Author's Note:

My apologies for breaking this two-shot into three parts. If I hadn’t, part two would have been insufferably long. And I needed the new title.

I give you: The Last Part.

.

.

EPILOGUE:

The Song Remains The Same

.

Sam leaned on the wooden post in the fence. He looked up and let the radiant sun beat down upon him, warming him all over. He heard the birds singing and chirping, the tiny insects working away in the swaying grass behind him. He waited patiently, feeling the sun hot on his single t-shirt and jeans. He bent down and plucked a length of grass, studying it with a fond smile. He stuck it in his mouth and looked back up at the perfect blue sky, sliding his hands into his front pockets. He waited.

Presently he heard sounds far off to his left. He turned his head and looked down the cart track, the dusty road made by a million feet since the dawn of Time. He saw a lone figure approaching in the distance and put his hands behind him, jumping up to sit on the cross beam of the fence.

He put his hands in his lap, looking round at the gorgeous summer’s day and taking a deep breath. The sounds got louder and he grinned as he made out words.

“Me and baby brother, used to run together - huh! I said me and baby brother, used to run together!” came a familiar husky voice, and it made Sam chuckle in anticipation. The voice, confident in the mistaken belief that no-one else could hear it, put more effort into the continuation: “Welcome one another, headed for the corner! Da-na na-na-na-na! Welcome one another, headed for the corner! Shiftin’ on his mind is like drinking funky wine - by the river! Da-na na-na-na-na - huh! Trippin’ on his mind is like drinking funky wine - by the river!”

Sam simply sat on the wooden bar, his hands patiently in his lap, grinning like a schoolboy. He hummed along with the familiar tune, trying to stay mostly in key. He looked over to see the trudging figure much more visible.

“I remember the days - we used to fight together! Da-na na-na-na-na - huh! I remember the days, yeah, we used to fight together! Me and baby brother used to run together - huh! I said me and baby brother used to run together! Hang on, baby brother, oh! They call it law and order - hey, hey, hey!” Dean sang as he walked, one hand up, holding onto something large he was carrying on his left shoulder. “Come back baby brother--”

He looked up and realised Sam was laughing at him. He stopped singing abruptly and looked at his feet to contain his good mood. His dusty, heavy boots scuffed through the dry track as he neared his destination. Finally he stopped next to Sam, lifting the large cylinder down from the shoulder of the beige and dark checked shirt. He set it to the grassy edge of the track with care, wiping his hands together and squinting at his brother in the bright sunlight.

“Hey Sammy,” he grinned.

He chuckled. “Hey Dean.”

He slid off the fence and enveloped his brother with grateful, squeezing arms. Far from protesting, Dean grabbed him in a bear hug that nearly excised the breath from him. There was a mutual, short comfortable chuckle before they pushed each other back, studying faces.

“Good year?” Sam asked eagerly.

“Not so bad,” Dean shrugged, patting at his shoulder before letting his hands drop. “Just a few trouble-makers I had to kick into submission.”

“You leave their names in the book for me?”

“Of course. Oh, and when you get down there, watch out for the new fallen angel behind the desk,” Dean said quickly, wagging a finger at him.

“In a good or bad way?” he grinned.

Dean rolled his eyes. “I got carpet burns, man. And that ain’t funny when it’s the spiky Pit carpet, know what I mean?”

Sam laughed out loud. “I guess I’ll be keeping out of her way then.”

“You do that. I don’t want to get back down there in a year’s time to find she’s comparing sizes between brothers.” Dean paused, then looked down at the cylinder guiltily. “Whoops,” he breathed, bending down and picking it up. He turned it over and sand began to run rapidly. “Almost forgot.”

“Don’t think anyone’s gonna notice two extra minutes,” Sam said dismissively.

“Naw,” Dean agreed. He looked back at his brother. “So, how was your shift up there? Any new angels this year?”

“A few. One of new guys is a real pain the ass,” he said uncomfortably.

“Oh yeah? You put his name in the book up there?”

“Yeah yeah - it’s all done. Just make sure you read all my notes before you start the year,” he nodded.

“Cool,” Dean shrugged. He clapped his hands together, rubbing them as he looked around. He sighed quietly. “I never miss this place till I’m standin’ in it,” he grinned, eyeing the Kansas fields around them.

“I know what you mean, man.” Sam looked around with happiness. Then his face fell slightly. “Hey, ah… I was thinking about what you said. Last year.”

“Oh yeah? Whut was that?” Dean asked, interested.

“Well… Since you mentioned it, I’ve been thinking. And… well, you said you didn’t remember how we ended up with this gig, how we got here. Right?”

“Yeah! You know whut? It’s been killin’ me to think that I remember all the hunts, all the arguments, all the demons and crap, but… but the last thing I remember when we were alive was… well, hunts and stuff. And that’s it,” Dean said, confused. “It’s like… it’s like there’s this big gap from hunting whatever we were hunting and us winding up here.”

“Ye-ah,” Sam havered. “I can’t remember either. I can’t even get straight in my head the last hunt we were on. I mean, I assume we were after some creature that took us both out.” He watched his brother uncomfortably.

“Yeah…” Dean’s face scrunched up in hard thought for a second. “Hey… d’you think we went out like Butch and Sundance? Or like horror movie extras, like, y’know, Ash’s cabin friends? Or Bonnie and Clyde - you’d be Bonnie Parker, of course,” he smiled. Sam just rolled his eyes. “Or was it something really nasty like… just falling asleep and not waking up?” he dared, distaste on his face.

Sam took a deep breath, shaking his head as he let it out. “We couldn’t have been that lucky,” he observed.

Dean’s look of discomfort cleared abruptly. “As long as it looked cool, I don’t really care,” he admitted. “An’ seeing as neither one of us remembers, it can’t be important, right?”

“Right,” Sam smiled. Now I feel better better about not remembering too. And something tells me we’re better off not knowing. “But…”

“Whut now, Sammy?”

“Well… it’s all… It’s kinda weird, y’know? Don’t you get the feeling sometimes that… well, that maybe all the hunts and stuff we did, all the demonic crap we went through, the demon blood, the angels, all of that - that maybe we needed it to handle all this stuff we’re doing now… like it was just leading up to this?”

Dean stared at him for a long moment with a suspicious amount of understanding. “Like… like everything was just some huge plan to get us ready for this gig, with the experience and - and - and - and the hunting stuff behind us, and the demon-on-angel fights and--”

“Cos they needed two for this job? Two sides of the same coin who think the same but tackle it in different ways? Two halves of the same blood? Two souls so similar, unable to leave it to someone else cos they’d worry others would mess it up? To spend eternity bringing order to chaos, only getting a limited time together as a reward?” Sam dared.

“You think that’s us?” Dean dared, a look of horror getting ready to spread over his face.

They stared at each other for a long moment in silence, the entire argument running through their heads.

“Nah!” they cried together abruptly.

“You just had too much time on your hands up there this year,” Dean added quickly.

“Yeah yeah - I’m sure that’s it,” Sam nodded with haste. He cleared his throat. They flicked their gazes at each other, then around the field quickly. There was nothing but the sounds of birds, breeze and bugs for a long moment. Then they inadvertently caught each other’s worried gaze stealing a look at the other sibling.

“Ok! Awkward!” Dean blurted uncomfortably.

Sam made an effort to smile. But it was a sickly smile, a weak attempt to help carry off his brother’s desperate joke. “Anyway.”

“Anyway!” Dean said eagerly.

“So you’re sure you don’t remember how we got up here, and I’m sure I don’t remember how we got up here, so everything’s cool,” he blurted quickly, squinting at him in discomfort.

“Dude, what did I say? I have no clue. But… however it happened, I hope Bobby weren’t there to see it,” he shivered uncomfortably. “Last thing I’d want is for him to have to scrape up our remains.” He shook his head slowly.

“Yeah, but…” Sam squinted nervously.

“Whut?”

“Well… I hope we got to say goodbye - or at least thanks.”

“I just hope he got ma car,” Dean snorted with tacit frankness. Then his face fell slightly. “I kinda miss the old guy sometimes.”

“Yeah, me too,” Sam managed.

Dean gasped and snapped his fingers loudly. “Aw hey! Speaking of Bobby - I almost forgot!” he cried suddenly. “How could I forget this - I’ve been dying to tell you for ages! Talk about torture!”

“Well what it is?” Sam asked, amused at the enthusiasm on his brother’s face. “You got an Employee Of The Month plaque for stove-piping some wannabe-Alistair?”

“Better! Sammy, you’re gonna bust a gut when I tell you! You’ll never guess who wus dragged in through the front doors down there half-way through the year.” An abrupt, devilish smile conquered his face as he nodded, the tip of his tongue trapped between his teeth childishly.

“Justin Timberlake?” Sam grinned. “Or no - Snuggles the fabric softener teddy bear?”

Dean slapped the back of his hand into Sam’s t-shirt, suppressing a chuckle. “Get this - Lilith,” he urged, his eyebrows waggling in delight.

“No shit?” he demanded, his face dropping in shock.

“I shit you not, man! And guess whose name was on the retrieval records?”

“No way!” he realised.

“Oh yeah - none other than our favourite Mr B. Singer. --And some other dude who signed it as - are you ready for this - ‘C. MacLeod’.”

“What?” Sam stared, knowing his face was screwed up in confusion but unable to help it.

“When I checked the small print, it was written out as ‘Christian MacLeod’, a big-ass line under the ‘Mac’.”

“You don’t think that’s--”

“Well if you were an angel with a dirty mac whut name would you choose?” he laughed.

Sam shook his head in disbelief, folding his arms and sagging into the fence cross-beam with a great deal of relief and satisfaction. “So I guess he’s looking out for Bobby. That’s… good of him.”

“Angel,” Dean pointed out.

“Right. Only, I’m guessing he’s not now though.”

“Well, no, alright, seeing as how we haven’t bumped into him once up here - or down there - since we been doing this gig. But who else did he know on Earth anyway? Bobby was his only choice to stick close to.”

“True,” Sam mused.

Dean looked pensive. “You think he’ll be alright?”

Sam looked at him, reading the discomfort all to easily. “Cas will be--. Sorry, Christian will be ok with Bobby. I mean, it’s Bobby,” he smiled.

“No, I meant Bobby,” Dean admitted. “Like… just him down there, by himself, y’know?”

“Well hey, he’s got Christian now. They must be getting along if they worked together to bring Lilith in,” Sam admitted quietly. “But them rounding her up - knew one of us would finally get the bitch,” he said suddenly, a wicked gleam in his eye. “You got her on the Rack yet?”

“Sammy!” Dean scolded, his face dark with indignation and outrage. “That would be against all kindsa rules, guidelines, all them codes of fair practice an’ whatever! You seriously think I’d leave her strapped to that thing while the souls of a thousand people she’s killed, maimed or mangled are just waitin’ for me to leave the room?” he demanded hotly.

Sam bit his lip. “Ah - well no,” he said edgily. “Sorry, dude.”

“It’s just wrong, it’s just evil, it’s just so not what we’re here to do,” Dean protested.

“Ok! Alright!”

“It was just for an afternoon,” Dean admitted with a small shrug.

Sam gasped and looked at him, staring with a rainbow concoction of surprise, delight, outrage and awe on his face. “You did?”

“I got her in the room, I strapped her in, I told her to stop screaming and spitting in my face. I told her we weren’t into torture for torture’s sake,” the elder Winchester stated clearly.

“And then?”

“I then I stepped out for a coffee,” Dean shrugged innocently, making Sam laugh out loud. “Oh, by the way? The canteen’s moved like three blocks over, you have to walk pretty far if you don’t want that slimy crap the machines dole out.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” Sam chuckled. “And where is she now?”

“Solitary. There were a few chains in there with her name on ‘em,” he nodded brightly.

Sam’s head tipped right back as he laughed at the sky for a long moment. He heard Dean chuckling evilly and just enjoyed the sound of them both amused at the same time, and on such a beautiful sunny afternoon in Kansas. Then a dark thought crossed his mind.

“You ah… you haven’t come across anyone else we know down there, have you?” he asked slowly.

Dean looked at him. “Nope. Who you talkin’ about?”

“Ruby,” he replied with a knowing eyebrow lift. Dean lifted a hand, scratching at his head as he mulled something over.

“I haven’t seen her,” he mused. “In fact, no-one has. I mean, when souls get dragged back in we head-count ‘em and everything, but she’s never one of them. And when we get ‘em to tell us how many are free or who they met Topside, they never mention her. Either she’s got some bad-ass Where’s Wally skills or someone’s ganked her and she’s never comin’ back.”

Sam’s eyes went a little round. “You think Cas--”

“I’m thinkin’ Bobby!” Dean protested. “Can’t imagine he’d be in a good mood if we were both out of the picture - however it happened. And if there was any chance at all it had something to do with that slippery bitch, you can bet your ass he woulda hunted her down.”

Sam nodded. “Bobby and an ex-angel,” he breathed, shaking his head slowly.

“I’d pay to see that,” they both said, then looked at each other quickly, chuckling self-consciously.

“And speakin’ of who we’ve seen this year, I don’t suppose Anna came back up there?” he asked lightly, deliberately not looking at his younger brother.

Sam made an effort to make his sympathetic sigh a very, very quiet one. “No,” he said gently. “Still out on assignment. Apparently, it could be a few thousand years.”

He watched his elder brother look out over the fields, nodding as if Sam had just told him tomorrow’s weather. Not for the first time, he wondered just what exactly was going through Dean’s head.

“Ah… Everything seems kinda settled then,” he offered brightly.

“Yeah,” Dean said clearly, nodding more decisively and looking at Sam. “Yeah, it does. Just kinda pissed we didn’t find Ruby ourselves,” Dean added. “And Lilith. Man, was I really keen on finding her.”

“You know what, Dean? Maybe we were never meant to find her after all. Maybe we were meant to set those two up so they could do what they were always supposed to.”

Dean made a strangled noise in his throat, surprising his younger brother. “Sam, please, for the love of gun oil, enough with the ‘meant to’s and ‘destinies’ and ‘meaning’ crap, ok? Trying to work it out gives me a headache, and to be honest, the less I work out the better.” He sniffed. “And I ain’t talking shop for the one day we got off neither,” he added suddenly. “Whut we doin’?”

“Oh! You wanted me to organise something?” Sam realised. “I thought it was your turn.”

“Dude, I did it last year,” Dean reminded him pointedly. “And every year we been switching Bad Fire and Heavenly shifts like this. And last year you said you’d be doing this year’s holiday idea. Well?”

Sam’s face crumpled in guilt. “Oh. Yeah. I did say that, didn’t I?” he managed.

Dean tutted and looked down at the large hourglass. “Well, time’s a-wasting,” he sighed. “We got the day off and nuthin’ to do. And while I am lookin’ forward to my shift up there and that little angel who makes the best pie, I hope this day never ends.”

Sam’s face turned sad and he opened his mouth.

But Dean held up an index finger suddenly. Sam smiled again, waiting. Dean felt in his back pocket with his other hand, rolling his crafty eyes up and grinning at his younger brother.

It was the grin of a boy who had just discovered his tiny brother could walk - and he had seen it before their father. It was the grin of a boy who had stolen a comic from the store without incident because it was his little brother’s favourite, it was the grin that had held as he’d read it for him. It was the grin of a teenager who had shushed his younger brother, grabbing up a box of Durex and climbing out of a bedroom window, to the distant giggle of a girl’s voice in the night. It was the grin of a young man pinned to the carpet, having broken into his brother’s place at Stanford. It was the grin of a young man who knew that he and his brother had just destroyed a Yellow Eyed Demon in a cemetery. It was the grin of a young man who had taken out a grown man with only a television remote. It was the grin of a man who had cosied up to the damsel in distress threatened by a shapeshifter and consequently got his happy ending. It was the grin of a part-time angel, part-time demon supervisor who had remembered to bring a new, still-sealed pack of playing cards.

With pictures of naked women on them.

Sam laughed out loud. “What we playin’ for?” he asked cheerfully, picking up the hourglass and following his older brother over the fence and into the field with glee.

“Uh… Who gets to prank that new-boy angel you don’t like. First.”

“Done,” Sam agreed, plonking the hourglass on the ground beside them.

Dean was already making a depression in an area where the swaying grass was shorter, but as Sam sat down, he noticed Dean throw his legs out as straight as they would lie in front of him. He watched, confused, as Dean opened his legs as wide as they would go, sweeping them closed and then open a few times, chuckling to himself.

“Dude,” Sam said with apprehensive discomfort.

Dean stopped and looked at him innocently. “Whut?”

Sam waved a single finger at his boots, his eyebrows and face displaying more unease and worry than a whole schoolyard of children waiting for a dental check-up.

But Dean held his hands up in innocence. “I’m bein’ a corn angel,” he grinned cheekily.

Sam snorted with amusement for five seconds before he dragged in a breath and laughed out loud. Dean watched him, warmed in places something as merely physical as the outside sun could never reach at the sound of his brother’s innocent happiness filling the air. He began to laugh too, and suddenly it was as if all the hard work, all the toil and anguish, the arguments and family drama of the entire Winchester clan had never happened.

“Wish I could be here tomorrow to see some random guy discover this pattern in the field and take a photo for The Fortean Times,” Dean laughed. He shook his head and crossed his legs in a wide approximation of comfort. He pulled the plastic wrapper off the cards, tucking it in the top pocket of his beige and black checked shirt carefully.

Sam let his laughter subside and wiped an eye, sighing with leftover amusement. He watched his brother handle the cards.

“Dude, you’re gonna burn,” he observed, gesturing to Dean’s bare forearms and then head under the strong sun.

“Am not.”

“You always have.”

“Sammy, I been in the Pit keeping demons in line for a year. If I was gonna burn, I think I woulda done it by now.”

“I’m just sayin’, is all.”

“Well you said. Now lemme deal.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“But you’re so gonna burn in this su--”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Quit it, Sammy.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Ok, Dean.”

“Ok.

“But when you’re all red as beets, I’m not gonna be there to switch on the air-co--”

“I am not gonna burn!”

“Right. Fine. Yeah. You are not going to burn.”

“Thank you!”

“Much.”

“Sam, what are you, five?”

“Alright!”

“Well alright.”

“Dean, I’m just trying to he--”

“You’re tryin’ my patience is whut you’re doin’!”

“You’re an ass.”

Dean dealt the cards, huffing slightly to himself. It was silent until the cards were ready. He swept his hands over the pile closest to him, gathering them together.

“Bitch,” he mumbled.

Sam picked up his cards, fanning them out and looking at his big brother over the top.

“Jerk.”

.

FIN

.

.

End Notes:

The song is of course ‘Me And Baby Brother’ by War. It was playing on the iPod as I fell asleep one night. I had a horrible dream of the knife in Sam’s chest, the two beams of sunlight in front of Bobby, the song as sung by Dean walking cheerfully through a sunny Kansas field. I woke up at four a.m. (is that my magic time or is that my magic time?) and couldn’t sleep. I hit shuffle on the iPod and out of 1023 songs, ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends?’ (again by War) came up. I thought about my dream. And then I got up and wrote it all out.

Thanks yous (Oscar stylee):

To Apple Inc., for bringing me iPod Bob and iPhone Dax, and aiding and abetting my already skewed sense of Right and Wrong.

To Stolichnaya, for their skill in the making and marketing of vodka.

To War for their songs ‘Me And Baby Brother’ and ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends?’

To Billy Squier for his still entirely effing excellent album ‘Don’t Say No’.

To Led Zeppelin for (among others) ‘The Song Remains The Same’.

To T.S Eliot for his poem ‘The Hollow Men’ and the line ‘This is the way the world ends; not with a bang, but with a whimper’.

To Pericles for his attributed quote ‘What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.’

To Dylan Thomas for his poem ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’, for the accursed lines ‘And you, my father, there on the sad height. Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’

To each and every reader, no matter how they came to be on any one of the three chapters. You’re my demographic, as Debi Newberry says.

I promise I shall never kill The Boys again: I might possibly maybe kinda have had something in the general vicinity of the moist bit of my eye (that could not possibly have resembled salt water in any way) when I wrote it. But I’m sure my eyes were just sweating.

--And this IS an AU, right? Right? RIGHT?