and traveled to another place and time ... here. But it won’t work for me again and I don’t know why.”
“Place,” Alec said, raising his chin slightly. “You were in a different place the first time you used the spell, right?”
“I was in Los Angeles,” Sam said. “In the basement of that school, one of the cult’s holy shrines or whatever they call them.”
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe you need to be in that place again?” Alec said. “I mean for the thing to work. Maybe it really is all about location.”
Sam just stared at him.
*****
Of course it wasn’t that easy.
Alec went with him, secretly still half convinced the boy was crazy, but intrigued enough to give it a shot, the two of them taking the bikes. The trip took two days.
And when they arrived, and when his newly found little brother saw that he truly was defeated, Alec at least was there to put a hand on the kid’s shoulder to offer some comfort.
The ancient stone school building where Dean Winchester had died in 2006, and where Sam Winchester had teleported himself through time and space to the year 2027, was nothing but a pile of collapsed burned rubble, the cavern beneath it with its Breeding Cult shrine completely obliterated and now filled with stagnant, filthy water.
“I’m sorry,” Alec said as he stood beside a distraught Sam on the edge of the filthy, debris-strewn pond that used to be a Breeding Cult gathering place.
“Do you think anyone buried him?” Sam asked, his voice oddly flat as he regarded the site of his brother’s violent, painful death.
Alec just looked at him, not having an answer.
“Do you think he’s here?” Sam continued, looking around the clearing that seemed oddly dark in spite of it being a relatively sunny day. A chill wind blew through the treetops, rustling leaves, and Alec suddenly noticed there weren’t any birds singing.
“You mean under that?” the X5 said, pointing his chin at the pool.
Sam nodded. “His body might be down there,” he said. “Buried on unholy ground. Dean deserved better than that. I should never have left him.”
“You left him to try and save him,” Alec said, surprised at how easy it was to converse with this kid about something that might just be in his imagination. However, he truly had seen some pretty strange stuff in his life and he couldn’t just dismiss this. His empathic sense wouldn’t let him.
“When do you suppose the building was destroyed?” Sam asked, looking at Alec. “Would there be any records left intact?”
“Lots of records were lost after The Pulse,” Alec said -- something he’d already told Sam a dozen times whenever the kid couldn’t find the lead he was looking for. “We’d find out more probably by askin’ the locals. There’s bound to be stories ... legends ... about a place as ancient as this.”
“They were practicing human sacrifice,” Sam said rather matter-of-factly.
Alec smirked. “Later on they upped the ante and started usin’ transgenics to appease their gods,” he said. “Lost a few friends that way, in fact.”
“This place is cursed,” Sam said, his head up and nose in the air as if he could almost smell the evil.
Alec suppressed a shiver. He could believe it, if no other way than how the hair on the back of his neck was prickling.
“I need to know if Dean’s down there,” Sam said, again looking at the dark oily water. “Even if I have to dig him out with my bare hands.”
“What makes you think this building bein’ destroyed has anything to do with when you and your brother were here?” Alec asked, gesturing at the quagmire with his hand. “This could have happened years later.”
“Call it a feeling,” Sam said. He had the old journal he always carried in his hands. “I’m going to try the spell. Maybe I’m close enough to make it work.”
Alec didn’t expect anything -- really he didn’t. But he still stood back a few steps watching warily as Sam recited what sounded like gibberish to him.
Of course nothing happened.
*****
They were still standing by the ruins when the sun began to set. Sam didn’t want to leave, and Alec couldn’t really blame him, but it was making the X5 nervous just hanging around a Cult stronghold like like this. Just because the Familiar’s building had been destroyed didn’t mean the enemy wasn’t still in the vicinity. The soldier in him was worried, the transgenic in him even moreso.
“Hey,” Alec said finally, getting up from where he’d been seated on the grass and approaching the mourning young man. He touched Sam’s elbow. “We can’t stay here. But I think I know where we can put down for the night. L.A. is Max’s old haunts and she gave me a tour of the city a few years back.”
Sam’s shoulders rose and fell as he sighed, his eyes still on the water. Alec could tell he’d been crying, and he felt bad for the kid -- he really did -- but he also knew that dead was dead. You said it, then you kept on going. He was about to tell Sam as much when a slight movement in the long shadows of the trees across the clearing caught his attention.
The pupils of Alec’s eyes widened as his vision zoomed in and he saw two men watching them. They looked like Ordinaries -- fairly young, standard build, jeans and t-shirts ... probably college kids here for a lark. But--
“We need to go now,” Alec said quietly but his tone making it an order.
Sam looked at him, then followed Alec’s gaze to the edge of the trees. “Who are they?” he asked.
“Maybe no one,” the X5 said tersely. “Or maybe trouble.” He looked at Sam, his lips quirking. “You wanna wait around and find out?”
“Not really,” Sam said, following Alec as he headed at a fast pace toward where their bikes were parked on the trail down below.
This old school grounds were isolated, in that they was located on several hundred acres of open space yet still in close proximity to downtown L.A. They could see the buildings on the skyline just a couple of miles away and hear traffic in the distance. Still, it was getting dark fast and there was a feel of loneliness around them that Alec didn’t like. He was a city boy himself, and vastly preferred the hustle and bustle of urban activity to the chirp of crickets and frogs and the sound of wind in the trees. Besides, there were too many places for people to hide around here ... too nice a set-up for an ambush.
Alec glanced back once over his shoulder when they were still a hundred yards from the bikes and didn’t see the two men. But then Sam grabbed his arm. “Who are they?” the younger man said, pointing ahead to the bikes where two more guys were lounging, one of them actually leaning on Alec’s Ninja in a way that made the X5 bristle. The tallest had a mustache and was dressed in a flannel shirt, jeans, and motorcycle boots. To Alec he looked like a redneck hick. The other one was built heavier ... younger ... and had flaming red hair and a face as freckled as any Alec had ever seen.
“Hopefully tourists,” Alec said lightly. “But if not ... just stay out of the way.”
“Do you have a gun?” Sam asked.
“Yeah,” Alec said. “In the saddlebag of the bike.”
“Lotta good that will do us.”
Alec’s answer was to straighten his shoulders and walk with head high toward their motorcycles. He’d learned long ago that sometimes approaching the enemy like you owned their asses worked just as effective as sneaking. “Stay out of my way,” he repeated to Sam.
“Animal,” sneered the taller of the two men as Alec came within hearing distance, dispelling all doubt as to who and what they were. “What are you doing here, 494?”
“I see my reputation precedes me,” Alec said with a smile, wondering where the other two that he’d seen in the trees had gone. Four against one weren’t odds he relished -- not when he was up against the strength of Familiars, not to mention the whole “no pain” thing they had going for them.
“Who’s this?” the freckled redhead asked. He looked to be just out of his teens but he already had the cold, calculating stare of someone who considered himself superior to the rest of the world as he nodded at Sam.
“A brother,” Alec said. “We don’t have any fight with you boys tonight, so why don’t we all just go our own way and no one has to get hurt.”
“Oh, we don’t intend to hurt you, 494,” the first man said, straightening up. “After what you did last month our orders are to kill you on sight.” He moved forward.
“Sam,” Alec said levelly. “Run.”
“No,” Sam said, standing beside him. “I’m not running from the monsters who killed my brother.”
Alec started to argue that Dean had died twenty-one years ago and these certainly weren’t the same guys -- but then he saw the determination in Sam’s eyes and the expert way he was holding himself, like a well-trained warrior, and kept quiet. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t use the help.
“They can’t feel pain,” he said softly. “But real damage will take ‘em out.”
“I know,” Sam said, a feral smile on his lips and more sparkle in his eyes than Alec had ever seen before. “This one is for you, Dean,” the kid said simply. And then he charged the redheaded one.
Alec wasn’t far behind. His own opponent was his equal in strength, but the X5 had the edge in quickness and cunning. Sam, however, -- although a mere human -- had a different kind of advantage: the blood lust of wanting revenge.
The fight really didn’t last that long (most in real life didn’t), and these weren’t members of the Cult’s elite guard. Alec absorbed a vicious blow to his side that might or might not have cracked a rib before landing a whirling crescent kick square on his opponent’s head that knocked the Familiar unconscious to the ground. Then he turned to help Sam, only to see that the kid was doing just fine all by himself, his long arms and legs giving him an advantage over his shorter adversary as he landed blow after blow until the redheaded Cultist’s face was a bloody battered mess.
“Take him down!” Alec shouted as he caught sight of the two men he’d spotted earlier running toward them from the trees. “Do it!”
His mouth set in a grim line and blue-green eyes glowing almost like a transgenic’s, Sam put everything he had into one last punch that landed square on the Familiar’s jaw. The sound of splintering bone made Alec wince. Then he had hold of Sam’s arm and was pulling him toward the bikes.
Sam, however, was cradling his bruised hand and looking back toward the other two Familiars, murder in his eyes. “Get the gun!” he yelled. “We can kill them!”
For a second, Alec was tempted. But then his soldier training persevered. “No,” he said. “They might have back-up. We get out while we can.”
Sam didn’t like it, but he also saw the sense in what his “other brother” was saying. With one last look of regret toward the two men charging toward them across the grass, he hopped on Max’s Ninja, kick-started the engine, then followed Alec as the X5 sped away.
*****
“I need to know what happened,” Sam said as he morosely nursed his beer and cooled bruised knuckles against the side of the frosted glass. He looked across the table at Alec. “If Dean’s buried there, I need to get to his body ... to see that he’s laid to rest in hallowed ground. Maybe then the spell will work and I’ll be able to go back and save him.”
Alec blinked at that. “You’re crazy,” he said, finally putting into words what he’d always really thought about Sam (much as he liked the kid) -- not that he was in a hurry to label yet another one of his brothers as insane. Then again, he reminded himself, insanity did seem to run in his genetic (the Winchester?) line. He sipped his own beer, wondering if Dean had been a bit “off” as well.
They’d headed for downtown Los Angeles, figuring they could get lost in the crowd, and ended up in one of the myriad night spots that dotted the run down main drag that used to be Hollywood Boulevard. Now, they had a decision to make: return to Canada, or stick it out here for awhile so Sam could investigate those ruins.
“You can go home,” Sam said. “You’ve helped me enough and I know you’ve got your own life to live.” He grinned and looked down at his beer. “You know, this is weird. I’m sitting here twenty-one years in my own future talking to my brother’s twin brother who’s really my younger brother only he’s five years older than me.”
“Welcome to my life,” Alec said dryly. “And you can’t stay here.”
“I can take care of myself,” Sam said a bit defensively.
“That’s not what I mean,” Alec replied as he eased back in his chair, wincing at his sore ribs as he took a sip of his own Scotch. “You’ve got Max’s bike and she’d skin me alive if I showed up without it.”
Sam had forgotten that. “Okay,” he said slowly. “I’ll return the bike, then come back here. But I’ve got to find out what happened to Dean.” He clenched his jaw slightly and looked away for a moment, then back, his hands forming fists. “It’s like ... somehow that’s the key to the whole puzzle. Dean’s not where he’s supposed to be and it’s up to me to fix that.”
“You’re sure he was dead?” Alec asked, sensing that Sam needed to talk about this ... that he finally could.
Sam swallowed hard, the look in his eyes one of deep sadness. “We were fighting, like I told you before. We were surrounded, outnumbered, and our backs were to the wall. We’d run out of ammo ...”
Alec waited.
Sam took a deep breath. One of those Cultists -- it’s hard to describe him because they were all wearing these red robes with big hoods over their heads -- he stepped forward and he had this spear.” Sam stopped a moment and rubbed his forehead, then sniffed loudly. “He ... um ... he threw it at Dean and it hit him in the chest, pinning him to the wall. I think I screamed his name, but he was just hanging there, his hand on the shaft of the spear like he was going to try to pull it out, but his eyes were open and there was blood coming out of his mouth and ... I could tell he was dead. That spear must have gone straight through his heart.”
Sam stopped, and Alec had sense enough to give the kid a moment. “There are still libraries,” he finally said. “A lot of electronic records were lost in The Pulse, but microfiche survived. Maybe there are records from the local newspaper at the time about what happened out there. Maybe there was an earthquake or something later on that took the place down.”
“You need to get back to Max and Joshua,” Sam said. “I heard her talking about wanting to go on some kind of job.”
“This won’t take that long,” Alec said with more good humor than he was really feeling. But somehow he couldn’t leave Sam on his own. It just didn’t feel right. He signaled the pretty passing waitress that he wanted another Scotch. Sam hadn’t finished his beer. “We’ll find a place to spend the night and tomorrow do a little research.” He pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll let Max know.” He winked. “I’m thinkin’ she’ll still keep a the bed warm for me, even if I’m a few days late.”
*****
“Have you and Max always been together?” Sam asked as he threw his backpack on one of the beds in the cheap motel room they’d rented for the night. The desk clerk had leered at them, thinking they were a guy-couple here for a hook-up, but Sam was used to that. After all, he and Dean had been mistaken for gay more times than he could count. As for Alec, he’d simply beamed a big smile at the homophobic son-of-a-bitch and winked playfully -- just like Dean would have.
“I’ve known Max for a few years,” Alec said as he shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it across the back of a straight back chair. He headed for the bathroom. “You know, she’s the one who took Manticore down back in ‘21. If it weren’t for her, I might still be doin’ the loyal little soldier thing for Uncle Sam.”
“She freed you?” Sam said, speaking loudly to be heard above the running water as Alec rinsed off his face in the sink and wondering if there was any use trying to take a shower even though the water would probably be cold, one of the drawbacks of post-Pulse USA.
Alec came out drying his face off with a towel. “Yeah,” he said as he stripped off his black t-shirt and reached for his pack. “Pretty much.” He stopped a moment and regarded the younger man. “I owe Maxie a lot. When you come right down to it, she gave me not just my freedom, but my purpose in life.” He grinned. “Not to mention my name.”
“Your name?”
“Alec,” he said. “As in ‘smart Alec.’” The grin quirked. “She thinks I’m a real wise ass ... always has.”
“So, when did the friendship become more?” Sam asked.
“Not that long ago,” Alec said. “Max ... she was head over heels in love with this Ordinary guy for years and I figured I never had a chance with her. Then I headed out on my own and five more years went by without us even seein’ each other. We just hooked up again a few months ago.”
“And the Ordinary guy she’d been in love with?” Sam asked.
Alec shrugged. “They broke up. She still hasn’t told me the real reason why.”
“And Joshua?” Sam asked. “You guys smuggled him out of the country instead of letting the rebuilt Manticore take him back?”
“Josh is my best friend,” Alec said. “And Max loves him to death. We weren’t about to let him be locked up in some secret government facility again.”
“And the two of you?” Sam asked as he sat down on the edge of the bed and began pulling off his boots. “Max talks like she’s still afraid someone from this Manticore is going to swoop in and take you away from her.”
Alec’s eyebrows drew down, and for the first time during their conversation he looked truly troubled. Sam had noticed that -- like Dean -- it took quite a bit to rattle the X5. However, he’d obviously pushed the right button.
“There’s a colonel back at Manticore named Donald Lydecker,” Alec finally said. “Not that this really means much to you, but I’m kind of in his debt. He was my C.O. back in the old days, and he’s saved my butt a couple of times ... Max’s too. We owe him, and he’s made it pretty clear he’s gonna collect one day.”
“Meaning?” Sam said, not understanding, although he remembered Max mentioning the man.
“Meaning one of these days I’m gonna get a message from him that I’m to report to Manticore for what’s undoubtedly gonna be one hell of a Mission Impossible.”
“Couldn’t you just refuse to do it?” Sam had to ask. “I mean ... you said the transgenics are now free people.”
Alec cocked his head to one side and regarded him oddly. “It would be an order,” he said. “I don’t disobey orders, not when they’re given by my superior officer.”
The way the X5 said that -- so matter-of-factly -- gave Sam pause. He’d sounded exactly like Dean did when he talked about following their father’s orders -- as if that was the most natural thing in the world and anyone who didn’t think so was crazy. Maybe Alec was more like Dean than he’d given him credit for, he silently thought as he lay back on the bed and Alec reached to turn off the light. Environment played a big part in shaping a man’s destiny. But blood ... blood was always the deciding factor.
*****
Sam slept well. In fact, he’d actually slept well every night since he’d been in this time, the nightmares and premonitory visions of his past apparently having been left behind. When he woke up the next morning just as dawn was breaking he rolled over and saw that Alec was just sitting up in bed, yawning widely and stretching. The X5 looked so much like Dean -- bare muscular chest, bed-head hair, bleary eyes, and all -- it gave Sam pause. For just a second he wondered if maybe everything he’d experienced over the past few weeks had been an illusion (or delusion) and this was the brother he’d loved all of his life after all -- and then he saw the bar code on the back of Alec’s neck and his heart began to ache all over again.
“What?” Alec asked when he saw Sam staring at him.
“Nothing,” Sam said, sitting up as well. “It’s not your fault.”
Alec hopped out of bed and padded barefoot over to where his leather jacket was hanging on the back of the chair. Fishing in the pockets, he came up with a bottle of pills, opened the lid, shook out several white tablets, popped them in his mouth, then reached for the glass of water on the night stand and swallowed them in a single big gulp. He saw Sam watching him. “My meds,” he said easily, not making a big deal out of it.
Sam’s eyebrows rose. “Not that it’s any of my business but--”
Alec smiled jauntily. “I’ve just got what you might call a little neurological condition. Nothin’ serious. I manage it just fine.”
“Dean didn’t have any problems like that,” Sam said.
“He wouldn’t,” Alec returned as he carefully tucked the bottle of pills back into the inner pocket of his jacket.
As they dressed, Sam found his eyes going to the X5. He couldn’t help but make comparisons. The physical resemblance between the two men was positively uncanny -- like “two peas in a pod” as the saying went, right down to their liking for military-style haircuts, leather jackets, guns, and biker/jeans-and-t-shirt clothing styles. Cocky, arrogant even, and very much at home in their own skins, the twin brothers obviously had very similar psychological make-ups as well. However, there was a quickness ... a sharpness about Alec that didn’t quite match Dean’s more laid back, laconic style. Alec fidgeted in a way Dean never had ... chewing his nails, not liking to be still unless he was on the hunt, hating to be touched, and most of all high verbal to the point it sometimes became annoying. Sam supposed a lot of that might be due to the fact the X5 had a hyper-metabolism, his nervous system souped up by DNA tampering to give him his speed and stamina. Then there was the human/feline hybrid factor. It wasn’t like Alec resembled a cat in any way, but sometimes there was just something about the way he moved that wasn’t quite -- human -- a grace and sense of balance that surpassed anything Sam had ever seen before. It was subtle ... but it was there ... the differences ...
“A Manticore thing?” Sam ventured, going back to the medication.
Alec nodded once, the gesture so brief it might not have been, and Sam knew to leave it alone.
“Look,” Alec said after they’d eaten breakfast at a small local mom and pop restaurant and he was cleaning up the last of the pancake syrup from his plate with a spoon. “I can stay here with you for a couple of days, but then I’ve got to get back home. I know what you want, Sam. But I don’t know how to get it for you. That Familiar meeting place was destroyed years ago, and if Dean’s buried beneath it short of stealin’ a back-hoe and goin’ at it I don’t see how we’re gonna reach his body.”
“First of all I need to find out exactly what happened to that building,” Sam said as he toyed with what was left of his bacon and eggs with a fork. “When it collapsed ... if it had anything to do with what happened to me and Dean that night ... Dean’s death ...” His voice trailed off. He still found it hard to say that out loud ... that his brother was dead. “Is there a library?” he asked.
“A few,” Alec conceded as he drained the last of his coffee then pulled out a wad of bills and peeled several off to leave on the table in payment for their meal -- an exorbitant amount it seemed to Sam, but that was the way prices were nowadays, inflation having run wild. The waitress serving them was quite pretty and she gave the transgenic a wink as she took the money. Alec beamed up at her, his eyes playful, and Sam got the impression the X5 was just as much a lady’s man as Dean. However, as he watched, he wasn’t surprised to see Alec sigh and shake his head “no” to the girl.
“You don’t cheat on Max?” Sam said after she’d walked away.
“Haven’t yet,” Alec said as he stood and stretched.
“You don’t strike me as the one woman kind of man,” Sam commented with a grin as he got up and adjusted his jacket.
“I don’t strike me as that type either,” Alec agreed, his expression serious. “But then sometimes I really surprise myself.”
“I bet you do,” Sam said with a laugh, amused as well as impressed by the X5’s ability to hide his true self behind a wall of humorous words. Just like Dean used to.
It wasn’t hard to find a library, but Sam was dismayed by the lack of technology on hand. Most computer records had been lost in The Pulse, leaving a search of the microfiche archives their only option. Of course he had a beginning date ... the day Dean had died.
Alec left him to have at it, saying he had a few errands to run and that he’d be back in a couple of hours. Sam, already engrossed in reading the history he’d never had a chance to experience, simply nodded. Surprisingly, however, the date Sam knew he and Dean had battled the Familiars didn’t show any news about the stronghold’s destruction ... no mention of fire or earthquake or casualties. He supposed it was possible the local media had ignored the event as inconsequential -- but somehow he doubted that. And so, he began combing through the records, the future he’d never lived unfolding before his very eyes. It wasn’t until he reached the year 2008 that he finally found reference to a localized earthquake that had caused the destruction of several landmarks including a large school located on the outskirts of L.A. that had been used as a private boarding academy. The address matched, and Sam knew he had at least part of the answer. However, it still didn’t tell him what had happened to Dean’s body, something he felt deep in his soul he needed to find out if he was ever to make it back to his own time. Surely his brother’s corpse hadn’t lain in the basement of that place for two years, had it?
“Couldn’t find anything?” Alec said from behind him.
Sam jumped. He hadn’t heard the X5’s approach or even sensed his presence and he chided himself for that. Just because he was in the future didn’t mean he could get sloppy. “Not really,” he said. “I found out the building was probably destroyed in an earthquake in ‘08, but that doesn’t tell me what happened to Dean.”
“Check police records?” Alec asked. “If a body was found before that there ought to be a report.”
“Will they let me just waltz in and ask?” Sam said. “According to you, the U.S. is pretty much a military dictatorship nowadays.”
“Money would help,” Alec said bluntly.
“I don’t have any.”
The X5 tightened his lips a moment, then seemed to reach a decision. “I’m probably gonna regret this, and Max is gonna kill me, but I can front you a few hundred. It might be enough to get us past the lower level flunkies and a peek at the records.”
Sam didn’t ask where Alec had gotten hundreds of dollars in the past two hours. He knew damn well the X5 hadn’t had that kind of cash on him this morning. “Thanks,” he said.
Alec smirked. “Hey, you’re not the only one who wants to find out what happened. He was my brother too.
*****
Alec’s three hundred dollars worked like a charm, gaining them access to a police data base at one of L.A.’s substations. Running a check of “unclaimed bodies,” however, Sam didn’t find a match for Dean. “They probably just buried him somewhere in an unmarked grave or burned the body,” he said tiredly as he ran fingers back through his hair in frustration.
“Did you run his name?” Alec asked.
“No one would have known who he was,” Sam said. “What’s the use in that?”
“It’s called coverin’ all the bases, Sam. Didn’t your big bro teach you that?”
With a resigned shake of his head, Sam did as Alec suggested and typed the name “Dean Winchester” into the data base. “It’ll just come up that he died in St. Louis in March of ‘06,” he said. That’s how Dean was listed in the official records, not that he really was -- dead that is ... not that time.”
Alec didn’t ask. He merely watched the screen as a string of possible matches came up. Then suddenly he pointed a finger at some of the data. “There,” he said. “There was a body claimed in December, ‘06 that was I.D.ed as a Dean Winchester.”
“Claimed by whom?” Sam wondered as he, too, read the report. “It says a body was discovered lying beside a road on the outskirts of L.A. and that it was claimed two weeks later by--” He swallowed hard. “John Winchester,” he whispered. “Dad found out about Dean and claimed his body which means ...”
“Where would ‘Dad’ have buried him?” Alec asked quickly, hazel-green eyes shining intently.
“In Kansas,” Sam said, his tone still hushed. “He’d have buried Dean beside Mom in our old home town, Lawrence, Kansas. I know he would have. He’d have wanted them to be together.”
*****
Alec wasn’t sure he wanted to go to Kansas ... not sure at all. However, it appeared that was where Sam was headed -- with his help or without. In a way, it wasn’t his problem. But in a way -- it was.
“I’ll find other transportation,” Sam said as they stood outside of the courthouse. “You can go back.”
“And get Max’s bike home to her how?” Alec asked sourly. He then sighed deeply. “Kansas is a tough state to get in and out of. There were a lot of government bases there before The Pulse and the military pretty much shut it down afterwards. Plus, there was a nuclear incident at one of the power plants just outside of Lawrence in ‘10 that contaminated a pretty wide area.”
“I’ll get there,” Sam repeated with a stubbornness that reminded Alec of a certain female X5.
He flashed a sarcastic smile and shook his head. “Not without the right I.D. you won’t,” he said. “And money.”
“I’ll manage. Look, Alec, I don’t want to drag you into my problems any more than I already have. We might technically be brothers, but--”
“But nothin’,” Alec said. “You just said it. We’re family. True, in a weird way, but you’re as much my blood as--” Alec stopped, and saw Sam looking at him oddly.
“As what?”
“Never mind. But I know where to get you some fake I.D., although it’s gonna cost, and I can come up with enough money for the trip and to pay off whomever we have to pay off to get into Kansas ... I think.”
“You think?”
“Shut up and don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, kid.”
Sam looked at the X5 for a very long moment, and Alec couldn’t help wondering -- as he always did when the younger man stared at him -- if the younger man wasn’t wishing he was Dean. For some reason that bothered him ... although he couldn’t put it into words as to why.
“Okay,” Sam said. “I accept your help.”
“Then let’s go find our brother,” Alec said quietly as he swung a leg over his bike.
*****
The trip to Kansas was hell, the weather not cooperating at all and the border guards being huge dick heads about their I.D. They had to try three different crossings before Alec finally got tired of talking and resorted to punching out two less-than-alert Marines who were guarding one of the lesser traveled roads that ran toward Topeka.
As they approached Lawrence, traveling mostly at night to avoid any more confrontations, the landscape became more and more desolate -- the result of a nuclear power plant meltdown that had spewed radiation for over a hundred mile radius around the town. Plants were stunted, the ground burned brown by more than drought, and there were no signs of the flourishing farms that Sam remembered from his own time.
Lawrence, when they finally arrived, was quite literally a ghost town. No one wanted to live in an area with a radiation factor higher than Hiroshima. On the brighter side, there also weren’t any check points or sector police to worry about. The two cruised onto Main Street on their bikes without seeing a soul.
“Where’s the cemetery?” Alec asked uneasily. “We need to get there and get out. I’m pretty much immune to this level of radioactive contamination, but you’re not and I’m guessin’ you might wanna have kids some day.”
“What do you mean you’re immune?” Sam said as he shielded his eyes against the glare of a too bright sun and scanned the deserted streets, getting his bearings.
“An X5 thing,” Alec said with a shrug. “We were bred for battle and to survive a nuclear holocaust. They made us immune to a bunch of biowarfare bugs too.”
“Must be nice,” Sam muttered as he continued staring off into the distance.
“Not really,” Alec said low under his voice.
“Cemetery’s that way,” Sam said, pointing north.
The place was, of course, as deserted as the rest of the town.
“Do you know where your ... our mother’s grave is?” Alec asked as they walked through the open sagging gates of the fenced acreage.
“I’ve been there once,” Sam said. “It’s this way.” He pointed toward a mausoleum.
It took him a few minutes, but at last Sam found the plot they were looking for with the headstone that read: Mary Winchester, 1952 - 1982, Beloved Wife and Mother, We miss you dearly.
Alec stared at the words, trying to summon up a vision of what this woman ... his mother ... must have looked like ... been like ... wondering if she would have had enough love for one more son if she’d only known ...
“He’s not here,” Sam said, stating the obvious since there was only the single grave.
Alec, head bowed and lost in thought, brought himself back to reality and looked over at him. “You can stay with me and Max,” he said. Putting a hand on Sam’s boney shoulder, the X5 knew this much: Sam Winchester was his responsibility now, the gut instinct so strong it was almost as if the mythical “Dean” was whispering it in his ear. “Let’s go home.”
“Not quiet yet,” Sam said. “There’s one more stop I need to make.”
Alec narrowed his eyes, but didn’t ask any questions. This was, after all, Sam’s personal Hell, and only Sam could get himself out of it.
*****
The house looked like dozens of others on the streets they’d passed: dilapidated ... unloved ... paint peeling and lawn nothing but dying weeds but still sturdy enough to provide shelter.
“Where you lived?” Alec guessed.
“Not that I remember it much,” Sam said, staring up at the blank windows. “I was here once as an adult, with Dean. There was a ghost ...”
“A ghost?” Alec said, shaking his head skeptically. “Kid, I think maybe the radiation is gettin’ to you.”
“Actually, it was a poltergeist,” Sam said. “A nasty one.” He looked back down the street. “I wonder what happened to Missouri?”
“Still one of the fly-over states last I heard,” Alec deadpanned. “A big one, right in the middle, skews Republican.”
Sam’s lips twitched, the X5’s humor getting to him in spite of everything. “Missouri was someone I knew,” he clarified. “But I imagine she’s long gone, just like the family that lived here last time I was in town.”
“Looks pretty deserted to me,” Alec said, checking out the blank facade of the two-story clapboard house with the dead tree in front. “Can we go now? Radiation immunity or not, this place is makin’ me itch.”
“We can go,” Sam said, turning around on the sidewalk and heading for the motorcycles. “I’m done here.”
“Good,” Alec said, checking his cell phone. “’Cause I don’t have any reception here and Max is gonna wonder where the hell we’ve gone. Next thing you know she’ll be on her way here to rescue my ass.”
“Wouldn’t want that now would we,” Sam said quietly. But there was no humor in his remark, nor in his eyes. He was obviously sad beyond words, his beloved brother dead and lost to him forever not to mention his entire world. Alec didn’t really know how to comfort the kid, nor was he sure he should even try. This was a road Sam had to walk alone for now, just like he, himself, had walked the road solo from Manticore all of his life.
Alec had actually mounted his bike and was about to start the engine when he caught sight of movement at the window of the house. “Sam,” he said sharply. Then he nodded toward the front porch where the door was swinging open.
An elderly man stood framed against the darkness: tall, broad shouldered, bearded, only slightly stooped, and with eyes as haunted as any the X5 had ever seen.
“Dad!” Sam exclaimed.
*****
For a very long moment, John Winchester simply stood still, staring at the apparitions on the front porch of his home -- ghosts of the two sons he’d lost over 20 years before. And then in a move seemingly too swift for someone of his advanced age, he dove to one side of the door and came up with a sawed off shotgun that he cocked and aimed in a smooth motion that spoke of a lifetime of practice. “Not again,” he muttered under his alcohol laden breath. “Fuck you all to hell not again!”
“Dad!” Sam yelled even as Alec went into motion. John Winchester was an ex-Marine and as crafty and physically fit as anyone could be at his age. However, he was no match for a supersoldier. Blurring faster than either human could see, the X5 grabbed hold of the man’s gun arm and wrenched the weapon free, coming up with the shotgun in his own hand, his other hand patting the air to try and calm the enraged man as he backed away. “Easy,” Alec drawled. “We’re not gonna hurt you.” He glanced over at Sam then, hazel-green eyes questioning.
John was breathing harshly now, his dark eyes filled with fury. “You’ve already taken everything from me,” he growled. “Mary ... my sons ... my life ... What do you want now?”
“Dad,” Sam said gently. “It’s really me. Sam. I’m not dead.”
John laughed, the chuckle harsh and gurgly. “Sammy would be over forty years old now,” he said. He looked at Alec. “And Dean would be pushing fifty. You’re hardly that, whatever you are.”
“I can explain,” Sam said. “Dad, back in Los Angeles, in 2006 ... Dean and I went after a cult that was using the black arts for power. Things went wrong. Dean was ...” He swallowed hard and licked his lips, then looked quickly to Alec. “Dean was killed. I tried to ... to fix it, and I ended up in the future. That’s why I’m here now, like this. It was a mistake. And I’m trying to go back so I can save my brother. I thought coming here would help me.” He shrugged, his blue-green eyes fixed on his father’s boldly. “I still think it will.”
John Winchester had listened to Sam without comment, but his eyes were shrewdly regarding Alec.
“I’m not him,” the X5 quickly said. “Sam’s ... Sam. But I’m not Dean. I’m someone else. The spell Sam used brought him to me by mistake.”
“You look just like him,” John commented, his fingers opening and closing as if he were contemplating making a grab for the shotgun the X5 was still holding.
“It's complicated,” Alec said, realizing that was an understatement of phenomenal proportions. “Dean ... your oldest son ... is dead. Sam hasn’t fixed that yet. But I’m a ... a relative ... and I’ve been helping him.”
“A relative?” John said, black eyebrows rising. “Don’t you mean a doppelganger, or perhaps a shapeshifter?”
“A twin, Dad,” Sam said. “Alec is Dean’s twin brother that you never knew about. He was born in 1999 ... part of the military’s supersoldier program. They kept one of the embryos, Dad, when you and Mom were seeing the fertility doctors back in ‘77. You had Dean, but they kept his identical twin brother for their experimental program. As for me ... I’m still Sam, only I’m twenty-one years in the future from where I should be.”
They waited, both watching John Winchester warily, Alec wondering if the man was crazy enough to accept any of this because only a crazy person would even contemplate that this could be truth and not total fiction. Finally, however, John Winchester stepped back and swung the door wider. “Come in,” he said heavily. “I still don’t believe a word you’re saying, but I’ve got to admit it’s the most interesting story I’ve heard in years and I don’t suppose it will hurt matters to hear you out.”
John Winchester was essentially dressed in rags, his work shirt and jeans ancient and threadbare, his shoes with holes in the toes, his socks mismatched. He coughed heavily before sitting down in a seat-sprung arm chair in the living room and indicated they should take a seat on the equally decrepit, filthy couch.
“You’re not Dean,” John repeated, seemingly wanting to be perfectly clear on that.
“No, sir,” Alec said, adding the “sir” because it just seemed the right thing to do. “I’m a soldier, created by a project called ‘Manticore’ to protect humans from the same cult Sam and Dean were investigating back in 2006.” An accurate and concise, if somewhat pretentious, definition of who he was the X5 figured.
“It’s called the ‘Breeding Cult,’ Dad,” Sam explained. They’ve been breeding among themselves for thousands of year’s with the help of black magic to create a superior race that will ultimately kill ordinary humans and take over the planet. Alec and his kind were made by the U.S. military and a Cult defector named Sandeman to try and stop them.” He looked at Alec. “It didn’t work. The Cult’s going to win in the long run -- at least in this timeline. But the Manticore soldiers are still around, some being used by the military, others -- like Alec -- living on their own and simply trying to survive.”
John was nodding. “I read about the Freaks in Seattle who staged a siege in ‘21.” His voice dropped, became more menacing, even as his eyes shifted to Alec. “They’re an affront to Nature,” he said. “Scientists tried to play God and ended up with abominations.”
“I’m not an abomination,” Alec said, sitting forward on the couch, arms resting on his knees and meeting John’s icy stare boldly as his voice took on an edge. “I’m no different from you and Sam, not really.”
“I saw the photographs of some of those mutants,” John spat. “You’re no son of mine ... not after what those scientists did to you, even if your birth right claim is true. He grinned, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. “You’re just an animal who thinks its human.”
“Dad!” Sam said sharply. “Stop it. Alec’s as much my brother as Dean was.”
Alec looked over at the younger man, surprised, but also grateful, not that he needed anyone to defend him. “I’m part feline,” Alec said, conceding to John’s description as his eyes collided unblinkingly with his father’s, the look in them every bit as steely as the other Winchester’s. “But I’m mostly human,” he hissed through tight teeth, “and mostly your son. I think that’s what ought to count in the long run. Oh, and most important of all,” he added, “I’m helping your other son ... my brother ... fix the mess that killed Dean back in 2006. But if that bothers you too much you can just call me X5-494 and be done with it.”
“Dad,” Sam said, steering the conversation back on track. “We know you claimed Dean’s body in 2006. Where did you bury him? I thought you’d have laid him to rest with Mom, but we’ve already been to the cemetery.”
John turned his attention to his younger son, his sneer just as sharp as it had been when putting the X5 in his place. “If you really are Sammy,” he said. “And if you really are here through some kind of mystical time travel. Tell me this. Why does it matter where Dean’s body is? He’s dead. He’s been dead for twenty years. And you’ve been missing. Do you have any idea how long I looked for you, Sammy? The years and miles as I scoured the country trying to at least find your body too? I captured Cult members ... tortured them ... but the bastards would never tell me what happened to you. Eventually it sank in that you were dead too. But here you are -- supposedly -- tellin’ me you used some kind of spell to try and go back and save your brother but it went wrong and you ended up twenty-one years in the future?” He laughed, shaking his head. “Pardon me, whoever you are, if I don’t believe you either.”
“Why don’t you believe me when I say I used a spell?” Sam said levelly, holding his father’s eyes with his own. He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and brought out the journal he’d shown Alec. “I used your book, Dad. It was a spell you had written down in here.”
For the second time John Winchester’s eyes grew round with amazement. “Where did you get that?” he whispered hoarsely, rising from the chair and snatching the book away from Sam. He thumbed through the pages, then he looked up sharply. “This is mine. My boys had it ... were using it ... But it disappeared when Sammy did.”
“When I disappeared, Dad,” Sam said quietly, emphasizing the “I.” “Isn’t this proof enough I am who I say I am?”
Alec could tell the man was close to conceding the point.
“Where’s Dean buried?” Sam asked again. “I think that if I can be with him ... with his remains ... when I try the spell again it might work and this whole mess will be fixed.
John glanced at Alec, obviously still cautious. However, he then sighed deeply and said, “My two boys were missing for weeks. I tried over and over again to contact them and when I couldn’t I began to backtrack where they’d been. Eventually, I followed their trail to Los Angeles and that Cult haven. I captured one of the members and, before I killed him, he told me that Dean was dead, but he didn’t know what had happened to Sam ... that he’d just disappeared. I didn’t believe him until--”
“Until what?” Alec prompted, leaning forward in his chair again, listening with rapt attention not just because he was interested in the story but because, like it or not, this was his family’s history unfolding.
“Until I began checking morgue records and discovered an unclaimed body that matched Dean’s description,” John said tiredly as he scrubbed hands back through his nearly white hair. “The body had been found thrown in a ditch along a back road about five miles from the Cult’s stronghold. It had been lying there for weeks.” He paused, and Sam closed his eyes against obvious anguish. “I had him cremated,” John said softly. “There was nothing else I could do.”
“How did you know it was Dean?” Sam asked, keeping his voice under control with difficulty.
John shrugged. “Eventually the results of the DNA test came back and I could be positive, but I knew before that.”
“How?” Alec repeated, well aware of the decomposed condition that body must have been in.
“These were recovered from the body,” John said, reaching into a shirt pocket and drawing out an amulet on a cord -- Egyptian from the looks of it -- and a wide silver ring. “Dean always wore these,” he added. “Always ...” He handed them to Sam who held them reverently.
“What did you do with the ashes?” Sam asked, and Alec held his breath, knowing that if John Winchester had scattered them somewhere the kid was screwed. He’d be stuck in this century forever and Dean Winchester ... his twin brother ... would indeed be dead.
John stood up and walked over to a small side table where he picked up a small square black box that looked to be made of some kind of stone. “He’s here,” he said simply, holding out the cremation urn. “I couldn’t bear to be parted from my son the way I was parted from Mary.”
“May I?” Sam asked, holding out both hands.
John Winchester put the remains of his oldest son, Dean, into the hands of his younger, then he and Alec watched as the tears finally did begin to fall, Sam reunited with his beloved brother at last.
*****
“If this works,” Sam said, “do you want me to find you?”
“And what?” Alec snarked. “Rescue a seven-year-old supersoldier-in-the-making from Manticore? Sam, you know as well as I do that would seriously mess up my own life.”
“Yeah,” Sam conceded. “I just thought ... I hate to think of what they did to you.”
“Hey,” Alec said lightly. “I survived. And who knows, maybe ‘cause I did it’ll mean humans can survive in the long run too. I am supposed to be your kind’s savior,” he added smugly.
“You also wouldn’t’ have Max,” Sam pointed out.
“Who’s Max?” John asked, suspicion tingeing his voice again.
“Your daughter-in-law,” Sam said.
“Hey,” Alec said quickly. “X5’s mate. We don’t marry.”
“I stand corrected,” Sam laughed. “But I still think she’d be a great sister-in-law. Tell her good-bye for me ... and also tell her thanks. Joshua too.”
“Josh--?” John started to say.
“Don’t ask,” Sam said. He then looked down at the spell in the book he was holding in one hand, and at the urn of Dean’s ashes he was holding in the other. “I’m going to need to be alone to do this,” he said quietly.
John and Alec left the house to stand in uncomfortable silence in the dusty front yard. “I look just like him?” Alec finally said.
“Carbon copy ... almost,” John replied, turning to look at the son he’d never known he’d had. “Was it bad? What they did to you?”
“Let’s just say there are hell’s I don’t think you’ve ever studied up on,” Alec said. “But I survived, thanks to a friend or two.”
“Dean was a survivor as well,” John said. “And stubborn as they come. Egotistical. Opinionated. Belligerent ...”
“Handsome?” Alec added with smirk.
“That too. And he damn well knew it. A real ladies’ man.” John beamed fondly, for just a moment the broken demeanor vanishing, replaced by a hint of the robust confident man he must have once been.
“Sounds like we had a lot in common,” Alec said. “Including a cause to fight for.” He nodded toward the house. “I’m talkin’ about Sam.”
“I know,” John said simply. Then he reached into his shirt pocket and brought out the talisman and the silver ring. “This I could never part with,” he said, looking fondly down at the amulet on the cord. “But this--” He handed the silver ring to Alec. “I want you to have. You ought to own something that was your twin brother’s, even if the two of you were born over twenty years apart. I think Dean would have wanted it ... for you to remember him by.”
Alec started to hand the ring back, on the verge of saying he couldn’t take it. But then he looked down at the silver piece of jewelry lying warm and shining in his hand and closed his fist around it. He’d never known Dean Winchester, but damn it, he sure wished he had. “Thank you ... Dad,” he said. He was about to say more when there was a sudden bright flash from inside the house and an odd feeling came over him -- not exactly dizziness or faintness but a sense that something in the universe had just shifted.
And when Alec looked back to see if his father had sensed it too, he saw that the man was gone, not as if he’d walked away, but gone in the sense that he’d simply vanished. In fact, it might all have been a dream or a delusion if it weren’t for the fact that Dean Winchester’s silver ring was clutched tightly in his hand.
For some reason, the X5 wasn’t surprised. Nor was he surprised that Sam was gone too. Sending a silent prayer skyward, X5-494 wished his father and brothers good luck, wherever they might now be. Then he put the silver band on the ring finger of his right hand (not at all surprised when it fit), twirled it once, smiled, and turned his thoughts to trying to figure out how on Earth he was going to get two motorcycles back to Canada.
