Supernatural Finale: With or Without You – Part 5

Welcome Back to my vision of the end of Sam and Dean’s fight to save the world! “With or Without You” is a multi-part, complex tale that brings the Supernatural saga to a close in a way that’s quite different than the “Unity”/”Despair”/”Inherit the Earth” finale that was presented  in season 15. Yes, there’s mystery, danger, old friends and familiar enemies, but the ending  – well, that just might surprise you. Begin with part 1, or drop into the story in whatever chapter you may have missed by using the links on our Fan Fiction tag. Then over the next several weeks, return with us to the Supernatural universe to again immerse yourselves in the lives of Sam and Dean Winchester!

 

“With or Without You”
PART 5

*****Sam*****

“Sam!”

It was way too early in the day for this. After driving all night to Jody Mills’ house, Sam and Victor had chained up the leprechaun inside her garage then collapsed on her couches after a brief explanation. His body ached in weird places after trying to accommodate itself to a couch that was just a bit too small for his lanky frame, and it really didn’t want to move yet. Groggy, Sam hauled himself to his feet and grabbed his FBI-issued semi-automatic pistol before stumbling towards the garage where his name was shouted. “What is it?” he asked when he reached Alex, who was standing alone in the midst of the garage.

The young woman spun around, her eyes glistening. “OhmygodSamImsosorry!”

He held up his hand and said, “Hey, slow down. Sorry about what?”

“I just wanted to glance at the leprechaun you were talking about last night and… and he’s gone! I must have let him out or broke the ward or circle you had containing him – I didn’t mean to – I’m really sorry.”

Sam looked past Alex and saw the leprechaun sitting there, chained up in the chair. He whistled at Sam and said, “Hello, sailor!”

Sam glanced down and realized he hadn’t put a shirt on yet. With a sigh he said, “Alex, he’s still there.”

She turned around and stared at the center of the room. “Where?”

“Can you not see the chair?”

She shook her head.

Sam raised his gun as he pulled Alex aside so it wouldn’t go off next to her ear, and fired.

The single bullet hit Wayne in the center of his mass. “Ow!”

“That wasn’t even iron,” Sam replied.

“He is still here?”

“It’s not about the physical pain, but the emotional scars,” said the leprechaun. “I really thought we were getting closer.”

“Oh, there he is!” Alex said. Sam sighed and went back inside the house. Alex followed him saying, “He doesn’t look much like a leprechaun. More like a middle school teacher.”

In the kitchen, Donna was preparing a pot of coffee. “Morning sleepyhead! Was there an emergency?”

“No. I should have warned you all that fairies can turn invisible. Our guest was playing a little trick on Alex,” said Sam as he headed back to the living room for a shirt. The way he could feel Alex’s eyes on him made him a bit uncomfortable.

“I panicked. Sorry,” she said, blushing.

“Oh it ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of,” Donna said with a big smile. “I myself have been known to be a mite concerned when one of my prisoners goes missing.”

“Where’s Jody and Victor?”

“They went on to the station. Vic wanted to check the NCIC machine for more records of missing.”

“Good,” Sam said as he took a mug of coffee from Donna and carefully took a few sips. “While they’re out, that will give us time to interrogate our guest. There’s a few techniques I’ve been itching to try.”

“Sam…” said Donna.

“What? He’s not human so human rights don’t apply,” he replied. “We’re cleared of both the Geneva Convention and Constitution.”

“You’ll need a nurse in case something goes wrong,” Alex said with an eager smile.

“No!” snapped Donna. “We’re not doing things that way and you need to get to work young lady.”

“But Dooonnnaaa,” Alex protested, “if we find his pot of gold we won’t have to work.”

While Donna helped Alex out of the house, Sam nursed his coffee, keeping his eyes on the leprechaun who seemed to be sitting just a little too still in his chains. When he heard the front door open, Sam maneuvered himself to stand by the dividing wall so he could see to the garage, but their prisoner could not see Donna.

After waving goodbye and shutting the front door, Donna turned around and gave a yelp when she saw Sam standing right behind her. Smacking his arm she said in a harsh whisper, “Seriously? You’re going to torture him? We have better morals than that!”

Raising the mug to his lips, Sam whispered back, “We do, but I don’t want him to know that.”

Donna leaned around the wall to look down the length of the house into the empty garage.

“He’s been listening to us all morning,” Sam whispered again before taking a swig of coffee.

“You’re tryin’ to play the bad cop,” whispered Donna at a lower volume than before.

Sam grinned. “Only because you’re the best good cop around.”

Donna thought about it a moment then said, “Ok. Who leads the play?”

“After you, Officer Hanscum.”

A few minutes later, Donna went into the garage carrying a chair from the kitchen in one hand, and a bottle of half-and-half French vanilla creamer in the other. Sam was right behind her, with his arms full of a book, gun, knife and crowbar. Donna placed her chair and sat down before she said, “Now Mr. Leprechaun, we’d like to have a chat.”

With an exaggerated sigh, Sam set most of his stuff on a shelf in the garage, then hit the back of the prisoner’s chair hard with the crowbar. “Show yourself when the lady talks to you.”

“By Oberon’s beard that rattles the teeth,” he said.

“Oh!” said Donna, now looking at the prisoner and noticing that she had set herself almost six feet to his right. She moved herself over to sit in front of him. “Hello, Mr. Leprechaun.”

“Please, call me Wayne,” he replied with a big smile.

“Is that your real name?”

He chuckled. “Surely you’ve heard enough tales to know the fae do not lightly traffic in real names, Donna.”

Donna stole a glance at Sam. He was standing there against the shelves lining the back of the garage, furiously writing in the back of his mother’s green journal. Sam glanced up at her and nodded. Donna leaned forward and placed her right hand on Wayne’s knee. “Mr. Wayne, then. What are you doin’ kidnappin’ innocent people?”

He shrugged. “People to us are like cattle to you – a hundred uses for them.”

“You eat us?”

“Don’t take the metaphor too literally,” Wayne said over his shoulder. “Well, the trolls and a few other dark fae do – but I’ve never partaken.”

“What’s your goal?” asked Donna. “Just to take a few of us?”

Wayne looked quite baffled. “No. We’re trying to blow up the world.”

Sam took a step closer. “Why would you wipe out your own cattle?”

“We wouldn’t. We’re trying to build up a breeding stock,” Wayne answered. “Just in case.”

Donna held up the bottle of creamer. “Just in case… what?”

Wayne licked his lips when he saw the bottle. “Just in case the reset goes wrong.”

“Reset?” asked Sam.

“You haven’t noticed it? Really?” Wayne rolled his eyes. “This is the wrong world. A place that shouldn’t be. So we’re going to blow it up, and let the proper world come back.”

“How do you know?” asked Donna.

“We have our own, separate world. What happens here doesn’t affect us. One morning we all wake up, look outside, and everything is wrong.”

“Wrong… how?” asked Sam.

“You can’t see it? Everything! Half the people that should be here, aren’t. Entire planets that were once filled – now empty.”

“You mean… the entire universe is wrong?”

“Right,” said Wayne. “So we’re going to destroy it all.”

Donna gave the leprechaun a drink of the creamer then she and Sam hurried into the kitchen. “The universe?!” she asked in a tone of voice that was half a whisper and half a scream. “Can they do that?”

“I don’t know,” whispered Sam as he flipped through his mother’s journal. “Mom had plenty of dealings with demons and monsters and ghosts, but I can’t find anything in here about fairies.”

“How can they even—” Donna stopped herself, then turned to the garage and shouted, “How are you going to blow up the universe?”

Wayne leaned back and shouted, “We’re still working that out!”

Sam and Donna stared at each other.

“Is he lying?” asked Donna.

“If he is, it’s the worst lie I’ve ever heard,” said Sam.

“Do you want to torture him now?” whispered Donna.

“What happened to our morals?”

“That was before the terrorist threatened to blow up everything, Sam. Everything!”

Sam looked at their prisoner. “We need more info on the fairies.”

“Why not ask whoever gave you that bracelet?” Donna asked.

“I got it from a witch disguised as a fortune teller,” answered Sam.

“So call her.”

“I tried. Nobody answered. She just vanished, leaving only this card,” he said, pulling out the eight of cups tarot card he had stuck in the journal.

“Does it mean anything?”

“Letting go, traveling, escaping, withdraw – basically everything you want to let a guy know you’re leaving.”

They stood there, lost in thought as Sam turned the card over again and again, hoping he would see some clue that he missed. Then again, why did he assume there had to be a clue? What right did he earn to talk to Rowena ever again? He had left one of his FBI cards with her, she could always call him if she—

Struck with an idea, Sam ran to the living room where he had left his bags last night and began digging through them.

“What are you doing?” Donna asked as she followed him.

“Our witch was very fond of hiding things in plain sight,” said Sam as he went digging through his backpack. “She would hide hex bags among random kitsch on her shelves. On her windows, one legitimate ward would be surrounded by two fakes.” With a sign of triumph, Sam pulled out of his bag a small UV flashlight they would frequently use for evidence gathering. Clicking it on, he waved it over the back then the front of the tarot card. “I kept thinking she had put a spell or something on this.”

There on the face of the card, ten numbers glowed in the light.

Sam smiled as he said, “But all she used was invisible ink.”

***** Dean *****

Professor Joram Brunswick had just enough time to drop off his briefcase and pick up his lesson for the next class. He opened the door to his office expecting to see his room just as he had left it, filled with stacks of old books and student papers. Instead, he was startled to find a large man in a suit, lying in wait for him. Before Joram could shout for help, someone grabbed his arms from behind and placed a cloth over his nose and mouth. He tried to struggle, but the chloroform  overpowered him.

“He’s out,” said Ketch.

Dean let the professor’s arms go, grabbed the folder on top of the piles of papers on the man’s desk and handed it all to Anna, who was keeping watch in the hall.

“Looks like… Europe, seventeenth century,” she said flipping through the pages. “Room 204. I’ll see you guys back here in an hour,” she said, handing the folder back to them.

Ketch placed the professor’s class notes back on the desk with a quizzical look as he said, “Are you sure you don’t need—”

“Arthur. I was there. I’ll be fine. Heck, it will probably be the best history lesson the kids ever have,” Anna said before straightening her business dress suit and walking away.

Dean shut the door and locked it before helping Ketch move the professor onto the couch so he could be more comfortable.

“What is she?” Ketch finally asked.

“My wife,” replied Dean as he browsed the professor’s desk.

“She can’t be human,” said Ketch, moving to examine the office’s bookcases.

“She is now.”

“What was she before?”

“An angel.”

Ketch stared at him. “You’re serious.”

Dean shrugged as he looked at the papers piled up on the desk. “She became human, went back to being an angel for a few years, and is now back to human.”

“And she still married you? I can’t decide if you’re the craziest or luckiest bastard on earth.”

“Luckiest,” said Dean. A paper on top of one of the piles caught his eye. It was a flyer with a black and white photo of a young man in the center, and the word ‘MISSING’ spelled out across the top in big letters.

“You’re staring at that awfully hard,” said Ketch.

Dean blinked and looked up. “I swear I know this kid,” he said, holding the flyer up for Ketch.

“Jack… Kline?” Arthur read off the page. “Someone from an old case?”

“No… maybe? I’ve been having weird déjà vu ever since we came here to Stanford.” Dean grabbed the old, leather tote briefcase the professor had been carrying and dug through it until he found an old-fashioned attendance book. Opening it up on the desk, he looked for the page containing the class Anna had been sent to. “That’s why the professor had this flyer,” said Dean, pointing at one of the entries. On the line labeled ‘Jack Kline’ followed a series of red Xs denoting a missed class. They stretched back in an unbroken line for over a month.

“You think it means something?” asked Ketch.

“Dunno, but I’ve learned to save anything that could be a clue,” Dean said as he folded up the flyer and stuck it in his back pocket.

“Well, here’s another one,” said Ketch, holding up a framed photograph.

Dean looked closer at it. “That looks familiar too.”

“It should. That’s a picture of the Judah Initiative. We saw this exact same photo in the only file in the bunker on the Thule Society. This seems to be the original photo, and it was prominently displayed on his bookshelf.”

Both of them looked at the old man lying on the couch.

“Son of a bitch,” said Dean.

“We knocked out a veteran,” Ketch said with horror.

“Who fought the Thule before and could have helped us.”

They looked at each other.

“We’ve got to awaken him,” said Ketch.

“So he can call campus police on us?” asked Dean.

“Maybe if we explain things, he’ll help us.”

“We attacked him in his own office! He’s not going to listen to us.”

“Well, we need to talk to him about the Judah Initiative. There wasn’t much in those old files,” said Ketch.

A knock on the door interrupted them.

“Professor? Are you in there?” asked the person on the other side in a foreign accent.

Dean and Ketch began frantically signaling to each other to be quiet. They both froze when they heard the doorknob being tested. A heartbeat passed, then they heard the telltale sounds of the lock being picked.

Ketch withdrew his gun from his back holster. Dean, heading to the door, waved his arms to signal Ketch to put the weapon away.

The click of the lock popping out caused them both to freeze again. The door slowly opened, a black glove holding onto it as the newcomer asked again, “Professor?”

Dean threw himself at the door, knocking the intruder off balance into the hall. Yanking the door wide open, Dean grabbed the front of the man’s coat and pulled him inside, shoving him in Ketch’s direction.

As Dean closed the door and relocked it, Ketch struck the intruder’s jaw with a right hook, knocking the man’s round glasses off. The force of the blow spun him around to Dean, who hit him with a left hook, spinning him back around. Grabbing his lapels, Ketch headbutted their uninvited guest on the bridge of his nose. Dean then grabbed the back of his neck, kicked his legs out, and slammed him face first into the ground.

“Whoa, easy tiger.” It felt familiar, like a memory. He was at Stanford, holding someone down on the ground after a fight. Someone he knew but didn’t recognize. “You’re out of practice,” he wanted to say, but to who…

Dean blinked rapidly and rubbed his eyes, trying to shake the sensation and return to reality. “I hope this isn’t another veteran,” He quipped, hoping Ketch didn’t notice the disorientation.

“Check his left hand.”

Without loosening his grip, Dean reached over and removed the black glove on the intruder’s left hand.

“Oh, he’s a veteran – of the other side,” said Ketch. “That ring is the Thule signet.”

Dean looked at the man he had pinned down. He looked even younger than Dean, with red hair that didn’t have a touch of grey. “He doesn’t even seem old enough to drink.”

“It’s a society of necromancers, Dean. We need to kill him,” Ketch said as he withdrew his gun.

“Whoa! Hang on. We can’t do it here.”

“Why not?”

Dean sighed. “The family is paranoid. When they meet Anna, they’re going to investigate her. That means checking her history, her records, and if anything suspicious happened at the school on the day she met Cyrus. A gunshot and a body, found in the office of the professor she was substituting for, is suspicious!”

“And he won’t just tell them about being attacked?” Ketch asked, pointing at the Thule.

Dean stood up and began pacing the room. “We’ll have to take both of them with us.”

“Won’t carrying two bodies out of here ‘look suspicious?’”

“Right.” Dean resumed his pacing. “What if… we wake up the professor, explain the mishap, and when he sees that we saved him from a Thule, he’ll agree to help us out.”

“And said Thule?”

“We’ll tie him up, interrogate him later. Toss me the zip ties while you use the smelling salts on the professor.”

As soon as Ketch turned his back to get Dean’s request, the body on the floor jumped to his feet and shoved Ketch aside before making a mad dash to the door. Dean threw himself at the Thule, hitting him with a flying tackle. They crashed to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. The Thule uttered a stream of Germanic swear words as he tried to escape Dean’s grasp, but the hunter interlocked their legs. He tried to get the German into an arm pin, but the Thule managed to yank his right arm free and slammed his elbow back as hard as he could, hitting Dean square in the nose. Stunned, Dean’s grip relaxed for a second, which was just enough time for the German to kick his legs out of the bind. He was almost free – only Dean’s left grip on his coat remained.

Ketch grabbed the Thule’s shoulder, turning him around and slamming a dagger in the center of his chest.

“What’s all this ruckus? Can’t you see I’m trying to take a nap?” asked Professor Brunswick in a groggy voice.

Then he opened his eyes to see Dean and Ketch on the floor beside the couch with a dead body between them.

*****To Be Continued*****

Find out what happens next in Part 6 of “With or Without You”! Then enjoy WFB’s other Supernatural fan fiction, found at the Fan Fiction tag on the bottom of every page!

Story and Illustration by Nate Winchester
Edited by Nightsky