Hi. I got bored with my normal stuff and started this. It's a Supernatural/Charmed crossover (my first crossover!). It's post season three SPN, and sometime after “Chris-Crossed” in Charmed. Dunno when, but they know Wyatt's evil in the future and have a tentative trust of Chris. The timelines are in actuality really screwed as they take place in different years. But this is fanfiction and it's allowed. (God the prologue is trippy. Pay attention to the italics! They're past events.)

Please note!: I used a few ideas from “Lonely Light of Morning” by Stoneage Woman and Warriora (FF dot net. It's in the Charmed section). Nothing much, just the idea that Sam is an Innocent, becomes Paige's tentative Charge, Dean becomes a demon back in the future, and that Chris knows Sam from the future. That's it. Crediting them for reference.

Disclaimer: Eric Kripke and Constance M. Burge own Supernatural and Charmed respectively.

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“Sanctus Espiritus, redeem us from our solemn hour.
Sanctus Espiritus, insanity is all around us.
Sanctus Espiritus, is this what we deserve?
Can we break free from chains of never-ending agony?”

—“Our Solemn Hour,” by Within Temptation

They cremate Dean on a Friday, thirty seven hours after New Harmony.

His ashes were scattered across Bobby's salvage yard, as per his last wishes.

That was three months ago.

Bobby finds Sam ten minutes after the light leaves the eldest (living) Winchester's eyes. He stands there, silent, as he watches Sam stare blankly into equally blankly eyes. Shock.

Eventually, he makes his way across the room, sparing a glance at Ruby's former host's body. She was dead, probably had been for months. She could wait – Sam was still alive (barely). Bobby kneels beside Sam, gently laying his hand on the younger man's shoulder. Sam jumps in surprise, turning tear-bright eyes to Bobby. “Bobby,” he whispers shakily. He swallows and glances to Dean before quickly returning them to Bobby. He blinks once and large tears fall down his cheeks. “Bobby,” he repeats, a plead to make things better.

Robert “Bobby” Singer's heart breaks and his throat burns. He draws in a deep, shaky breath and says, “C'mon, Sam. We need to get him out of here. The demons might come back.”

A thousand images flash through Sam's mind – Dean's dead, demon could possess Dean, Dean's not coming back, Lilith could steal Dean, Dean's in Hell, It's not a Tuesday or a Wednesday it's a fucking Thursday!, Dean'sburninginHell – before he nods. “Right,” he croaks out.

Three months and thirty seven hours ago.

“Sam, it's Bobby. I just got your call. Glad to hear from you. Hope you get this message quick because I heard that some of the Devils Gate demons are planning on somethin' – somethin' bad. I'll get back to you when I get more information. Probably gonna need your help, if you feel up to it. ...How're you doing?”

Sam hesitates a brief moment as he listens to the voice mail before deleting it. He got all of the important information. He'll call him back and he'll kill all of those demons because he's not sending a single one back to Hell where they could hurt his brother.

Two weeks ago.

Bobby watches as Sam stares at Dean's cool body. He hasn't said a word since they left the house in New Harmony four hours ago. He wasn't sure what he should have expected, but silence wasn't it. He chalks it up to shock. It'll pass and they'll talk about what to do next. What to do with Dean's body.

It's not as though Dean's ghost'll come back. He can't – he's in Hell.

It isn't pretty when the shock wears off.

Bobby doesn't think he'll be able to fix his wall.

Three weeks after New Harmony, Ruby shows up on Sam's motel doorstep. She's wearing a pretty redhead with green eyes. “Sam,” she whispers (pleads) as the twenty five year old approaches with her knife.

“You lied,” he says.

She nods because she's fucked if she lies again and gets caught, but her eyes don't leave the knife. “I can help you,” she says (begslies) before the knife is sheathed in her throat because she is a liar and a demon and Sam hates both with so much passion. She (the demon) dies instantly, a faint wisp of black smoke leaving her mouth. She (the host) lasts thirty seconds and dies in Sam's arms with a smile on her lips as she drowns on her own blood. Sam learns that her name is Katie and she was dying of an inoperable brain tumor and she should have died the day Ruby (the demon) possessed her, “so don't be sad,” she says quietly before the light of her eyes fades (like Dean.)

Sam packs his stuff up and leaves the state.

Sam doesn't talk for three days after the shock wears off, but at least he responds to Bobby's words. He eats, bathes, and dives directly into Bobby's books with an ardor. Bobby watches like a hawk because he refuses to have another Deal. Sam doesn't seem to mind.

The first words he says as he lifts his gaze from a large, ancient book that was beginning to fall apart is, “if I can't bring him back, I'll save him from Hell. The Crossroads Demon never said anything about him staying in Hell.”

Bobby's mouth twitches because they found a loophole.

Sam's psychic abilities skyrocket after New Harmony. His visions come back and so does his telekinesis. The visions don't hurt anymore so he doesn't get a warning before they come.

He has a vision a week ago while driving the Impala and nearly crashes into a telephone pole.

It's a hospital. A dozen and a half people. They turn beetle black eyes towards him and some of them recoil in fear. He catches an address and smiles when the vision ends. They're a part of Lilith's army.

He's catching up.

Sam can't look at the Impala without his throat burning for a week. It's his brother's “baby” and it just looks wrong without his brother in it, under it, fixing it, or sitting in the driver's seat with his crap-ass mullet rock blaring.

Even now, Sam won't touch the stereo. It's not right.

Bobby's standing outside the driver's door, speaking to Sam who sat where Dean normally did. “Alright, kid,” he begins, handing Sam a couple of books and stacks of paper, “remember the deal we made. We look for spells and rituals that can help Dean. You do not go after Lilith until we get more information on her.”

Sam feels bad for lying to him, but Lilith holds his brother's contract and there is no way he'll just sit back and read. Bobby knows it too, but it'll give him some false peace of mind to hear the lie, so Sam says, “Yea, Bobby. I heard you. Books first, Lilith later.”

He drives off a minute later, stereo off, the ghost of some classic rock song echoing across his mind.

Sam's sitting in a motel room six hours after he gets the vision of the demons in the hospital, books splayed face up on a table he's sitting at. His laptop is open and he Google's the address. It comes up to a not-so-abandoned hospital in San Fransisco California. He can make it there in a few days if he starts now. After all, there's nothing going on where he is.

He calls Bobby and tells him about the vision. The older man says that's probably the location of where the demons he was talking about will show up. They still don't know their plan, but at least they have a location now.

He spends the next hour and a half hunting through websites, looking for anything that looked like it would help him get Dean out of Hell. There are several legitimate sites put up by hunters (Ash) that tell him how to kill certain things. Nothing else.

Sam misses Ash because he probably could have found something. Ash was just that bad-ass.

He sits back and sighs quietly, lifting his hand into the air. As his hand raises, so does a book that's laying on the queen sized (single) bed. He can use his telekinesis with his mind now, but it's jerky and he'd rather not get a book to the skull. Sam moves his hand, bringing it closer to his chest. The book follows until it hovers inches away from Sam. He reaches up with his other hand and plucks it from the air, opening it and pushes his laptop across the table before settling the book down where it was.

It's old, real old. It deals with the soul and it's written in Latin. Sam's tired mind takes a bit longer to translate the words into English, but the point gets across. He got the book from a hunter he (accidentally) saved from demons a month ago. The book has a section that deals with, well, Deals. Nothing that says on how to get a soul out of Hell after their Deal is complete. He slams the book shut with a sigh and tosses it back onto the bed.

Sam's tired and is tempted to follow that book to the bed. Maybe catch a few hours of sleep before he heads off to San Fransisco to deal with Lilith's demons.

Instead, he shoots a man who appears in the middle of the room in a swirl of blue and white lights full of rock salt.

When the man doesn't disappear, Sam does. He's halfway out of town by the time the man regain consciousness.

Over the next few days, one of those beings – ghosts? lost spirits? demons? what-the-hell-ever – shows up at every motel he's spending the night. He ends up sleeping in the Impala until he can find out whatever they are and how to keep them (the hell) away.

Sam Winchester has enough ghosts haunting him.

A week after he killed Ruby (and host), Sam encounters a demon who is more than willing to talk (about things Sam doesn't really wanna know)

He learns that Dean is in Hell, it's his fault, and he's in so much pain. (Not that he didn't already know this)

He learns that Dean will come back – as a demon. (He didn't know this)

He learns that every demon he's ever killed was human at one point. A human that went to Hell, had their humanity burned away over the years, and came back. (Oh shit)

He learns that Hell and Earth aren't synced up. Time moves really differently. For Sam, it's been a month and a half since Dean died. For Dean, it's been several years. (Shit!)

Sam kills the demon, salt and burns the host, and redoubles his efforts into hunting down Lilith. (He prays to whomever would listen that he'll find her and that Dean's humanity will hold out. After all, Dad was in Hell for almost a year and when he got out, he went to Heaven. And Dean has a lot of humanity to burn)

One day ago in a cheap motel twenty something miles from San Fransisco, Sam wakes up from a nightmare of a figure suspended in air by hooks embedded clean through his flesh, in a hellish darkness of thunder, lightning and screaming. He wakes up with the man's scream on his lips and hopes it's just a nightmare.

He hopes it's not Dean.

It's exactly 12:13 PM the next day in San Fransisco when Phoebe Halliwell gets hit by a premonition.

And so ends the prologue. I actually wrote this in present-tense. I probably won't write in that again – I kept switching and that drove me nuts. Please enjoy this prologue while I write up the next chapters!