caranfindel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
caranfindel) wrote2018-09-25 08:32 pm
caranfindel) wrote2018-09-25 08:32 pm
Fic: These are the days of miracle and wonder (this is the long distance call) - 2/2
These are the days of miracle and wonder (this is the long distance call)
Continued from part 1
~~~
VII. Palo Alto, California. Sam Winchester is twenty-one years old.
The first thing Bennett learns about Sam is that his friends call him the witch doctor.
Jessica's girlfriends swear by his ginger chamomile tea for cramps. Everyone agrees that study sessions held in Sam and Jess's apartment, scented with a mixture of herbs and flowers, are more productive and lead to better results than study sessions held anywhere else. Anyone complaining of nightmares gets one of Sam's tiny thyme-filled linen bags to put under their pillow, bringing peaceful sleep. Whether you're suffering from a cold, or asthma, or stomach problems, Sam has some kind of tea, some weird flower to wear around your neck, some rhyme mumbled under his breath as he waves a burning stick over you, to make you all better.
Bennett doesn't believe in it. He's not one of those woo-woo California kids who are into that hippy dippy bullshit. He's from the Midwest, where people have common sense. So the night before the LSAT, when Sam gives everyone in his study group a sprig of hazel tied with red and gold thread, he shoves it in his jacket pocket and doesn't think about it.
And then he does well. Like, really, unexpectedly well. Not as good as Sam, the fucker, but better than his practice tests indicated he would do. And then he leaves his car on the street overnight and doesn't get a ticket, and he finds a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk, and his piece of shit computer stops crashing so often, and his asshole roommate gets a girlfriend and starts actually leaving the apartment occasionally... basically, things seem to be going his way for a while. Until he empties his jacket pockets and tosses that dried-up hazel sprig away, and then things go back to normal.
Well, then.
Brady assures him Sam Winchester is the real thing. And thinking about it, the dude's got a hot girlfriend who definitely could have done better, a full-ride scholarship, stupidly high scores in everything he does... maybe there is a little magic involved, after all. So the next time he's invited to a study session at Sam and Jessica's apartment, he's tempted.
Beckoning Sam into the tiny kitchen, he clears his throat, feeling ridiculously nervous. "Hey, ah. You do a lot of things, like, healing, and good luck, and stuff."
"Yeah?" Sam looks like the human version of a golden retriever, his entire face saying yes, I'd love to help you, so Bennett decides to go for it.
"You think you could whip me up a love potion?" he whispers. "For Jordan?" He quickly flicks his eyes at the gorgeous redhead curled into a corner of the couch; the girl who's been making him crazy since their sophomore year.
Sam's eyebrows slam down. "No. I don't do anything like that."
"Oh, yeah, right," Bennett laughs uneasily. "Like Jessica's into you because of your sparkling personality. Come on. Share a little bit of that magic."
Sam crosses his arms and honestly looks menacing as fuck, the earnest puppy-boy instantly transforming into something dangerous. "I don't do that kind of stuff. Not to Jess. Not to anybody. And why would you want it? If she's only interested in you because of some spell, that means she's not interested in you. Or are you just looking for some kind of magic roofies?"
"No, man, it's nothing like that," Bennett pleads. "I just need a little nudge. I've been stuck in the friend zone for years and I just need something to, you know, make her look at me like boyfriend material."
"Look," Sam sighs, "if you want her to look at you differently, you need to change you. Not her." He stomps back into the living room and plops down on the couch between Jordan and that out-of-his-league girlfriend of his. And sure, he's good-looking and tall and smart, but shit, Jessica Moore could have easily snagged a boyfriend who was all that and rich, so there's gotta be some funny business there.
Whatever it is, the guy isn't going to share. Fucking Sam Winchester, man.
~~~
VIII. Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Sam Winchester is twenty-three years old.
Dean stops the borrowed van and shuts off the ignition, but he doesn't move. Doesn't say anything. He's been silent ever since they left the hospital, but his silence weighs heavier right now. It's a physical presence, its weight bowing them both down, pressing against Sam until he can barely breathe. Dean stares at his hands, white-knuckled on the steering wheel, and doesn't look up when he finally speaks.
"Are you sure there's nothing you can do?"
"Do?" Sam asks, confused. "What do you mean?"
"You know." Dean makes a tiny abortive movement with his head, an almost-gesture toward the back of the van. John Winchester, once larger than life, all that fight and fury now wrapped up in an impossibly small and still body bag.
"About Dad? You're asking me what I can do about Dad?"
Dean doesn't answer, which is an answer in itself.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Dean!" Sam explodes. "All those years you spent warning me not to go dark, not to use witchcraft for anything shady, and now you're asking me if I can raise him from the dead? You think maybe I was dabbling in fucking necromancy while I was at Stanford? You really think that if I had the ability to resurrect Dad, I would have taken a pass on bringing Jessica back?"
Dean's still staring at his hands and Sam wants to punch him, wants to smash his own hand through the windshield just to feel something other than what he feels right now. Instead, he puts his face in his hands and tries to center himself, to clear his mind. He doesn't know any spell, any ritual, any talisman or balm to cure him of being so angry and hurt and bereft and lost, but eventually he feels like he can speak to Dean without screaming at him.
"Why would you even think of that? Why would you go there?"
Finally Dean looks up at him with red-rimmed eyes. "I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I had to ask."
Sam's witchcraft is white and harmless and puny and utterly useless, and that night he watches his father burn and wonders if he would have been proud or disappointed in him for that.
~~~
IX. Pontiac, Illinois. Sam Winchester is twenty-five years old.
Ruby sits next to Sam. (Close, but not too close, a carefully calculated distance.) "I know what you're thinking," she says. (Sincere. Caring.) "You think if you get strong enough at witchcraft, you can get Dean out of Hell. But Hell's full of witches, Sam. I was a damn good witch. If there was a way to magic myself out of Hell, don't you think I would have done it? Don't you think I would have helped you break Dean's contract, if it could have been done by witchcraft?"
She puts her hand on his knee. (Affectionate. Not sexual. He's not there yet. He's lonely and scared and probably touch-starved, torn apart by grief and guilt, and he's almost exactly where she wants him to be. All she has to do is get rid of his last life raft.)
He glares at her, but doesn't pull away.
"There might be something, though. If it doesn't get Dean out, it will at least let you get vengeance on Lilith. You'll need to put the witchcraft aside. It's something that doesn't mix well. But I think you'll appreciate it, in the long run."
He takes a deep shuddering breath and runs a hand down his face. "Okay," he says bleakly. "Okay. What do I need to do?"
(Ah. There. She has to suppress her relief and mimic sympathy instead. Everything is falling into place.)
~~~
X. Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Sam Winchester is twenty-eight years old. Give or take a few hundred years.
Lucifer shows up after Sam's wall is brought down and he doesn't go away. Sam's brain eventually accepts that it's only a hallucination, not the actual Devil, but that just means it's part of Sam. It doesn't make it any better. He needs to get it out.
He performs the same cleansing ritual Barbara O'Malley did long ago, passing an egg over his body, willing the psychic debris of Hell to be absorbed by the egg. He carefully cracks it into a small bowl, watching for a spot of blood that indicates he needs more purification. But instead of a dribble of yolk and white, he's met with a rush of blood. Pints and pints of dark, thick blood, oozing out of the eggshell, overfilling the bowl, oh god, spilling over Bobby's kitchen counter, coating his fingers, dripping onto his boots. He drops the shell in horror and backs away until he hits the opposite counter, and even then he presses his back against it, no, no, no, trying to go further, feet scrabbling and slipping in the pools of blood on the floor, vision going dark.
Then he blinks and the blood is gone. The bowl on the counter holds only an egg yolk, floating pristine in a sea of egg white.
"Sam? You okay?" Sam jumps at the sound of Dean's voice. He doesn't know how long his brother has been standing in the doorway, but judging by the look on his face, long enough.
"Yeah," he answers, rubbing a trembling hand down his face. "I'm good."
Dean motions to the bowl on the counter. "You hungry? I can make you some eggs."
A wave of nausea rolls through him at the thought of eating. "No. Thanks. I'm good."
(In the corner, Lucifer laughs. You're not even close to good, Sam.)
. . .
Later, Sam slips out from under Bobby and Dean's watchful eyes and goes out to the garage. He draws his elements from a worn leather pouch - a stone, a feather, a tea candle, a sea shell - and uses them to cast a protective circle. He stands inside the circle and tries to clear his head. What used to come easily to him is now almost impossible, but eventually he stops seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, stops hearing sounds that shouldn't be happening in Bobby's garage, and he sets up a stronger purification ritual. Sam places three candles inside the circle, surrounding them with bay leaves, acacia, and sandalwood, and lights the first. But as he begins the incantation, the candle's flame erupts, stretching almost to the ceiling. It twists and curls to form Lucifer's face, his true face, in all its unspeakable, unforgettable horror. Sam falls outside of the circle, screaming in terror at the fiery nightmare above him.
Then Dean is there somehow, yanking him away from the circle, wrapping himself around Sam and saying "it's okay, it's okay" as Sam screams and screams, because it's not okay, it's never going to be okay again. When Sam forces himself to look up, the flame is just a flame, not a horrific face, not a monster, just a huge geyser of flame erupting from one small candle. Bobby's using the fire extinguisher on it, and Sam doesn't know whether to be horrified or relieved that at least the fire itself was real, not a hallucination.
"Dude," Dean pants. "I don't know what you were trying to do there, but I think maybe you shouldn't."
Sam doesn't attempt any magic again for a very long time.
~~~
XI. Emerson, Manitoba. Sam Winchester is thirty-four years old.
Asa Fox kept a garden at his mother's house, and while some of it was obviously intended for cooking, Max notices wormwood, meadowsweet, and other plants he's been using in spellwork since he was old enough to form the words correctly. He's gathering herbs to add to the pyre when he hears Sam Winchester's voice behind him.
"So, you do actually use your skills for something other than seducing men."
Max turns and gives him his best slow, sultry smile. It's probably not going to get him anywhere, but a guy's gotta try. "Well, you're still wearing pants, so I guess my seduction skills are on the fritz."
Sam ducks his head and grins shyly at his boots and fuck, he may be six and a half feet of pure muscle, but that shy little boy thing is a good look on him. A damn good look. "That's probably for the best," Sam says. "I'm too old for you anyway."
"Ah, you don't know, man. I'm an old soul."
The smile fades. "Yeah, well. Same here. And it's not just the years. It's the mileage. My soul's been..."
"Rode hard and put up wet?"
"That's one way of putting it," Sam says, with a bitter little laugh. He examines the bundle of herbs in Max's hand. "You got anything particular in mind? I noticed some angelica down at the end of this row. Thought I'd get a little."
"You're a practitioner?" Max is kind of surprised. Most hunters are anti-witchcraft, after all. But also, kind of not surprised, because you just get a feeling about people.
Sam shrugs. "Not so much. Not any more, at least. Ever since Hell. I can do really basic stuff - amulets, protective spells, a little healing. Anything complicated tends to go wonky."
"I'm sorry, man. That's a loss." The words are insufficient. Losing his own ability to do witchcraft would be like losing a limb. He can't imagine what Sam feels.
But Sam just shrugs again. "Coulda been worse. Coulda been a lot worse." He motions toward the other end of the garden with a tilt of his head. "I'll go get that angelica and see if I find anything else that looks useful."
Then's he's walking away and, well. That's a loss too.
~~~
XII. Lebanon, Kansas. Sam Winchester is thirty-five years old.
Rowena doesn't know what time it is, but she does know it's too early for anybody to be calling her. Even Sam Winchester. "Samuel," she groans. "I told you, a girl needs her beauty sleep."
Sam's voice is calm and soft. "Rowena. Lucifer's dead."
Dead. Lucifer is dead. Her heart lurches; her whole body goes numb. There's a strange buzzing in her ear, and after a few moments, she realizes she's standing beside her bed, and the buzzing is Sam's voice.
"Rowena? Are you there? Are you okay?"
She takes a deep breath. "Are you sure, Sam?"
"I'm sure. I'm very, very sure."
"Oh, gods and goddesses." She collapses onto the bed again and lets the relief wash over her. "How did you do it?"
"It was Dean. He let Michael use him as a vessel, and he was able to kill Lucifer. But now." He's less calm. His voice breaks. "Now Michael won't release him. Please, Rowena. I need your help to get him back."
Rowena doesn't want to care about the tragic, heroic end of Dean Winchester. The life of one mortal man seems a small price to pay, considering. But there is the long-term problem of the archangel Michael being determined to take over this world. And the more immediate problem of Sam Winchester's voice breaking as he begs for help, which is rather difficult to resist.
"I'm on my way."
. . .
By the time she arrives, dragging her oversized bag down the bunker's staircase, she has a plan. Sam meets her halfway up and takes the bag, grunting in surprise at its weight. Below him, the other residents of the bunker - his mother, the older fellow from beyond the rift, the angel, and the nephilim boy - stare up at her in silence. "You two will have to go," she says, gesturing to the angel and the nephilim.
"Hello to you, too," says the grumpy older fellow. Bobby? Yes, Bobby.
She ignores him. "We'll be using some pretty powerful magic. Anything that has angel grace should take a long, long walk."
The angel reluctantly nods in agreement, but the nephilim boy looks up at Sam with a hurt expression. "I don't like her. And most of my grace is gone."
"Most, not all," Sam says, putting a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, Jack. I trust her."
The boy clearly doesn't, but he doesn't put up an argument, trailing behind the angel with a worried glance thrown over his shoulder as they climb up and out of the bunker.
"All right," she says, "Where is the most secure place in the bunker?"
"Um. We've got a dungeon?"
Och, these Men of Letters. So self-righteous. So suspicious of everything they can't control or understand. "Of course you do. Take me to your dungeon, Samuel."
. . .
They need blood for the sigils. More than she has in her bag. Sam offers his own, but she shakes her head. "We'll be using plenty of your blood later."
"Oh, that's not ominous at all," Bobby mutters. Luckily, he's willing to bleed for the cause. Sam drains him of a pint of blood, takes another pint from his mother, and then orders them to sit in the kitchen and drink some juice and stay away until they're called. They protest, of course. "I'm as much a part of this as you are," Bobby says. "Michael killed my friends. My family."
Rowena raises an eyebrow at him. "And there's a good chance you'll be added to that list if you're here when he shows up. Upstairs with you." Sam gives him a pleading look and Mary takes his arm and he finally makes his retreat, vowing to come back if "something funny happens."
Whatever does happen, Rowena is sure it's not going to be funny at all.
She sketches out the necessary sigils on a sheet of paper and she and Sam go to work. Some of them are unfamiliar to him, and he paints them slowly and painstakingly, but others are obviously part of his regular repertoire and his strokes are quick and confident. It takes over an hour to finish. When they're done, the room is practically vibrating with power; she feels it from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Sam looks uncomfortable enough that she's sure he can feel it as well. But he just wipes his hands on his jeans and says "okay, what's next?"
She clears off a table and begins the spells proper. As she chalks out her first circle, she casually says "you should know, you'll be the one doing the spell, not me."
"Me?" His voice almost cracks.
"You."
"But I don't -"
"Look, Sam. I'm neither stupid nor blind. You've obviously got some powers hidden under all that plaid, even if you don't realize it yourself." She waves a hand dismissively over his unfortunate outfit. "We've just got to coax it out of you."
"No, it's not that." He looks away, but not before she reads the pain and shame on his face. "I used to do magic. Not much, nothing compared to you. But ever since... Since Lucifer. Since Hell. My magic is... I don't know... Broken. I've mostly put it away."
Oh, so he's actually dabbled in witchcraft? And all this time she supposed he was either unaware of his innate ability, or suppressing it because he's a hunter. This might be easier than she'd feared. "Don't worry, dear," she says reassuringly. "I can fix that, when the time comes." His brow remains furrowed, but she ignores it as she places a wooden bowl in the center of her circle and inscribes sigils around it. As she works, Sam watches intently, noting each ingredient. He doesn't look at the book. If he recognizes that she's working from the Black Grimoire, he doesn't mention it. He does, finally, speak.
"Rowena," he says tentatively, "this is... this is a love spell."
Ah, so he does know a bit about spellwork. This is going to be interesting.
"Exactly."
"But how is that going to help? Are you hoping to seduce Michael or something?"
"Oh, Samuel," she laughs. Sweet naive boy. "Do you think romantic love is the only love there is? Love is love, darling. The spell is going to use your love for your brother to bind him to you, and then we'll use the angel banishing spell to send the angel away. With any luck, Michael is cast far from here, but Dean stays in your dungeon. And that's why you have to be the one to cast the spell."
She suppresses a laugh at his confused expression. "It runs on love. I may appreciate your brother's company occasionally, but I certainly can't say I love him."
He still has an unsettled frown. "Don't worry, dear." She smiles up at him. "I have faith in you." He obviously has none in himself, and he continues to watch her with a troubled face as she scribes another circle and assembles the archangel summoning in a large, engraved brass bowl.
Once she has combined almost all of the ingredients, she takes a smaller brass bowl and her silver dagger out of her bag. "Time to bleed," she says cheerfully. "But remove that plaid monstrosity first." He gives her a puzzled look, but obeys, stripping down to a worn grey t-shirt.
"Your arm, please." He holds out his left arm and barely winces as she makes a quick slash across his forearm, placing the bowl underneath to collect the blood that wells out. She divides the contents between the two larger bowls, mixing each. "And now the other side." He obediently holds out his right arm and she slashes it as well, collecting more blood in the small bowl.
"All right. Remove the t-shirt." He raises an eyebrow. "Trust me, Samuel. It's for business, not pleasure." He complies, and she dips a finger into the bowl of blood and begins marking on his skin, sigils of protection, power, and binding, up one arm and down the other, and as her finger raises goosebumps on his firm body, she has to admit that it's actually not too far from pleasurable after all.
He looks away as she works, clears his throat a couple of times, and finally speaks. "Rowena, I'm sorry I tried to shoot you."
"As well you should be." She doesn't meet his eyes, but continues her work.
"I didn't want to. I just felt like I had to."
She moves to his back. "Well. It's your fate, isn't it?" He doesn't answer, but she feels his muscles tense under her fingertip. "No matter, dear. You were willing to kill me, but you were also willing to save me. I haven't forgotten that you gave me the page from the Black Grimoire. And anyway, I was willing to kill you too, so, I suppose we're even."
"It doesn't have to be that way. I've changed my fate before. I can do it again."
She touches his arm with her blood-free hand, rotating him to face her. "Of course you can," she says lightly, drawing the angel banishing sigil on his chest. "People defy fate every day." She doesn't mean it. She's quite sure that if anyone kills her, it will be Sam Winchester. And accepting her destiny is oddly freeing.
"All right." She stands at arm's length from him, examining her work. Perfection. She dries the painted blood with a wave of her hand and then helps him slip the awful plaid shirt back on, leaving it unbuttoned but covering the sigils, to prevent Michael from seeing what they're up to.
"Now, Samuel, have a seat, and we'll work on fixing that so-called broken magic of yours."
He lowers himself into a chair and looks up at her with a flash of fear in his eyes, and she can't blame him. The last time he was in this position, she was preparing to kill him. "Don't worry, dear," she murmurs. She pushes her hands into his hair, placing her palms flat against his head. "This won't hurt a bit."
She eases into her spiritual state and tries to slip inside, but he's too guarded. You need to let me in, Sam she says, her spirit speaking to his, and there's a hesitation, an exhaled breath, and then she's inside, and oh. Oh.
He is a wonder. He is the vast Kansas plains, golden heads of wheat brushing against her outstretched hands, he is sunflowers against a blue summer sky, he is a towering thunderstorm rolling in from the west, crackling with power, the smell of ozone and rain, he is Lebanon, the center, he is the unexamined catacombs of the bunker itself, strong and deep, filled with the sacred and the profane. And behind that, under it, inside it somewhere, is his lurking power.
She goes deeper. She feels a young boy's terror, feels the grown man's fierce and undying love and loyalty, skitters along the edge of incomprehensible agony left over from Hell.
Deeper still, and she finds his power, massive but hobbled, huddled under a shroud-like layer of guilt and fear. So much fear. Fear of doing wrong, of hurting others, of being rejected or hunted for his talents. Fear of horrors he endured that cannot be forgotten. His power is bound by his own inhibitions as securely as the Grand Coven bound her own power.
She reaches out, curls tendrils of her power around his, and gasps at its shocking depth and intensity even as it recoils from her. Do not be afraid, dear boy, she says. You can do no wrong. She draws the fear aside, binding it with her power, and suddenly all that he is shines as brightly as the sun in the endless Kansas sky, unbelievably deep and wide and strong, stronger than she had ever imagined, and in a heartbeat she sees the potential. If his inchoate, bound power is this immense, what could he accomplish if it were released and allowed to flourish? Nothing could stop him. And then she knows; she sees the opportunity and she knows what she has to do.
Samuel, she says. Sam. I think if I combine our powers, you can do more than send Michael away from the bunker. I think you can send him back to his own world. Perhaps even destroy him. Will you let me?
Yes, he answers, without hesitation. Without question. She had half-hoped he would refuse, or at least ask what that entailed. Ah, well.
She weaves their powers together, twisting hers around his. Strengthening and reinforcing. Stubbornly ignoring her own doubt and fear, the pain in her heart, because if this is what it takes, this is what it takes. As she works on the spiritual plane, she sends her body to work in the physical plane, bookmarking the spells he will need in the Black Grimoire.
Finally she's ready. No, she'll never be ready. But it's time.
Sam, dear, there's one last thing you must do. You must separate my magic from me.
How do I do that?
My silver dagger. Right in my heart.
His reaction is just as she knew it would be. Shock, horror, dismay, a sick wave of guilt. No.
Sam. This is the best way. And if this is to be my fate, let it mean something. Let us do something truly outstanding together, you and I. Fergus isn't the only one who can make a sacrifice. And neither are you.
But he still hesitates, so she reaches in and gives him a push. On the spiritual side, she feels him quake with grief. On the physical side, she feels his broad hand pressed against her back, holding her upright as he plunges the blade into her chest, splitting her open. There's a second of intense pain, a flash of loss and regret. And then she feels nothing.
~~~
XIII. Lebanon, Kansas. Sam Winchester is as old as the Earth itself.
Sam feels Rowena's magic bloom inside him, unleashing his own.
He remembers Gabriel saying her location spell tasted like haggis, and he laughs, because he can taste it on the back of his tongue, haggis and whiskey and peat smoke, tatties and neeps, can feel the prickle of thistle and the cold brine of the North Sea, and flickering behind his eyelids he sees the low ancient mountains crowned with heather and gorse, the green valleys, the grey clouds coming down to meet the sea. He feels her in his bones, thrumming through his veins, fierce and furious, feels her strength and determination, her all-encompassing power enhancing his. He summons magic from the air around him, from the bedrock under the bunker and the grass and trees above it, from the brilliant blue sky wheeling overhead, from the flotsam and jetsam collected by the Men of Letters that surrounds him, feels it coursing through him, and he knows he cannot fail.
He finds the white satin ribbon that marks the first spell, the archangel summoning. As his lips form the almost-familiar words, power flows around him, through him. He tosses a lit match into the brass bowl. There's a bright flash of light and a whiff of ozone and then, oh god, Dean is there, Dean is standing before him, and he wants to collapse in relief at the sight of his brother, but he's not done, and he has so little time to work.
Dean - no, Michael - narrows his eyes as he spins slowly in place, examining the warding around him.
"You're a fool, boy," he says, making Dean's voice flat and emotionless. "This won't hold me long."
It's not supposed to. Sam quickly moves on to the spell marked with a blue ribbon, the binding spell, dropping a lit match into the wooden bowl and reciting the words. Again he feels the power flowing through him, and then the magnetic tug between him and the heart and soul that lie beneath Michael's sneer.
Finally he slices his palm open with Rowena's bloodstained silver dagger, opens his shirt, and slaps the mixture of her blood and his own onto the sigil painted on his chest. It burns cold, like Lucifer's grace, burns all the way through him, and he screams as the dungeon erupts in light, as the tugging sensation magnifies until it feels like his heart is being ripped from his chest, as every lightbulb in the room explodes, spraying a shower of glass over him.
Then it's done. In the dark, over his own heaving breaths, he hears his brother's voice.
"Sammy?"
Sam pulls his phone from his pocket and holds it in front of him with a trembling hand. Dean - clearly Dean - is on his knees in front of him, blinking up at him in the phone's weak blue light. "Sammy?" he says again. "You good?"
Sam sinks to his knees and wraps his arms around his brother. The dungeon smells like ozone and blood and the burned remains of Rowena's spellwork, but Dean just smells like Dean, and Sam breathes him in. "Yeah. I'm good."
~~~
Epilogue
Dean's been asleep for an hour before Sam is finally comfortable abandoning the chair at his bedside. He feels that magnetic pull again, somewhere in the center of his chest, as soon as he closes the door behind him. He breaks the binding spell with a swift hand gesture. Now that an archangel is no longer trying to keep them apart, they don't need any kind of magic to bind them together. He pads softly downstairs to the dungeon, picking up a lantern and a box of light bulbs on the way.
The lantern reveals Rowena's body lying peacefully on the cot against the wall. It feels wrong, her normally lively form so cold and still. Sam had half expected her to be sitting up, laughing at him, have you forgotten about my resurrection charm, Moose, but either she never had time to redo it after Lucifer burned her, or it relied on her now-displaced magic.
"Doesn't matter," he tells her conversationally. He carefully removes the shattered light bulbs and replaces them with new ones, because he needs light for what he's about to do. "I may be the one who has to kill you, but that doesn't mean I have to let you stay dead."
Once the room is sufficiently lit, he turns to the Black Grimoire. There's one more bookmark; a red satin ribbon. He turns to the marked page and laughs. "But I guess you knew that, didn't you?" he says, as he reads the spell Rowena left for him - a spell of resurrection.
It's dark. Powerful. In the wrong hands, it would be dangerous. It's exactly the type of magic he's avoided all his life. But as he studies it, he knows he is the right hands, and he can't wait.
Continued from part 1
~~~
VII. Palo Alto, California. Sam Winchester is twenty-one years old.
The first thing Bennett learns about Sam is that his friends call him the witch doctor.
Jessica's girlfriends swear by his ginger chamomile tea for cramps. Everyone agrees that study sessions held in Sam and Jess's apartment, scented with a mixture of herbs and flowers, are more productive and lead to better results than study sessions held anywhere else. Anyone complaining of nightmares gets one of Sam's tiny thyme-filled linen bags to put under their pillow, bringing peaceful sleep. Whether you're suffering from a cold, or asthma, or stomach problems, Sam has some kind of tea, some weird flower to wear around your neck, some rhyme mumbled under his breath as he waves a burning stick over you, to make you all better.
Bennett doesn't believe in it. He's not one of those woo-woo California kids who are into that hippy dippy bullshit. He's from the Midwest, where people have common sense. So the night before the LSAT, when Sam gives everyone in his study group a sprig of hazel tied with red and gold thread, he shoves it in his jacket pocket and doesn't think about it.
And then he does well. Like, really, unexpectedly well. Not as good as Sam, the fucker, but better than his practice tests indicated he would do. And then he leaves his car on the street overnight and doesn't get a ticket, and he finds a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk, and his piece of shit computer stops crashing so often, and his asshole roommate gets a girlfriend and starts actually leaving the apartment occasionally... basically, things seem to be going his way for a while. Until he empties his jacket pockets and tosses that dried-up hazel sprig away, and then things go back to normal.
Well, then.
Brady assures him Sam Winchester is the real thing. And thinking about it, the dude's got a hot girlfriend who definitely could have done better, a full-ride scholarship, stupidly high scores in everything he does... maybe there is a little magic involved, after all. So the next time he's invited to a study session at Sam and Jessica's apartment, he's tempted.
Beckoning Sam into the tiny kitchen, he clears his throat, feeling ridiculously nervous. "Hey, ah. You do a lot of things, like, healing, and good luck, and stuff."
"Yeah?" Sam looks like the human version of a golden retriever, his entire face saying yes, I'd love to help you, so Bennett decides to go for it.
"You think you could whip me up a love potion?" he whispers. "For Jordan?" He quickly flicks his eyes at the gorgeous redhead curled into a corner of the couch; the girl who's been making him crazy since their sophomore year.
Sam's eyebrows slam down. "No. I don't do anything like that."
"Oh, yeah, right," Bennett laughs uneasily. "Like Jessica's into you because of your sparkling personality. Come on. Share a little bit of that magic."
Sam crosses his arms and honestly looks menacing as fuck, the earnest puppy-boy instantly transforming into something dangerous. "I don't do that kind of stuff. Not to Jess. Not to anybody. And why would you want it? If she's only interested in you because of some spell, that means she's not interested in you. Or are you just looking for some kind of magic roofies?"
"No, man, it's nothing like that," Bennett pleads. "I just need a little nudge. I've been stuck in the friend zone for years and I just need something to, you know, make her look at me like boyfriend material."
"Look," Sam sighs, "if you want her to look at you differently, you need to change you. Not her." He stomps back into the living room and plops down on the couch between Jordan and that out-of-his-league girlfriend of his. And sure, he's good-looking and tall and smart, but shit, Jessica Moore could have easily snagged a boyfriend who was all that and rich, so there's gotta be some funny business there.
Whatever it is, the guy isn't going to share. Fucking Sam Winchester, man.
~~~
VIII. Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Sam Winchester is twenty-three years old.
Dean stops the borrowed van and shuts off the ignition, but he doesn't move. Doesn't say anything. He's been silent ever since they left the hospital, but his silence weighs heavier right now. It's a physical presence, its weight bowing them both down, pressing against Sam until he can barely breathe. Dean stares at his hands, white-knuckled on the steering wheel, and doesn't look up when he finally speaks.
"Are you sure there's nothing you can do?"
"Do?" Sam asks, confused. "What do you mean?"
"You know." Dean makes a tiny abortive movement with his head, an almost-gesture toward the back of the van. John Winchester, once larger than life, all that fight and fury now wrapped up in an impossibly small and still body bag.
"About Dad? You're asking me what I can do about Dad?"
Dean doesn't answer, which is an answer in itself.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Dean!" Sam explodes. "All those years you spent warning me not to go dark, not to use witchcraft for anything shady, and now you're asking me if I can raise him from the dead? You think maybe I was dabbling in fucking necromancy while I was at Stanford? You really think that if I had the ability to resurrect Dad, I would have taken a pass on bringing Jessica back?"
Dean's still staring at his hands and Sam wants to punch him, wants to smash his own hand through the windshield just to feel something other than what he feels right now. Instead, he puts his face in his hands and tries to center himself, to clear his mind. He doesn't know any spell, any ritual, any talisman or balm to cure him of being so angry and hurt and bereft and lost, but eventually he feels like he can speak to Dean without screaming at him.
"Why would you even think of that? Why would you go there?"
Finally Dean looks up at him with red-rimmed eyes. "I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I had to ask."
Sam's witchcraft is white and harmless and puny and utterly useless, and that night he watches his father burn and wonders if he would have been proud or disappointed in him for that.
~~~
IX. Pontiac, Illinois. Sam Winchester is twenty-five years old.
Ruby sits next to Sam. (Close, but not too close, a carefully calculated distance.) "I know what you're thinking," she says. (Sincere. Caring.) "You think if you get strong enough at witchcraft, you can get Dean out of Hell. But Hell's full of witches, Sam. I was a damn good witch. If there was a way to magic myself out of Hell, don't you think I would have done it? Don't you think I would have helped you break Dean's contract, if it could have been done by witchcraft?"
She puts her hand on his knee. (Affectionate. Not sexual. He's not there yet. He's lonely and scared and probably touch-starved, torn apart by grief and guilt, and he's almost exactly where she wants him to be. All she has to do is get rid of his last life raft.)
He glares at her, but doesn't pull away.
"There might be something, though. If it doesn't get Dean out, it will at least let you get vengeance on Lilith. You'll need to put the witchcraft aside. It's something that doesn't mix well. But I think you'll appreciate it, in the long run."
He takes a deep shuddering breath and runs a hand down his face. "Okay," he says bleakly. "Okay. What do I need to do?"
(Ah. There. She has to suppress her relief and mimic sympathy instead. Everything is falling into place.)
~~~
X. Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Sam Winchester is twenty-eight years old. Give or take a few hundred years.
Lucifer shows up after Sam's wall is brought down and he doesn't go away. Sam's brain eventually accepts that it's only a hallucination, not the actual Devil, but that just means it's part of Sam. It doesn't make it any better. He needs to get it out.
He performs the same cleansing ritual Barbara O'Malley did long ago, passing an egg over his body, willing the psychic debris of Hell to be absorbed by the egg. He carefully cracks it into a small bowl, watching for a spot of blood that indicates he needs more purification. But instead of a dribble of yolk and white, he's met with a rush of blood. Pints and pints of dark, thick blood, oozing out of the eggshell, overfilling the bowl, oh god, spilling over Bobby's kitchen counter, coating his fingers, dripping onto his boots. He drops the shell in horror and backs away until he hits the opposite counter, and even then he presses his back against it, no, no, no, trying to go further, feet scrabbling and slipping in the pools of blood on the floor, vision going dark.
Then he blinks and the blood is gone. The bowl on the counter holds only an egg yolk, floating pristine in a sea of egg white.
"Sam? You okay?" Sam jumps at the sound of Dean's voice. He doesn't know how long his brother has been standing in the doorway, but judging by the look on his face, long enough.
"Yeah," he answers, rubbing a trembling hand down his face. "I'm good."
Dean motions to the bowl on the counter. "You hungry? I can make you some eggs."
A wave of nausea rolls through him at the thought of eating. "No. Thanks. I'm good."
(In the corner, Lucifer laughs. You're not even close to good, Sam.)
. . .
Later, Sam slips out from under Bobby and Dean's watchful eyes and goes out to the garage. He draws his elements from a worn leather pouch - a stone, a feather, a tea candle, a sea shell - and uses them to cast a protective circle. He stands inside the circle and tries to clear his head. What used to come easily to him is now almost impossible, but eventually he stops seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, stops hearing sounds that shouldn't be happening in Bobby's garage, and he sets up a stronger purification ritual. Sam places three candles inside the circle, surrounding them with bay leaves, acacia, and sandalwood, and lights the first. But as he begins the incantation, the candle's flame erupts, stretching almost to the ceiling. It twists and curls to form Lucifer's face, his true face, in all its unspeakable, unforgettable horror. Sam falls outside of the circle, screaming in terror at the fiery nightmare above him.
Then Dean is there somehow, yanking him away from the circle, wrapping himself around Sam and saying "it's okay, it's okay" as Sam screams and screams, because it's not okay, it's never going to be okay again. When Sam forces himself to look up, the flame is just a flame, not a horrific face, not a monster, just a huge geyser of flame erupting from one small candle. Bobby's using the fire extinguisher on it, and Sam doesn't know whether to be horrified or relieved that at least the fire itself was real, not a hallucination.
"Dude," Dean pants. "I don't know what you were trying to do there, but I think maybe you shouldn't."
Sam doesn't attempt any magic again for a very long time.
~~~
XI. Emerson, Manitoba. Sam Winchester is thirty-four years old.
Asa Fox kept a garden at his mother's house, and while some of it was obviously intended for cooking, Max notices wormwood, meadowsweet, and other plants he's been using in spellwork since he was old enough to form the words correctly. He's gathering herbs to add to the pyre when he hears Sam Winchester's voice behind him.
"So, you do actually use your skills for something other than seducing men."
Max turns and gives him his best slow, sultry smile. It's probably not going to get him anywhere, but a guy's gotta try. "Well, you're still wearing pants, so I guess my seduction skills are on the fritz."
Sam ducks his head and grins shyly at his boots and fuck, he may be six and a half feet of pure muscle, but that shy little boy thing is a good look on him. A damn good look. "That's probably for the best," Sam says. "I'm too old for you anyway."
"Ah, you don't know, man. I'm an old soul."
The smile fades. "Yeah, well. Same here. And it's not just the years. It's the mileage. My soul's been..."
"Rode hard and put up wet?"
"That's one way of putting it," Sam says, with a bitter little laugh. He examines the bundle of herbs in Max's hand. "You got anything particular in mind? I noticed some angelica down at the end of this row. Thought I'd get a little."
"You're a practitioner?" Max is kind of surprised. Most hunters are anti-witchcraft, after all. But also, kind of not surprised, because you just get a feeling about people.
Sam shrugs. "Not so much. Not any more, at least. Ever since Hell. I can do really basic stuff - amulets, protective spells, a little healing. Anything complicated tends to go wonky."
"I'm sorry, man. That's a loss." The words are insufficient. Losing his own ability to do witchcraft would be like losing a limb. He can't imagine what Sam feels.
But Sam just shrugs again. "Coulda been worse. Coulda been a lot worse." He motions toward the other end of the garden with a tilt of his head. "I'll go get that angelica and see if I find anything else that looks useful."
Then's he's walking away and, well. That's a loss too.
~~~
XII. Lebanon, Kansas. Sam Winchester is thirty-five years old.
Rowena doesn't know what time it is, but she does know it's too early for anybody to be calling her. Even Sam Winchester. "Samuel," she groans. "I told you, a girl needs her beauty sleep."
Sam's voice is calm and soft. "Rowena. Lucifer's dead."
Dead. Lucifer is dead. Her heart lurches; her whole body goes numb. There's a strange buzzing in her ear, and after a few moments, she realizes she's standing beside her bed, and the buzzing is Sam's voice.
"Rowena? Are you there? Are you okay?"
She takes a deep breath. "Are you sure, Sam?"
"I'm sure. I'm very, very sure."
"Oh, gods and goddesses." She collapses onto the bed again and lets the relief wash over her. "How did you do it?"
"It was Dean. He let Michael use him as a vessel, and he was able to kill Lucifer. But now." He's less calm. His voice breaks. "Now Michael won't release him. Please, Rowena. I need your help to get him back."
Rowena doesn't want to care about the tragic, heroic end of Dean Winchester. The life of one mortal man seems a small price to pay, considering. But there is the long-term problem of the archangel Michael being determined to take over this world. And the more immediate problem of Sam Winchester's voice breaking as he begs for help, which is rather difficult to resist.
"I'm on my way."
. . .
By the time she arrives, dragging her oversized bag down the bunker's staircase, she has a plan. Sam meets her halfway up and takes the bag, grunting in surprise at its weight. Below him, the other residents of the bunker - his mother, the older fellow from beyond the rift, the angel, and the nephilim boy - stare up at her in silence. "You two will have to go," she says, gesturing to the angel and the nephilim.
"Hello to you, too," says the grumpy older fellow. Bobby? Yes, Bobby.
She ignores him. "We'll be using some pretty powerful magic. Anything that has angel grace should take a long, long walk."
The angel reluctantly nods in agreement, but the nephilim boy looks up at Sam with a hurt expression. "I don't like her. And most of my grace is gone."
"Most, not all," Sam says, putting a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, Jack. I trust her."
The boy clearly doesn't, but he doesn't put up an argument, trailing behind the angel with a worried glance thrown over his shoulder as they climb up and out of the bunker.
"All right," she says, "Where is the most secure place in the bunker?"
"Um. We've got a dungeon?"
Och, these Men of Letters. So self-righteous. So suspicious of everything they can't control or understand. "Of course you do. Take me to your dungeon, Samuel."
. . .
They need blood for the sigils. More than she has in her bag. Sam offers his own, but she shakes her head. "We'll be using plenty of your blood later."
"Oh, that's not ominous at all," Bobby mutters. Luckily, he's willing to bleed for the cause. Sam drains him of a pint of blood, takes another pint from his mother, and then orders them to sit in the kitchen and drink some juice and stay away until they're called. They protest, of course. "I'm as much a part of this as you are," Bobby says. "Michael killed my friends. My family."
Rowena raises an eyebrow at him. "And there's a good chance you'll be added to that list if you're here when he shows up. Upstairs with you." Sam gives him a pleading look and Mary takes his arm and he finally makes his retreat, vowing to come back if "something funny happens."
Whatever does happen, Rowena is sure it's not going to be funny at all.
She sketches out the necessary sigils on a sheet of paper and she and Sam go to work. Some of them are unfamiliar to him, and he paints them slowly and painstakingly, but others are obviously part of his regular repertoire and his strokes are quick and confident. It takes over an hour to finish. When they're done, the room is practically vibrating with power; she feels it from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Sam looks uncomfortable enough that she's sure he can feel it as well. But he just wipes his hands on his jeans and says "okay, what's next?"
She clears off a table and begins the spells proper. As she chalks out her first circle, she casually says "you should know, you'll be the one doing the spell, not me."
"Me?" His voice almost cracks.
"You."
"But I don't -"
"Look, Sam. I'm neither stupid nor blind. You've obviously got some powers hidden under all that plaid, even if you don't realize it yourself." She waves a hand dismissively over his unfortunate outfit. "We've just got to coax it out of you."
"No, it's not that." He looks away, but not before she reads the pain and shame on his face. "I used to do magic. Not much, nothing compared to you. But ever since... Since Lucifer. Since Hell. My magic is... I don't know... Broken. I've mostly put it away."
Oh, so he's actually dabbled in witchcraft? And all this time she supposed he was either unaware of his innate ability, or suppressing it because he's a hunter. This might be easier than she'd feared. "Don't worry, dear," she says reassuringly. "I can fix that, when the time comes." His brow remains furrowed, but she ignores it as she places a wooden bowl in the center of her circle and inscribes sigils around it. As she works, Sam watches intently, noting each ingredient. He doesn't look at the book. If he recognizes that she's working from the Black Grimoire, he doesn't mention it. He does, finally, speak.
"Rowena," he says tentatively, "this is... this is a love spell."
Ah, so he does know a bit about spellwork. This is going to be interesting.
"Exactly."
"But how is that going to help? Are you hoping to seduce Michael or something?"
"Oh, Samuel," she laughs. Sweet naive boy. "Do you think romantic love is the only love there is? Love is love, darling. The spell is going to use your love for your brother to bind him to you, and then we'll use the angel banishing spell to send the angel away. With any luck, Michael is cast far from here, but Dean stays in your dungeon. And that's why you have to be the one to cast the spell."
She suppresses a laugh at his confused expression. "It runs on love. I may appreciate your brother's company occasionally, but I certainly can't say I love him."
He still has an unsettled frown. "Don't worry, dear." She smiles up at him. "I have faith in you." He obviously has none in himself, and he continues to watch her with a troubled face as she scribes another circle and assembles the archangel summoning in a large, engraved brass bowl.
Once she has combined almost all of the ingredients, she takes a smaller brass bowl and her silver dagger out of her bag. "Time to bleed," she says cheerfully. "But remove that plaid monstrosity first." He gives her a puzzled look, but obeys, stripping down to a worn grey t-shirt.
"Your arm, please." He holds out his left arm and barely winces as she makes a quick slash across his forearm, placing the bowl underneath to collect the blood that wells out. She divides the contents between the two larger bowls, mixing each. "And now the other side." He obediently holds out his right arm and she slashes it as well, collecting more blood in the small bowl.
"All right. Remove the t-shirt." He raises an eyebrow. "Trust me, Samuel. It's for business, not pleasure." He complies, and she dips a finger into the bowl of blood and begins marking on his skin, sigils of protection, power, and binding, up one arm and down the other, and as her finger raises goosebumps on his firm body, she has to admit that it's actually not too far from pleasurable after all.
He looks away as she works, clears his throat a couple of times, and finally speaks. "Rowena, I'm sorry I tried to shoot you."
"As well you should be." She doesn't meet his eyes, but continues her work.
"I didn't want to. I just felt like I had to."
She moves to his back. "Well. It's your fate, isn't it?" He doesn't answer, but she feels his muscles tense under her fingertip. "No matter, dear. You were willing to kill me, but you were also willing to save me. I haven't forgotten that you gave me the page from the Black Grimoire. And anyway, I was willing to kill you too, so, I suppose we're even."
"It doesn't have to be that way. I've changed my fate before. I can do it again."
She touches his arm with her blood-free hand, rotating him to face her. "Of course you can," she says lightly, drawing the angel banishing sigil on his chest. "People defy fate every day." She doesn't mean it. She's quite sure that if anyone kills her, it will be Sam Winchester. And accepting her destiny is oddly freeing.
"All right." She stands at arm's length from him, examining her work. Perfection. She dries the painted blood with a wave of her hand and then helps him slip the awful plaid shirt back on, leaving it unbuttoned but covering the sigils, to prevent Michael from seeing what they're up to.
"Now, Samuel, have a seat, and we'll work on fixing that so-called broken magic of yours."
He lowers himself into a chair and looks up at her with a flash of fear in his eyes, and she can't blame him. The last time he was in this position, she was preparing to kill him. "Don't worry, dear," she murmurs. She pushes her hands into his hair, placing her palms flat against his head. "This won't hurt a bit."
She eases into her spiritual state and tries to slip inside, but he's too guarded. You need to let me in, Sam she says, her spirit speaking to his, and there's a hesitation, an exhaled breath, and then she's inside, and oh. Oh.
He is a wonder. He is the vast Kansas plains, golden heads of wheat brushing against her outstretched hands, he is sunflowers against a blue summer sky, he is a towering thunderstorm rolling in from the west, crackling with power, the smell of ozone and rain, he is Lebanon, the center, he is the unexamined catacombs of the bunker itself, strong and deep, filled with the sacred and the profane. And behind that, under it, inside it somewhere, is his lurking power.
She goes deeper. She feels a young boy's terror, feels the grown man's fierce and undying love and loyalty, skitters along the edge of incomprehensible agony left over from Hell.
Deeper still, and she finds his power, massive but hobbled, huddled under a shroud-like layer of guilt and fear. So much fear. Fear of doing wrong, of hurting others, of being rejected or hunted for his talents. Fear of horrors he endured that cannot be forgotten. His power is bound by his own inhibitions as securely as the Grand Coven bound her own power.
She reaches out, curls tendrils of her power around his, and gasps at its shocking depth and intensity even as it recoils from her. Do not be afraid, dear boy, she says. You can do no wrong. She draws the fear aside, binding it with her power, and suddenly all that he is shines as brightly as the sun in the endless Kansas sky, unbelievably deep and wide and strong, stronger than she had ever imagined, and in a heartbeat she sees the potential. If his inchoate, bound power is this immense, what could he accomplish if it were released and allowed to flourish? Nothing could stop him. And then she knows; she sees the opportunity and she knows what she has to do.
Samuel, she says. Sam. I think if I combine our powers, you can do more than send Michael away from the bunker. I think you can send him back to his own world. Perhaps even destroy him. Will you let me?
Yes, he answers, without hesitation. Without question. She had half-hoped he would refuse, or at least ask what that entailed. Ah, well.
She weaves their powers together, twisting hers around his. Strengthening and reinforcing. Stubbornly ignoring her own doubt and fear, the pain in her heart, because if this is what it takes, this is what it takes. As she works on the spiritual plane, she sends her body to work in the physical plane, bookmarking the spells he will need in the Black Grimoire.
Finally she's ready. No, she'll never be ready. But it's time.
Sam, dear, there's one last thing you must do. You must separate my magic from me.
How do I do that?
My silver dagger. Right in my heart.
His reaction is just as she knew it would be. Shock, horror, dismay, a sick wave of guilt. No.
Sam. This is the best way. And if this is to be my fate, let it mean something. Let us do something truly outstanding together, you and I. Fergus isn't the only one who can make a sacrifice. And neither are you.
But he still hesitates, so she reaches in and gives him a push. On the spiritual side, she feels him quake with grief. On the physical side, she feels his broad hand pressed against her back, holding her upright as he plunges the blade into her chest, splitting her open. There's a second of intense pain, a flash of loss and regret. And then she feels nothing.
~~~
XIII. Lebanon, Kansas. Sam Winchester is as old as the Earth itself.
Sam feels Rowena's magic bloom inside him, unleashing his own.
He remembers Gabriel saying her location spell tasted like haggis, and he laughs, because he can taste it on the back of his tongue, haggis and whiskey and peat smoke, tatties and neeps, can feel the prickle of thistle and the cold brine of the North Sea, and flickering behind his eyelids he sees the low ancient mountains crowned with heather and gorse, the green valleys, the grey clouds coming down to meet the sea. He feels her in his bones, thrumming through his veins, fierce and furious, feels her strength and determination, her all-encompassing power enhancing his. He summons magic from the air around him, from the bedrock under the bunker and the grass and trees above it, from the brilliant blue sky wheeling overhead, from the flotsam and jetsam collected by the Men of Letters that surrounds him, feels it coursing through him, and he knows he cannot fail.
He finds the white satin ribbon that marks the first spell, the archangel summoning. As his lips form the almost-familiar words, power flows around him, through him. He tosses a lit match into the brass bowl. There's a bright flash of light and a whiff of ozone and then, oh god, Dean is there, Dean is standing before him, and he wants to collapse in relief at the sight of his brother, but he's not done, and he has so little time to work.
Dean - no, Michael - narrows his eyes as he spins slowly in place, examining the warding around him.
"You're a fool, boy," he says, making Dean's voice flat and emotionless. "This won't hold me long."
It's not supposed to. Sam quickly moves on to the spell marked with a blue ribbon, the binding spell, dropping a lit match into the wooden bowl and reciting the words. Again he feels the power flowing through him, and then the magnetic tug between him and the heart and soul that lie beneath Michael's sneer.
Finally he slices his palm open with Rowena's bloodstained silver dagger, opens his shirt, and slaps the mixture of her blood and his own onto the sigil painted on his chest. It burns cold, like Lucifer's grace, burns all the way through him, and he screams as the dungeon erupts in light, as the tugging sensation magnifies until it feels like his heart is being ripped from his chest, as every lightbulb in the room explodes, spraying a shower of glass over him.
Then it's done. In the dark, over his own heaving breaths, he hears his brother's voice.
"Sammy?"
Sam pulls his phone from his pocket and holds it in front of him with a trembling hand. Dean - clearly Dean - is on his knees in front of him, blinking up at him in the phone's weak blue light. "Sammy?" he says again. "You good?"
Sam sinks to his knees and wraps his arms around his brother. The dungeon smells like ozone and blood and the burned remains of Rowena's spellwork, but Dean just smells like Dean, and Sam breathes him in. "Yeah. I'm good."
~~~
Epilogue
Dean's been asleep for an hour before Sam is finally comfortable abandoning the chair at his bedside. He feels that magnetic pull again, somewhere in the center of his chest, as soon as he closes the door behind him. He breaks the binding spell with a swift hand gesture. Now that an archangel is no longer trying to keep them apart, they don't need any kind of magic to bind them together. He pads softly downstairs to the dungeon, picking up a lantern and a box of light bulbs on the way.
The lantern reveals Rowena's body lying peacefully on the cot against the wall. It feels wrong, her normally lively form so cold and still. Sam had half expected her to be sitting up, laughing at him, have you forgotten about my resurrection charm, Moose, but either she never had time to redo it after Lucifer burned her, or it relied on her now-displaced magic.
"Doesn't matter," he tells her conversationally. He carefully removes the shattered light bulbs and replaces them with new ones, because he needs light for what he's about to do. "I may be the one who has to kill you, but that doesn't mean I have to let you stay dead."
Once the room is sufficiently lit, he turns to the Black Grimoire. There's one more bookmark; a red satin ribbon. He turns to the marked page and laughs. "But I guess you knew that, didn't you?" he says, as he reads the spell Rowena left for him - a spell of resurrection.
It's dark. Powerful. In the wrong hands, it would be dangerous. It's exactly the type of magic he's avoided all his life. But as he studies it, he knows he is the right hands, and he can't wait.
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This line, especially:
Sam's witchcraft is white and harmless and puny and utterly useless, and that night he watches his father burn and wonders if he would have been proud or disappointed in him for that.
Yup, that's Sam. Beautiful fic, thank you so much for sharing it with the world.
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That was marvelous. It was so well constructed and built to a surprising and wonderful ending. m. :)
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An extra scene was a perfect excuse for me to give this a re-read - and I loved the scene you added. Of course Dean would ask, and of course Sam says no, and this only adds to the sense of dread of Sam bringing back Rowena at the end - a hint that perhaps he's taking it too far. I adore that.
Thanks again for writing and sharing - what a great fic!!! Take care :)
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(ps have you read my gift fic Riptide? You really need to! It's Standford era Sam in all its wonderful glory!!!)
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Just gorgeous. A wonderful, excellent story!
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Gorgeous. I'll never have enough words to tell you just how much I love this.
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I can't even tell what is new, but it's all good! : )
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I think I caught my breath though at your desciption of Rowena's Scotland--and her realization of the depths of Sam's magic. Wonderful. I regret it took me a year to find and read it. It won't be another before I read it again. Thank you.
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❤