Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

cut one out and plant with others

plant under rowan roots

There are no leaves to crunch under boots. It’s solid hard pavement under all trees, grey like the night itself, branches moving slowly like metal cranes. Rudy clutches his chest, trying to find the void that has been left from the missing heart, only there is none. A clock is ticking under the thin patch of see-through skin instead, hard and loud and unforgiving. His hands come back bloody, the stitches still oozing blood from where he’d pulled out the tubes. He needs to get further away, needs to find the path, but the light is so low it fills his eyes with fog and shadows instead. He still tries to run, feet cold from not using them and for not having shoes, but he barely feels it. Ears ring from the ticking, but suddenly there’s an accompanying sound of a quiet siren.

His heart would skip a beat, if he still had one. So, Rudy swallows and tries to cover the ears, but that makes the sound only more piercing, making him kneel and retch out the bile. They’re following him, perhaps even tracking, but he knows there’s a path to the infamous Bunker nearby. If he’d only reach it. He needs to get back up, but the body is so tired and the clock’s threads feel like they’re tying him to the ground, forcing him to bury his own thoughts, forcing him to lean on the feelings they injected into him instead. But he remembers how it was to be drunk out of your mind. The haze feels similar, he can find a way through it. If only there was water, he imagines that could help. Unless it’s poisoned by this wonderous world of course.

He focuses on a tiny hole in the tree bark, gets up and turns left. The instructions on the map were clear, if he could only remember. The markings! There were markings on the trees. Sigils and patterns and symbols.

The blaring sound becomes louder, screeching from the edge of the woods now. But Rudy sees one sigil and follows it. There must be more, leading to the path. There were seven of them, three misleading, four true. He remembers now, takes a breath to calm himself and follows the pattern. They are close behind him, but he is so close as well. Finally he can see the black huge hollowed out rowan tree. Rowans don’t even grow that big, do they? There’s a way to the inside of it, he knows, he knows. He finds a line on it, a protection mark and carves into it with his fingers. The hounds are barking now, so near, the blaring sound howling in his ears, the clock ticking even louder. He finds a hook in the carving and pulls it. The symbol glows for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment and he pushes it. It gives in for a second, but then the tree bark is solid again. Locked. No! A grey hound bites him in the foot and drags Rudy to the ground. He tries to get a hold on something, anything, but the fingers lose grasp and all he can do is yell. Further and further he is being dragged from salvation. He can see shadows now, silhouettes of people. They get nearer and nearer until there’s a quiet click and everything is silent now.

All he can hear is ticking of the clock.

Tick-tock-tick-tock

tick tock

tick tick tick

…

Sky-fall Camp, underground

„Patience! Love, you awake?” Jody’s voice comes through and Patience blinks out of her vision. It wasn’t a future one any more, something that happened right now instead. She listens to her heart and, finding it still beating like the Earth instead of a clock, she relaxes and exhales.

„Yes. Just another one taken. He was so close to the Bunker though,” she frowns, „something is wrong.”

„Yeah, well, you’ve been saying that for years. It’s not like any of us think it’s right. Gotta keep

your heart close though,” she goes quiet, seeing how Patience is still lost in thoughts. The girl has visions practically every day now. They constantly need to stay under ground because of it or her powers will show up on the Wonders radar.

„No, it’s,” Patience shakes her head, trying to make sense of it, „the door... it was closed. It almost opened and then it was locked again. I haven’t seen them for a while now. I used to... Jody, I used to have a minor connection to Sam, but it’s been months since I clearly saw any of them. Have you had contact?”

„The last letter was two months ago,” Jody finally admits. She didn’t want to worry the girl, but perhaps it wasn’t the right decision.

„That’s... not too long ago. Do you think the carrier got caught?”

„No clue,” Jody sits on the bench next to Patience. „Listen, could you, do you think you would be able to reach Kaia? Perhaps they have news.”

Patience closes her eyes again and tries to go to the dreamwalker, but all she can see are shadows and muffled sounds. An ache rubs through her mind and she shakes her head. „No. It doesn’t mean anything though, think she might just be too tired for a real connection.”

„Okay, okay,” Jody pats her shoulder and leans her hands on her knees to rise again.

„Jody,” Patience stops her, but doesn’t know how to continue.

Jody takes a long look at her and sighs. „Was it a bad one?”

Patience rubs her chest, but shakes her head. „Nothing I haven’t felt before. But... when I keep saying it’s wrong.... it’s everything? I’ve tried, I’ve tried to figure it out, but every time I feel like I’m close, the black comes and it’s all gone again. Like we were never supposed to remember. And I know it sounds crazy, but I feel that wrongness more and more every day, as if soon there won’t be a chance to make it right ever again.” This is probably why she feels so hollow all the time. Even fear seems to belong to someone else, to the people she has visions about.

A bell rings by the entrance. „Sorry, I have to... we’ll continue this, okay?” Jody gets up when Sal walks in.

She should try reaching Sam again. It’s not as if she can help Jody on the outside. She sits upright, closes her eyes again and starts searching for the threads. It’s grey, everything is always grey when she starts, taking the face of the world they live in. Something golden flickers for a moment, but disappears as fast as it came. The gold spot isn’t always there, but she’s come across it more often as her powers have grown. It feels a little too much like hope that is immediately crushed and burned. She holds her breath for ten seconds and blows it out, her eyes opening, but not seeing the sanctuary around her.
There’s an open road, it’s not a bad thread to go by, but she can’t see the destination and her feet don’t touch the ground. „Sam?” she tries to shout out, but no sound comes. She didn’t think it would work, but it’s always worth a try. She walks instead, a gust of wind making the dust fly in air, and she takes a step in that direction. The world turns to black and she hears the clocks ticking again. Louder and louder, like a banging on the wall.

„Sam?” this time her voice comes out as a shallow breath, it’s not even as loud as a whisper, but it travels with the wind and for a second the shadows turn invisible. She can see Sam, but he’s lying on the ground or on the floor, she tilts her head... it’s almost as if he’s lying on a ceiling. Unmoving.

The clock in the shadows yells and all she can feel is pain piercing through her mind, she jumps and opens her eyes in Sky-Fall.

The migraine is already pounding and still no solid information. Nothing good is coming.

Chapter Text

they grow from black to grey to red

and you will never have

heart oh heart for them again

„Don’t you dare to open that door!” Dean all but shouts, running towards the map table.

„What? It’s one of us, you know it is!” Sam is holding on to the dial wheel. „They know the codes!”

„Sam, damn it! They’re already followed. We can’t let them in, whoever it is,” Dean punches his fist to the alarm button and the flashes of light alerting of intruder stop right away.

„You just sentenced them to death.” Sam glares at him and turns to watch from the peekhole. The tree branches move, there’s still a faint glowing light until it dies. They can hear a scream. And the howls. It’s always the howls. Dean takes two steps back, his face turning ashen.

Sam doesn’t meet his eyes, just shakes his head.

„What the fuck is wrong with you, man? You just doomed him, you realize that!?”

„He was already doomed, Sam, and you fucking know it,” Dean presses through his lips in a low voice, not wanting to argue about this all over again.

„This is going too far, Dean, I can’t be a...a...a murderer with you, no matter the reasons, do you even hear yourself?”

„It would’ve been a trap! They’re already gunning for you, following you, I ain’t gonna let you walk right to the danger like that!” Why the fuck can’t Sam understand he needs to protect something in this shithole of a world?

„It...” Sam takes a breath, trying to calm himself. He knows there’s no reasoning with his brother when he’s already spiraling like this, but he also knows this is not Dean. Not really, he would never condemn someone to death only because saving them might lead into a trap.

„We’ve already cut all ties to the outside world, we can’t –, we can’t keep living like this.”

„You mean you can’t keep living like this?” Dean remarks bitterly, almost snorting.

„What do you want me to say?”

„What... I want you to realize there is nothing out there, nothing is left and you wanna leave? Fine, fucking leave then, I’m not keeping you here.” Like hell is he going to let Sam go out there, when he freaking knows, he just knows the Wonders want him.

„Dean! A man is dead because you wouldn’t open a door, do you even get it? It’s like there’s nothing you care about anymore!”

„You’re damn right, because there is nothing out there to care about. But I will not lose you too!” he points a finger at Sam, shaking his head.

„Jesus, Dean,” Sam rubs his face, trying to make sense of it, „is this about...”

„No-no-no-no, you don’t get to make everything about him!” Dean’s on the verge of yelling.

„Well, then I’m lost! There’s still people out there! Good people, you used to care about that before, you used to care about the world. Now it’s like you’re empty and if I didn’t know better, I’d think you don’t have a heart anymore!” he regrets the words almost immediately.

Dean strikes closer and Sam flinches, but the punch doesn’t come.

„You can believe whatever you want,” his voice is cold, „I am only doing what’s best for you. And if you can’t see that,” a bitter laugh escapes him, „I guess you don’t really know me, now do you?”

„Dean, I didn’t mean that you –,” he doesn’t know how to finish what he wants to explain.

„That what? That I’m a zombie fulfilling all their orders? No feelings, no thoughts of my own? Is that what you meant? Cause, newsflash, I do have my heart. It ain’t mine that they want, it’s yours and I am not gonna let that happen, you hear me? Never,” Dean can hear his own voice cracking. The truth is, he doesn’t, he really doesn’t care about anything anymore.

„Okay, I get that, I do! But if... I would never choose my own life over someone else’s and you should leave that decision to me, it’s my life in the end.”

Dean almost laughs at that.

„It wasn’t a life we just traded, his heart was already gone. There’s no coming back from that, we should stop thinking of them as people.” It doesn’t sound completely right coming out of his mouth, but it’s the truth and he does believe it.

„That is not true. Jody is proof of that!”

There’s silence.

„Jody got lucky,” Dean finally says into the quiet of the room.

„You don’t, you can’t mean that?”

Dean only shakes his head. He’s lost his words, but he doesn’t want to take any back either.

„I can’t do this anymore,” Sam rubs his eyes.

The tension just keeps ticking now.

It’s quiet outside, no one near the symbols hidden throughout the black forest, and it’s also quiet inside. No one besides the two of them lives here anymore. Not for the last few months. Sam sometimes misses the voices of others, hearing the ghost of it. But the refugees found another place and the fighters... well, neither of them wants to think about what happened to the fighters.

Finally, Dean blows out a breath and turns away. He presses his lips together, trying frantically to find a solution that would keep Sam here. They want everyone with even a slightest hint of psychic brainwaves or whatever. He freaking knows it, he just knows it. He looks around, eyes trying to find something, anything useful. They’ve looked through all of the books, contacting anyone in their circle just wouldn’t be safe, not that anyone would even care. The Bunker is cloaked against any kind of Wonders, spies and friends alike. He still hasn’t told Sam about the additional layer he’s added against very strong psychics.

„I’m leaving,” a voice cuts through his thoughts. „Dean? Did you hear me? I said I –.”

„Yeah, I heard you alright. You’re leaving, big fucking surprise.” He doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore.

„That’s it then?” Sam still won’t let go. Why doesn’t he leave already, if he’s going anyway?

„Yeah, whatever,” Dean adds. He doesn’t look up to see Sam’s face or his sad look, instead flicking his gaze all over the place. Then, he sees it. A way. It won’t be a solution for long, but it will buy them time, it will buy Sam time. That’s all that matters right now.

The Mercury Mirror.

He can hear Sam move around and he calculates the right time. Listens to the clock and Sam shifting, he knows his brother, knows when he turns his back. Then, he attacks.

The trolley creaks, rolling on the white floor. The room looks sterile, like a hospital. But the neon signs on the wall promoting Chuck’s Wonders tell a different story. This is far from a place where people go to heal, this is where they will bury their hearts and lose their souls.

Of course, it is not what the company line says, it is only something everyone knows and accepts as a fact of life. You don’t really need a heart, not in this day and age.

Chuck turns the hourglass on his desk, grains of sand rolling and drowning, when the clock on the wall lights up. He answers the phone.

„Yes?.... oh, interesting.” He keeps his eyes on the clock that has dimmed again. Their alarm system is impeccable. „Well, deal with it, I am not paying you for nothing. I want him here, he works for us, I will not accept anything less. If needs must, kill him, he can be replaced, but the less enemies we have, the better. All right,” he smiles into the phone, eyes cold and dangerous, „I will expect your report soon.”

He hangs up and leans back, hands on the back of his head, sighing contentedly. He turns an hourglass the other way, watching the grains of sand counting time.

Chapter Text

oh and bones they creak and shatter

just like glass on marble floor

Jody clicks the box open and breathes again. Her heart is still there, thumping and growing from the black soil. „Hiya there! Missed seeing you.”
She almost touches it, before withdrawing her fingers. She can still feel the hollowness inside her chest, the hole where a heart should be. It is empty. She can consider herself lucky for not having the infamous clock in its place. And for being able to have her real heart, even if it lies in a box that’s always with her. She can thank Donna for that rescue. D-train had come to her rescue, guns blazing. They couldn’t help anyone else back then, guns are not the right weapons against Wonders after all. The only reason they weren’t followed was because Jody was not important. She never had any powers of her own, the only reason they’d taken her to the facility was because of her son. And with him gone... she hadn’t even wanted her heart, but Donna kept it, of course she did.

There’s a knock on the open door. „Jody?” Patience leans on the frame. She looks worse with every passing day.

Jody coughs before banging the box closed and turning towards the girl. She can see Patience looking at the box, but she doesn’t say anything about it, she never does. She doesn’t have to ask, and she probably knows more than Jody can imagine in any case.

„Hey! You, uh, you got some sleep?”

Patience shakes her head, „I did get a hold of Kaia though, they’re safe. Claire insists on lying low for a few days. They almost captured Kaia.”

„What?” Jody feels a pit grow in her stomach. Her heart bangs inside the box, demanding release. She swallows instead.

„Yeah. Apparently the boy they tried to save was too far gone. Or too important for the Wonders to let him go without a fight. Jody...” she starts, but grows quiet. Then, „There’s something else. I got a glimpse of Sam, but it was only a glimpse. He was unconscious.”

„Damn it. Any sign of Dean or anyone?”

She shakes her head and bites her lip. „The fog is getting thicker, it gets harder to control what I see.”

Jody narrows her eyes and looks at her. Patience is on the verge of collapsing. Jody wants to wrap her in a hug and shield her from the world, but is only met with a slight smile from the young woman.

„Don’t go reading my mind, now,” she laughs instead.

„How is it going outside? Did you get a hold of Benny?” Patience changes the subject.

„Yeah, not bad. Another cluster of people rescued, but none of them were in deep.”

Patience nods.

„It’s not hopeless, Patience.” Jody’s not certain she even believes her own words any more.

„No, it isn’t. I just need to find what’s missing,” Patience on the other hand sounds very sure of herself, even if she does need the wall to lean on.

„Honey...”

„I know you think it’s futile, but the way does exist. I just can’t seem to find it yet.”

„Do you... I just don’t want you to hurt yourself while trying, okay? You can’t hide what a toll it’s taking on you.”

„Don’t bells toll sometimes? The funeral bells? Think I’ve heard the saying...” Patience stops, deep in thought.

Jody tucks the box with her heart back into the little pouch on her waist and steps forward to put arms around Patience.

„We are not going to have funerals, so stop that talk, alright?”

„Yes, because we’re not allowed to have them proper... oh...” Patience falls silent suddenly and Jody can feel tremors wrecking her body. She holds her closer and guides her to the seat. Her eyes are huge and so light that they’re almost white. It always terrifies Jody, when it happens. She knows Patience is strong and experienced by now, but that otherworldly light... it doesn’t bring her any peace.

Patience blinks and tries to catch her breath before talking again. „There was no funeral. Only the black threads,” she frowns and shakes her head.

„Patience,” Jody whispers, she feels her heart hushing and skipping beats, „you need to stop, love, alright? You need to sleep.”

„No, I can sleep when it’s done. Things will get easier, we just need to get there.”

Patience still has hope for something better along the way. That’s not how the world works and Jody knows it. She doesn’t say anything though and places a kiss on the girls crown instead.

Dean keeps running. It’s not the perfect solution, far from it, but it is the only one he has. He needs to get as far away from the Bunker as quickly as possible, before Sam wakes up. What the fuck was he even thinking.... he shouldn’t have left his brother like that.
He leans on a tree in the blackness of forest, the Mercury Mirror squeezed into his palm. A breather. Is he really going to do this? It would mean a quick capture, it would mean.... Sam already said he doesn’t have a heart, or barely has one, whatever. He just knocked out his own brother, ’course he doesn’t have one. It wouldn’t matter, wouldn’t matter to anyone. Sam’s pissed anyway and there’s no one else left. He could buy some time.

„Okay, okay,” he mumbles, trying to calm himself, and palms the bark of the tree. „You’re gonna do it, man up, fuck, shit.” He can finally admit to himself that he is scared. But he keeps holding onto that mirror and thinking he doesn’t have much left anyway. It’s gotta be him.

He falls, sitting with his back against the tree, fingers playing with the object. It won’t save the world. Hell, it might not even save Sam. „Fuck... Ca... Fuck, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta,” he keeps repeating it like a spell. The mirror looks so tiny in his rough hands. His fingers follow the frame as he takes a deep breath.

„Okay, here goes nothing.” He closes his eyes and pictures Sam in his mind. He almost smiles, thinking of his little brother, but that’s not the point. The lines of Sam’s face, his gestures, the sound of his voice. There! That’s a perfect image, of him smiling, but exasperated, in the Bunker kitchen trying a bite of the pancakes. Dean smashes the mirror with his fist, his blood dripping through the cracks of the glass, turning the glass into a melting silvery substance. He cups it in his palms, shuts out all thoughts besides the image conjured and swallows it quickly.

At first there is nothing. For a moment he’s worried the whole plan was as flawed as he himself. Then his ears start drumming. There’s a cracking noise and the sound of sawing. Everything shatters in his head. That’s when the pain hits.

The light is so blinding he’d throw up if he’d knew where his mouth is, bones twist and turn and grow, his mind goes blank from the way his body is being ripped apart.

It doesn’t last long. When he finally opens his eyes, he feels all sorts of wrong. A person not knowing better would fall for the illusion that the mirror created and think it’s Sam Winchester standing there. He feels dizzy and out of it, but there’s still something else he needs to do, to create the aura of a mind gamer. He lights up a flare for a magic circle and fires it up. He hopes it’s enough. Sam doesn’t have great psychic powers neither, but it should call them.

He rubs his eyes, trying to get rid of the tears he hadn’t noticed before, and dries his bloody hand on his shirt. None of his limbs feel like they belong to him. He knows the transformation isn’t real and won’t last long, but Sam’s bangs still invade his eyes as he starts moving again. As far away from the Bunker as possible, that was the goal.
It happens fast. One moment he’s still trying to get away and the other he can smell the hounds circling in.

His eyes can’t catch them at first, but there are the rotten leaves burning in the air, making the ground even more ashen than before. And then the noise begins. It’s almost silent, the tinny siren thumping away seconds. His eyes start to water and his knees give up as he covers his ears. He shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t, he should still try to keep moving, but it brings back so many flashes of memories that it’s difficult to do what needs to be done.

Even with closed eyes he can still sense the shadows approaching. The creaking sound of feet, the ticking sound of fake hearts. The metal beasts are close, but the howling has just started.

Chapter Text

and when the thoughts are mixed with ether

they force belief in world of wonder

The garden of hearts is black and red and grey all at the same time. The hearts are still moving and beating and growing, some smelling of fresh blood, all of them fertilizing the ground that also shifts from red to black to grey, coal black being the end result. The ground is not moving like an earthquake, rather it seems to be beating, but so slow one might not even notice.

Chuck of course does. He smiles, hands behind his back, and bows to inspect one trembling heart.

“You want me to play a song for you?” he asks it without expecting an answer. They can’t understand him. “Oh well, I guess not. Will you tell my sis that her efforts are futile?” he continues with a smirk instead. The heart moves straighter, more controlled. Only for a moment before going back to beating in a slow frightful manner.

Chuck loves coming here. He doesn’t have many workers caring for the growing hearts, truth be told, he doesn’t need them. But he does like walking around here, sometimes he steps on some tiny ones and they’ll get mushed but still carry on. It reminds him how life will always find a way, but also the fact that life, well, it belongs to him. It is a cycle, after all. The hearts giving power to the dirt of the Earth, bringing it to life enough to make the clocks tick forever in return. And they will always do his bidding.

He gets to the center of the garden, to the small circle that almost looks like a pond. Except, instead of water, it’s filled by a black substance that’s bubbling. Thick and cloitering and sticky, like oil in some ways, yet much deeper. He looks right into it, at first seeing his twisted reflection on the surface, then, as the bubbles clear, he sees a huge black heart turning into a clock and back into a heart, darkness swirling around it. There are tubes and hoses coming out of the liquid, going into the tanks surrounding it, pumping it into the canisters. This is really what he needs workers for. To collect the substance for injections. The hearts do their job on their own, the control he has is trickier. He plunges his finger in and three droplets of blood are swallowed by the darkness.

“For food,” he keeps smiling, licking his finger clean.

Sam wakes with a headache, curses his brother and looks around with bleary eyes. Of course he’s not here anymore!

“Damn it, Dean,” he mumbles and gets up. The world is still spinning a little but he blinks a few times and his surroundings come into focus again. Right. He’s in the war room in the empty Bunker. Nothing seems out of place, Dean must’ve left without taking anything with him. Why the hell would he do that after being so adamant about not leaving ever? Dean had been willing to fucking bury the both of them here. Well, bury Sam as it turns out. Shit. He doesn’t even have any communication devices here, certainly not phones. And the landline’s been dead for months now. Normally, they didn’t bother with spying through landlines, but Dean had gotten paranoid about it after the fighters and cut it.

Damn it. He’d had a plan, not a good one but the town wasn’t far off and he has a spell shield. Nothing would’ve happened to him on the way there. Dean probably doesn’t have one.

That’s when he sees it.

Something is missing after all: the mirror they’d found from the archive room, the one that supposedly changes one’s appearance. They thought it might be useful, so they’d kept it close and now it’s gone from its place on the shelf. If Dean used it…. there’s panic running through Sam’s mind. Would Dean let himself be captured? Of course he fucking would, he doesn’t even think there’s anything left in the world for him!

Okay. Sam breathes through his nose, exhaling long and hard, trying to calm himself and come up with something, anything to help his brother.

He’s halfway through the door, thinking maybe he can still find Dean, stop him somehow, when he feels an energy field crackling. Strange. It shouldn’t be doing that, unless someone’s made it more volatile. He conjures all the power inside him, little as it is, to inspect and yes, it’s been made more powerful. Potent enough to not let through the psychics that are not with Wonders. Like Patience. He quickly recites the spellwork to weaken it and tries to contact her.

A death that didn’t happen. At least, there was no funeral. Patience keeps thinking about it through the mouthfuls of porridge. Doesn’t taste the best, but she wouldn’t pay attention to it anyway. It’s the threads she keeps chasing, never catching up.

Then, something pierces through the walls of her protective spells. A psychic call.

“Patience? Is that you? Can you hear me?” Sam’s voice carries through. It is faint and swallowed by mist, but it’s there.

She surges all her power towards him, pushing through the obstacles. Dean is gone and the Wonders probably have him. Sam coming to meet her half way here, at the Ocean Sanctuary. Then the connection is lost again. Sam is not a true psychic, he can’t hold it longer.

She breathes and swallows. At least one mystery is solved.

“Jody!” she calls out, but there is no answer. She’s probably still out. Patience steps into the main room, looking who’s still here.

“Hey, Max, is Jody on patrol?” she asks the man repairing his jacket at the moment.

“Yeah, should be back any moment. You alright?” He frowns, raising his gaze. “Look like you’ve seen a ghost. You look like that way too often these days.”

Patience shrugs. She almosts says something about Sam, but decides against it. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Max, but Jody should be the one making decisions and if she’s back soon…

“Okay,” she turns back.

“Get some sleep!” Max calls after her.

Why does everyone insist she has to sleep? It’s frustrating to no end. At least Alex isn’t here to fuzz over her. She’ll probably see her at Sanctuary though.

She will sleep once her mind has found a way through that fog or at least caught the golden thread. She hasn’t imagined it. Sometimes it feels like her own heart is missing. Of course it isn’t and it’s selfish to even think it, but the whole world is hollow right now, missing its soul. There must be a way to get it back. Even the stolen hearts are still somewhere.

Maybe Sam will have some answers about the death she’s started to fixate on. She closes her eyes and tries again. The threads are murky, world black and void. She finds Dean’s face, distraught and full of pain, but it’s from the past. She hasn’t had past visions for quite a while now. They don’t make a difference, they’re not needed and she doesn’t usually focus on them. Not anymore. Maybe she really is too tired. She almost lets go. Just before she opens her eyes, there’s a clear picture though. It moves too fast, she can’t get a hold of it, but she feels something shifting. And then it’s gone. She’s back in the room, her heart making itself known and heard. There was a precise moment in time when the world changed.

Chapter Text

oh but clocks they are so loud

When Dean is dragged to the facility, he can feel every rock, every pebble on the way. And the teeth that keep him locked between the jaws of the hounds. He wouldn’t know what else to call them. They are built like robots, but they act like dogs doing their masters’ bidding. Eyes neon blue like the gas on the stove his mom used. The strange thoughts invading his mind are almost more painful than the road.

They stop. He should try escaping, but he can barely lift his head, his body is not his own and full of pain. He knows where they are even without looking. The huge glowing C and W on the building, Chuck’s Wonders, can’t be missed by anyone.

The doors open automatically. And there is silence. But the jaws are back on him soon enough and he has to close his eyes again, almost wanting to pray. This was the plan, the only one he had. A taste of metal fills his mouth and he isn’t sure if it’s blood or the hounds or the mirror. He remembers he doesn’t look like himself though, he’d forgotten through the pain.

And now he’s drifting off in a room, alone. There’s at least ten clocks here, he can’t focus enough to see them, but he can hear. He can hear and he can count them, but his heart is beating so erratically the seconds and minutes get lost in the terrifying wall of sound. He seems to be tied to a table and alone in the room, but he can’t see the ropes or any kind of bindings at all. If he could only see how he’s tied, perhaps he could try escaping. Not that he would succeed.

“Oh, how lovely! We always crave more power,” a male voice drills through the air, “your little heart will be most welcome indeed, Dean Winchester,” it says matter-of-factly and Dean flinches at the name. The mirror trick must’ve worn off. Too soon.

“Oh yeah? What, you gonna eat it?” he tries to snap back, but the words lack bite and the voice is thin even to his own ears.

There is no answer, only a whirring sound coming from the ceiling, a rotating instrument being lowered down. Is that a scalpel attached to it?

Despite whatever he had decided before, he still tries to get away, not thinking of Sam, not thinking of plans (that wouldn’t work now anyway) or what’s best, just the pure desire to survive kicking in. He begins to struggle, but he can’t even fucking move.

The clocks get so loud it feels like they’re already banging inside of him, drumming the time to become frozen, drumming him to silence. A scream escapes him without thinking but he can’t seem to close his eyes, breathing in short bursts and shallow. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows that panic is not gonna help him. Doesn’t mean he can stop it though.

The whirring machine does stop, leaving the eerie ticking to be the only sound again.There are steps coming in behind him. He doesn’t hear them, as much as just senses, they leave footprints on his soul.

“Oh, did you not hear me coming in?”

A man bows down to look at him, his fingers grabbing the scalpel, light glinting from it.

“Just get it over with,” Dean spits out, trying to sound stronger than he is.

“Shhh, me? Oh no, you must be mistaken, I’m not the one who’s gonna cut anything. Sam, now him I would’ve. Maybe. But smokes and mirrors didn’t do you any favors. You’ll do it yourself, won’t you?” the voice whispers into his ear, sounding sugary sweet and patronizing. “And then you’ll know it’s for the better. I’m just here to watch and control it.” The man smiles, face round, friendly in a fake manner.

“Now, you know how to use a blade, don’t you?” The grin flashes and fingers grab onto Dean’s hand. “You’ve done it before, made things bleed, it’s just on your own body this time. Not much difference there.” His fingers are bent around the handle of the scalpel.

“Knew you guys were sick as fuck, how’m I supposed to do it, huh?” Dean tries to think of anything to say. Doesn’t matter what it is, it’ll buy him time. “You the infamous Chuck or whatever?” he asks, still immobile.

The man laughs, “Sometimes I do wish, but no, I’m just a timemaker, scribing it down.”

“You can’t make time,” Dean whispers, thoughts swirling inside his mind. Memories he’d shut down.

“Oh really? Tell it to the clocks I create. I suppose it is true, now that you mention it. More like catching and freezing it, the way he sees it should be.”

“I’m not gonna brainwash myself,” Dean growls through his teeth.

“No one said anything about a brain. Before we start --,” the doors open again and he can hear people moving around, something rolling on the ground, “-- we just want to make sure all is connected as it should be.”

There’s tubes and vials with black liquid in his eyeline by the platform he’s lying on. Flashes of black invade his mind, he knows he’s starting to zone out and he shouldn’t, he can’t afford it but the past keeps swirling.

They were surrounded. The fighters who stayed in the Bunker, along with Sam and him. Luckily, the forest was around them, so it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been and Dean found himself thinking that in the town they would’ve been captured the moment the chase had started. Garth had made the mistake of trusting someone from the inside. Now it was clear there were no inside men in the facility, they were all controlled or chose this path because they just wanted the world beneath their feet. They probably even enjoyed how the sun seemed to be perpetually hidden, making the world seem grey. Even the trees were more black than green. Lack of sun should’ve made them whiter instead, but no one really questioned why they were almost black.

He had thought being captured and getting your heart cut out would’ve been the worst destiny, he’d heard how it would feel. Most of the time they didn’t give you overall anesthetic, only local, and you could see everything they did to you. Then again, being awake had been what saved Jody from the worst. Her heart was cut out, that was true, but she was never injected with the controller, she was never tied to the clocks running on Wonders’ time. Her chest was empty, but she survived with her own mind intact as long as she carried her heart with her.

Dean had never heard anyone else being saved like that. He himself had saved people before the surgery, he knew Kaia had been on the line before Alex got to her. Back then, Alex had been able to infiltrate, but that was a one-time-deal only.

Now, he could hear the hounds and he has a faint idea what they look like, but that was not what he was afraid of. There was someone else in the woods, someone with enough psychic power to wield the clocks. He didn’t know what they could do, no one truly knew, but Wonders liked to use psychics to locate people.

“We need to hide!” he heard Sam’s shout as he grabbed Dean’s shoulder to get him further towards the rowan tree.

The flash happened quickly. Sam’s protection shield was probably what saved him and Dean from the worst and blasted them further out of the circle.

All other fighters were frozen. They were not covered in ice, but in a shiny liquid. It wasn’t black, it wasn’t silver, it wasn’t marble. And then they shattered. Of course they shattered, that’s what happened to frozen things, that’s what happened to everyone around him. Except, they didn’t just shatter, they burned into the ground leaving an image of a clock.

He is staring at the black liquid again. They are going to inject it into him now. Perhaps he’d been wrong then and this was the worst fate. Or perhaps he shouldn’t fight, maybe they’ll leave Sam alone, hell, maybe they never cared about Sam and Dean was wrong about everything. He doesn’t want to close his eyes, because he knows that would only bring back something else.

“You’re wrong,” Cas looked at him and smiled, in that soft way only he could. And Dean’s gut flipped, the way it always does when Cas is waxing poetic about him or whatever shit he’s saying. Thing is, he might laugh and snort, but he believes Castiel. The memory always starts like this. With warmth. Sometimes the words Cas says change. Sometimes he explains how Dean does everything for love, sometimes he tells him he’s good, sometimes he just looks at him and Dean asks “What?” and he smiles and shakes his head. “What?” “You’re beautiful,” Castiel says then, as easily like breathing.

Then of course it all changes. And Cas dies. In various horrible ways. Sometimes he tells Dean he loves him right before it happens, leaving him no time to answer. Those might be the worst. Then there are the ones where he drowns, gets stabbed or swallowed by white fire. No matter how, it always hurts. He used to think it felt like his heart was being carved out.

And then there’s the one death that really happened. They were on the road back from Angel City, sky ominously black, but it always was these days. Sam made a detour to see Eileen and it was just the two of them.

“Time to start cutting the heart,” a voice echoes through and brings him back to the present.

Chapter Text

you close your eyes and see the grey

sinless world without colours

Sam draws the sign on the oak tree of Ocean Sanctuary and hears a faint bell from behind the bark. A vibration goes through it and a purple glow flashes to read his irises. He knows it’s necessary, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t annoying, at least no one is asking him to sing a code song, as Dean had to once. Not here and of course it was just Crowley asking him to do it and not actual necessity, but Sam still wishes he’d been there to witness it. Dean… He rubs hands over his face while waiting, thinking of his brother. Always so stupidly reckless, not taking even one freaking second to think about himself. Or maybe he did and that’s why… he can’t afford that train of thought. Except he knows Dean hasn’t been the same for a long time and ever since Cas it has all skyrocketed. But he never really explained what happened. Drop it, Sam! So he dropped it.

A hatch clicks open and Sam dives downwards. Ocean Sanctuary isn’t really underground, it goes all the way from forest to the ocean and there’s a cottage down by the water, but it can’t be accessed from there, hidden by the projected illusion. It doesn’t hold up properly, but so far no one has investigated close enough to realize something is not right and the Wonders’ psychics can’t sense science.

They need the little sun they can get somewhere though, as well as the sea breeze. Like the Bunker used to, Ocean has hospital beds, but also health workers and even two magical healers. He descends the stairs, Alex greeting him from the meeting room.

“Hey! Haven’t seen you in a while,” she nods, not really paying much attention, her eyes shifting over the papers sprayed out on the table instead.

“Yeah, hey! Jody and Patience here already?” he throws his duffel bag on a chair, while Alex narrows her eyes at him.

“It’s not like I have anywhere else to put it!” he defends himself and gets a crack of smile from her finally.

“Whatever, it’s not me who’s gonna chew you out for that. Yeah, they’re here, Patience looks like a ghost. You ever seen one? A real ghost?” she suddenly asks, ticking a box on her documents.

“Umm, no? Listen, aren’t we on a deadline here? I mean, Dean’s been gone for hours and….”

Her head snaps up, eyes turning wide. “Dean’s gone? What happened?”

“Uh, Wonders? Didn’t Jody tell you?”

“I’m so sorry. They only just got here. Is that why she looks like death?” Sam assumes she asks this from herself and not him.

“Sam, honey!” Jody’s voice echoes before he can really see her and he’s wrapped in a quick hug. Jody leaves him with a tiny squeeze on his back. “Wish the circumstances would be better. Haven’t seen you for a long time.”

“Yeah, me too.” He doesn’t explain why they haven’t seen each other. Dean spiraling into overprotective mode isn’t a good topic to talk about.

“So, Dean, huh?” She shakes her head and sighs.

“Who died?” Patience appears and… she does look like death, Alex wasn’t wrong.

“What? No one’s dead?”

“No, not… not now, I mean who died? There was death but no funeral, it’s when...” she talks slowly, but with such urgency it makes her look frantic. It’s probably why Alex is by her side like a flash and directs her to sit, throwing Sam’s bag on the floor.

“Patience, you gotta stop with that talk, it’ll only hurt you.” Jody rubs her eyes.

“Will you shut up already!” Patience shouts and they all flinch.

Sam doubts any of them have seen her like this before. She never explodes, no matter how many things are squeezed in that bottle.

“I’ve been telling you, I’ve been telling you for weeks now and you just won’t listen, I’m not doing this to torture myself and I am not a child. I know, I know things are wrong, why can’t you just trust me! Who died? Sam! Who died?” she looks at him now, voice shrill, eyes icy.

Sam takes a step back without meaning to.

“Really? You’re not… I am not controlled or possessed, funny how it feels like I’m the only one right now,” she gets up and leaves the room.

She doesn’t slam a door, but the silence following her parting is still deafening.

Patience hurries outside and sits on the terrace, her toes in the wet sand. It’s one of the only places she can be outside without fearing the Wonders pinning her location. She breathes the cold air deeply, feeling the wetness of rain that is closeby. Not here, but the sand is dirty and moist. The skies are always grey, but right now it even feels like autumn. She doesn’t know what month it is, it always feels the same. Why won’t they believe her? Hasn’t she proven herself enough already? There’s someone out there, on the other side, for the lack of a better phrasing, someone she needs to contact.

“Hello there! I wondered what the cat dragged in, well, outside more like,” Rowena walks towards her and then criss-crosses her legs and sits beside her, leaning her palms on her shoulder.

“Now, what is the matter, dearie?”

She swipes a lock of hair from Patience’s face and tilts her head, red curls bouncing with the movement.

“They won’t believe me.”

“Oh, you sweet girl, they just don’t want to believe you. When you live long enough, you get scared of hope. Because it never goes the way you think. I lost my son and I’ll forever feel guilty about it. So did Jody. And Samuel, well, he’s lost people all his life and, don’t want to say this, but, he’s a man, it’s all or nothing for him. And when hope disappears, it breaks people,” she snaps her fingers and looks into the distance.

“Okay, but it felt like… felt like they think I’m going insane or am possessed or something.”

“Well, dearie, when did you last sleep? You do look like a possessed ghost. Pair that with your power glowing through and fear isn’t far away.”

“Can you see it? My power?”

“I can see your eyes are glowing bright blue, the way mine turn purple when I use my magic.”

“What?” she blinks, wishing she carried a mirror on her.

“Take a look,” Rowena smiles and takes one from her pocket.

Patience blinks. The icy blue of her eyes does look terrifying.

“Just breathe deeply and it’ll turn back to normal,” the healer adds and she does. She breathes and breathes and finally her eyes turn back to deep brown.

“Now that we’ve sorted that out, what is it they won’t believe?”

So, Patience tells her and Rowena ponders it, clutching her own chest.

“It’s the threads of time, you’re right.” She finally says. “But it won’t be easy, I’m almost frightened of that hope myself.”

Dean screams at the first cut and the blade almost slips from his fingers. It couldn’t have been a deep cut.

“It’ll get better, you know, once it’s all done. You will feel so much less.”

“Yeah? You got one of these yourself to know that?” he swallows and tries to take control over his breathing. Control. It’s what he’s giving up really.

“Doctors make the worst patients,” the man smiles. “I will one day though, it will give you a new life. Without worries, without fear or guilt. Expectations. Now, a deep breath in and let’s continue with the cut.”

And Dean does. A burst of pain drowns out all thoughts and he doesn’t see anything. Not his own body, not the man next to him, not the memories that have been killing him. He tries to make straight lines, the only focus he has right now, all he feels. He doesn’t know anymore if he screams or not, if he cries or not, just the flash of the knife and blinding pain. And then there is blood. It’s not thick and it’s not dark, it’s bright and light and he passes out before the skin is rolled back.

The world is black. Castiel tries to open his eyes before he realizes they’re already open. He just can’t see anything. There’s an ache in his heart, but he doesn’t feel much else, not even his body, all his senses covered in the blackness of this empty world he’s in. He assumes it’s empty. There’s a flash of golden light, but it disappears instantly. He tries to walk, but the blackness sticks to his body, keeping it immobile and all he can do is blink and feel his heart ache.

Chapter Text

blood injected tied together

truth is lies and lies are truth

Metatron doesn’t live for blood. He lives for seconds pinned into minutes. Chuck doesn’t need to give him many instructions, he understands him without it. In a way the job has become routine. A square cut on the chest, clamps nearby to join the blood vessels later on. Heart out, clock in, sew it together, pump liquid from gardens, heart’s out of the room and then he can really get to work. Drawing the pointers and the numbers, tapping it, monitoring and making it safe, making it balanced, tweaking the directions the way he wants to. As it is written… he usually hums a song while working like that. Every clock is a piece of art, different in the way how the veins connecting it are different. He paints with darkness, that’s how they call the liquid brought from the gardens. He never goes there, Chuck doesn’t like it when people who have no reason to be there still go and he doesn’t know the power source, but he likes darkness. It has a mind of its own, except it always yields to the Wonders. Perfect substance for connecting free will to control.

Sometimes, Chuck takes over and does it instead. He doesn’t paint as artfully, more in strokes that are blindingly bold and with no subtlety in Metatron’s opinion, but he does have respect for the man. After all, Chuck controls most of the world’s population by now, shipments of darkness go all over the world. It had started with promising eternal life and the control ‘side effect’ is still not public knowledge, most people being controlled themselves. The eternal life part is not a lie, but Metatron still prefers to have his own heart attached, at least as long as his health allows it.

Now, looking at Dean’s heart still beating in his chest he does feel glad about it. It’s a beautiful machine after all. He does feel somewhat happy that they don’t end up at a dumpster or fed to the hounds.

“Too bad you passed out, this is really the most fascinating part,” he mumbles before injecting Dean anesthetic at last and placing the clamps. And then the silver knife cuts through and he’s holding the heart in his hands for a second before it’s taken away to the gardens.

The clock he’s chosen has hints of green in it and he connects it with precision. He’s about to dip the sharp pencil into the darkness, when Chuck appears behind his shoulder. He peaks over him, on tiptoes, analyzing his movements.

“Do you mind?” he asks, wishing Chuck would do his observing somewhere else.

“Who? Me? No, not at all! Actually, would you mind if I continued here?”

He does mind, but knows better to not question.

“Not at all, all yours.” He plasters on a smile instead, takes off his gloves and leaves the room without another word.

Chuck squints his eyes, looking at this Dean Winchester. No psychic powers, no connections in the world elite, probably a resistance fighter. Considering the way he was dragged in and knew they track even low profile psychics. But the way his earth-bound sister had seemed to like his heart piqued his interest. So, he starts drawing. The darkness swirling from the pen, still trying to escape, and Chuck finds pleasure in trapping it inside the clock. It settles and calms, pulsing with seconds.

“So, I hear it was your brother we were closing in on, don’t you worry, we’ll get to him as well. Jack is very good at it, once he stops escaping every now and then.” He draws number twelve, thoughts turning towards the boy. He had almost gotten away the last time, some girls helping him out. But he doesn’t have anywhere to go.

Chuck connects the clock and waits for it to start ticking. The most satisfying sound there is.

Alex is torn between wanting to check on Patience and trying to make sense of it all. She does follow her, but seeing a nod from Rowena makes her turn back. Rowena is a magical healer, there’s nothing Alex can do better to help her friend.

She comes back finding Sam insisting they go find Dean immediately. Of course he would say that.

“Why did Patience ask you about a death?” She cuts through the rescue plans being discussed, making both Jody and Sam turn towards her. “She didn’t ask me, didn’t go around asking anyone else really. It must be connected to you, so think hard,” she leans on the table and crosses her arms. Jody throws her a look that screams Drop it, young lady! but she doesn’t relent and looks straight at Sam. Jody can be overprotective of Patience, but she can also be overprotective of Sam, and Alex has found her place here, with Rowena and Sister Jo. So, she stands by her sharp words.

“I don’t know! How many times do I have to say it? There’s been deaths all over and if we waste too much time arguing my brother’s gonna be one of them. You know what, this was a mistake, I should’ve followed him right away.” He stands, ready to leave, but Jody grabs onto him.

“How about a disappearance?” Alex sighs and her face softens.

Sam is starting to shake his head angrily when suddenly he stops and seems to remember something.

“What is it?” It’s Jody taking over now.

“Umm, well, something happened to Cas and I still don’t really know what it was. I mean, Dean made it sound like he had died, but...”

“Death without a funeral.” Patience walks back in.

“Something like that, yeah, do you really think it’s important? I mean, no offence, but what you’re saying sounds more like a dream than anything actually real.”

“Oh, Samuel, have a little faith.” Rowena always has a way to soothe Sam. As far as Alex knows, they’ve met only a few times, but seem to understand each other well.

Sam is clearly not pleased.

“Okay, Patience will stay here and we’ll try to make sense of her way, you can ask someone to go with you to try to save your brother.” Alex finds it in herself to play the mediator, yet again. She already does it with Sister Jo and Rowena, what’s a few more people added into the mix. She meets Jody’s eyes and the thought of compromise mirroring back from there gives her a new boost of confidence.

“I’ll come with ya, and Benny should be back soon, right?” Jody nods at Sam.

The man throws his hands up, but gives in, still frowning at Patience.

“Do you happen to have anything that belonged to dear Castiel?” Rowena asks of him, “it might help Patience to get in contact with him.”

“I don’t think so, no. If there’s anything left, Dean probably has it on him. There might be something in the Bunker, but I don’t have time to collect it.”

“Don’t you worry, we’ll think of something.” Rowena smiles.

There’s a peculiar pain in his chest when Dean awakes. He’s greeted by a short thin man with a slight beard and curly hair, blue eyes bright and lively. For a second another shade of blue flashes through Dean’s thoughts, but it disappears and he can’t place it anyway.

“Morning, Dean!” the man says, “You can call me Carv… oh, who am I kidding, call me Chuck!” The bright smile sends a shiver through Dean’s body, but then he hears something else. A slight quiet ticking. When he looks downwards he sees where the ache was coming from. His chest is covered with a see-through plate of artificial skin and a clock under it is ticking away his breaths.

“Hi.” He looks back at the man, Chuck.

“Yes, you just had a surgery! Do you feel anything?”

“Oh, there’s a little pain, but not too much.” He coughs, “I don’t… I don’t seem to remember much of what happened.”

“No need to worry, the memories will return, but you probably won’t feel them. If all goes well, there will be no pain left and we just gave you a wonderful eternal life, you’re a true Wonder now.”

“How can I remember without feeling?” he asks, only to discover he doesn’t really care about the answer that much. He thinks he should, don’t people usually?

“This little ticker will keep all the bad things away from now on.” Chuck pats at his chest. “It’s not too loud, is it?”

“No, I barely hear it.”

“Good, good, sometimes it gets too loud and memories return at a regrettably wrong time. It’s very rare, I assure you! And so far we’ve managed to fix it even when a patient goes into panic and runs.”

“Better hope that don’t happen then, eh?” Dean says automatically.

“You get me,” the man blinks an eye at him, “I’ll leave you to rest then. See you later, Dean!” he smiles and shuts a door behind him.

The room is white, the ticking calming like a lullaby, and Dean drifts into sleep again.

Chapter Text

hands direct

the clock that's stitched inside your chest

Patience feels her heart drumming, vibrating through her entire body. The visions have come and gone the entire day, but none of them have had any clarity, just something moving on the background, she hasn’t paid attention to them. Now she’s sitting in a circle with Rowena and Sister Jo, she can feel Alex hovering around closeby, but her eyes are closed and palms open to the two other women. It was Jo who came up with the idea, right after the others had left towards the facility. Patience doesn’t like her, but she keeps insisting she has some connection to Castiel and Rowena trusts her completely.

So now she’s focusing to find a thread in her mind, in this world, anywhere and it simply isn’t working.

“This isn’t working!” She blows out air so fiercely that the candle in the middle wavers and the flame dies.

“Oh well, we tried!” Sister Jo smiles and starts to get up before Rowena grabs her hand and stops her.

“Anael, this is important. I know, we’re far from being the best people in the world, but the world still needs us.”

“It is getting increasingly desperate then,” the other redhead answers. Why do they all have red hair? Patience rolls her eyes, losing her, well, patience.

“Anael?” Alex cuts through their talk, businesslike as usual.

“Wicked girls have many names, Alex, you know all about that, don’t you?”

Yes, Patience really doesn’t like Sister Jo or Anael or whatever she calls herself. She still doesn’t really get why Alex decided to live her life here. If she wanted a life away from Jody, why here? She’s a qualified nurse, could even work on top, blend into the society. Not like Patience, who’s hunted whatever she does. Her fingers grab onto the pendant on her neck. She feels herself rocking back and forth, but her eyes are fixated on the candle. She just needs to see the flame again. She has a vision of herself in this same moment. Maybe it’s not a vision. Doesn’t matter, it’s all cursed, she just wants to burn it all down, just to see that flame again. She can see herself walking on the ground full of ash. It is everywhere, everywhere, she put it there and she still wants to burn.

Then, she can hear her heart again and her breathing comes back. Someone’s rubbing her back, her senses are still heightened and there, the glimmer of gold hidden in the ash. Where does it lead, where is it coming from? The golden hope that set her heart alight. Fingers, it’s bursting from the fingers of a boy. A boy who’s watching Patience.

She flinches and her eyes open. The vision is gone. She can breathe again but…. It wasn’t the right one.

“It, it wasn’t, it wasn’t the vision I was looking for,” she admits quietly to the ladies around her.

Sam can see him now. “Dean! Psst,” he whispers, looking around them. Jody’s at the front door, Benny and Vic are on backup covering Sam. It is too quiet, almost like they are walking into a trap, but they just kept walking and walking and now they’re here and so is Dean.

He turns his head and looks at Sam. And those are his eyes and they recognize him.

“Sammy,” but the voice is cold and Sam’s budding smile disappears when he sees Dean’s chest. There it is, the hated clock, sitting so snugly inside his brother.

“Dean, it’s me,” he whispers, hope dwindling smaller and smaller.

“Oh, I know who you are. I remember many things, what I don’t understand is why does everyone always take so long to talk. I was told not to kill you, but I don’t wanna talk, Sammy. I really, really don’t.”

“Okay, we won’t!” Sam lifts his hands, trying desperately to find the words to get through to Dean. He’s not completely gone, Sam just knows it. “I’m not asking you to talk about anything, nothing at all, we can just –” He’s cut off by a blade to his heart. He didn’t even see Dean move, the blade appeared so quickly and he can’t stop it and…

Patience retches at the vision. Still not right, but she needs to warn Sam right now. He can hear her through the ashen fog but all she can manage to say is that they’re walking into a trap and the connection is lost.

She slowly comes back to the present.

“Here, drink this.” She gulps whatever it is and only then realizes it was Sister Jo with a potion.

“What the hell did you make me drink just now,” she slurs, her throat still dry and scratchy.

“Herbal tea with honey,” Alex answers and for some reason she finds it hilarious so she laughs until the pounding in her head gets too painful. Always a cursed side effect with visions.

“In the olden days you would’ve been called a seer.”

“I hope Sam will be alright,” she finally mumbles, “Dean’s had the surgery already.”

“Oh,” Rowena clutches her chest, “my sweet boy.”

“Cheer up, old witch, weren’t we going to change everything?” Anael raises her brow.

“Will you help then, really?”

“All this suffering stinks, I want fresh air. Okay, so, Castiel, a blood relative of mine, don’t ask, there’s a reason I prefer Sister Jo. You can use my blood for the connection. But if it’s all bogus and doesn’t lead anywhere, well, nothing I guess,” Sister Jo sighs, “not like I have anywhere else to go.”

“Do you feel better?” Alex asks Patience in a hushed voice. She has taken seat on the floor as well at some point. There’s nothing left of the makeshift circle they started in, even the candle dead.

“Just need a few breaths and we can try again.” She takes another sip of the tea. It is good and calming, there’s probably a hint of alcohol in it as well, but it helps. “That was many intense ones in a row,” she mumbles more to herself than anyone else in the room.

“Okay,” she steadies herself and sits straighter, “let’s go to the main event already.”

Sister Jo cuts her finger and droplets of blood fall into the tea bottle.

“I’m not gonna drink your blood!” she protests immediately and backs away.

“Why not? Promise it’s sweet,” Sister Jo winks but then takes out a tiny bowl to bleed into that instead. What a waste of good tea.

“What now?”

“Now, you drink it!”

“Anael!” Rowena reprimands before Patience loses her temper completely and sets something on fire because she wants to. “Just try touching it with your fingertips, duckling.” She turns to Patience then. “You might be able to draw a pathway, we’re right here if you need any additional energy or power.”

Okay. She nods and lifts the bowl into her lap. It’s dark, a lot darker than she’s used to seeing and clogs to her skin like syrup. She closes her eyes and idly swirls her finger in it. A circle and another and another, a spiral, spirals are never ending.

“Castiel,” she mumbles, trying out the name, she should call out to him. “Castiel, Cas.” She sees Dean’s face instead. She’s seen it before, the grief-stricken look, it is familiar, it is a vision of the past. She needs future, no, what she really needs is present.

The present of a different place.

She can feel the moment the world around her shifts, obeying her directions, her eyes turning and searching. There are doors, many of them, one with a golden plate catching her attention for a brief moment, before the world keeps on swirling and the grey of her visions take on the hue of dark red blood.

She can smell it. The thread, slim tendrils of red fog. She tries to grab them, but her hands can’t hold onto anything. She is not real in this world. So she follows it instead. One moment the worlds spiral around her, then there’s nothing to see anymore. It is all grey, she knows it’s the past again, trying to hold her in. There’s Dean again and another person. It must be Castiel, the blood directed her here.

“Cas!” she calls out, but they can’t see or hear her. “Cas! You need to come back!” she tries again, even though it isn’t the right place nor the right time. But Castiel does turn towards her, as if sensing something. And then there’s a piercing light and it appears he’s sucked into another dimension.

The blood tries to follow him there, it keeps spiraling, searching a way in. Patience gathers her energy, feeling through the fog of the worlds Anael and Rowena lending her their last power. A tiny purple spark emerges and Patience jumps right after it without a second thought.

It’s still the same world. She turns to look at Dean, who was just there, and realizes that it only seems to be the same world as before. It is shadowed in greys, but she can’t see anyone around. Not even Castiel. The time feels different.

“Where are you...” she talks to herself. The blood thread has disappeared completely, the same as the purple spark. She starts walking around, but her feet seem to be held in place and it’s hard to move, the ground covered with a substance that sticks like honey.

“Cas!” she tries, but her voice doesn’t carry anywhere, it gets smothered. Then she can see his silhouette, close enough, she could reach him!

“Patience!” she hears a voice calling her back to her own world, back to the present, but she decides to ignore it. It’s only a few steps and she can find out the truth! She moves and the ground thumps, the sound of ticking washing over her and she can’t see a thing anymore.

Dean takes a walk around the facility upon waking again. It feels more like a resort really, there’s plants everywhere, someone probably has a green thumb around here. The plants of course are not clear green even here, blackish ink tainting them. Dean’s fascinated by it, really. It’s more lively than the plants. There’s many people around, most of them working, not many patients idling around like him. Some doors are locked, which makes sense, but he still knocks on them. Just to see what happens. No one comes to the door.

Until someone does. The door’s on the corner of the third floor and has a golden plate on it. The name’s in some weird language though and the person opening it is just a boy. He waves at him and says “Hello!”

That word spikes something in Dean’s body. He does remember things now, but like Chuck said they feel like a movie he once watched, they don’t feel his own. He feels that spike though, can’t place it to a proper name or memory, it’s just there, living inside his body. How disturbing.

Dean waves back at the boy and forces on a smile. Perhaps he shouldn’t be in this part of the building.

“I’m Jack,” the boy says, “and you’re Dean, right?” Does everyone around here know his name?

“I’m a psychic. Didn’t hear your thoughts though, just heard you knocking around.”

“Uh-uh, well, I should be going ahead,” Dean tries to back away, the kid’s smile making him feel uneasy. How can it be so freaking earnest?

“Of course!”

Dean drops his smile, that phrase might even be worse, jolting through his body like a lightning bolt. He turns to leave, the ticking of his clock becoming louder.

There’s something tugging at Castiel’s memories and he tries to keep his eyes open, to get a hold of it, to understand it better. The darkness is everywhere, but it doesn’t seem that much different from the world he was torn out of. It is similarly hollow, except the people are missing. And in a way the world itself feels alive, all around and for a moment a thought that he’s inside a giant monster’s belly crosses his mind. The surface is pulsing, almost ticking like a clock, but it resembles a heartbeat slightly more. He squints his eyes, trying to adjust to the substance permeating the air, the grey and black of it. He can see shapes now, shadows swirling around. He calls out, but no one answers, not even his own echo.

He does feel a pull towards something though, his feelings are muted, but it seems almost something Dean-like. He can’t be here, can he? No, Dean is alright, they stopped on the road, he can’t remember why, but they were by the Impala and then… he woke up here. But he can clearly remember Dean’s face and how he tried to grab him unsuccessfully, which means Dean is still in the real world.

The shadows are now faster, sticking to his clothes and hair as he tries to keep walking. Perhaps he just died and this is it. His feet fall through and he stumbles. The surface is moving under his fingers, strangling his body. A thumping sound crashes through everything, the blackness vibrating, followed by a tick and a tock and another beat. Is he really inside something alive? He can hear his own heart picking up, but all the sounds are quiet, he can feel it more through his body and skin than actually hearing it.

“Cas!” Someone calls to him, the voice is faint but he turns towards it. Then there’s silence again. He turns, trying to move like before, but another thud of a heartbeat makes the ground move and he falls again.

Then, the voice is much closer and clear, “Cas! Castiel! Damn it.” There’s fear in it and he raises his head.

A young woman. Her eyes are bright enough to see, scared enough. Then she steps closer.

“I know you.” He tilts his head, looking at Patience.

Chapter Text

a soul does not reside in heart

salt and burn but ash remains

Sam looks at the facility building and wishes there were more people with him. He couldn’t ask anyone else, he knows this, not after what happened during the last ambush. But how are they gonna storm this place? After Patience’s warning he doesn’t trust any opening they see. He doesn’t even know what exactly it was that she saw.

“I’m voting for going in anyway,” Jody whispers, her eyes trained on the front door.

“How tall is this building anyway?” Vic mumbles, his eyes running up to the skies. It doesn’t look very high, certainly not the heights of true skyscrapers, but it’s an unusual building. The C and W are glowing, but the letters almost look alive, as if they weren’t even powered by wires or batteries. The whole place in general is quite ordinary, though it does feel menacing.

“No guards to be seen.”

Sam nods to Benny: “Yeah, well, there’s people coming and going all the time.”

There really is, some ordinary-looking, some with clocks and also people working in the facility.

“It looks so normal.”

Vic is still looking upwards: “There’s a tree.”

“Yeah, what of it?” Jody turns to him.

“The branches reach the lower part of the roof, don’t they?”

“You wanna climb it? You’re crazy, brother,” Benny says with a grin, doesn’t seem he’s opposed to the idea.

Vic shrugs. “We can always walk through the front door and hope that trap’s weak enough for the four of us. Or… I’ve got proper rope,” he gestures to his tool belt.

“Whatever! Can we just do something!” Sam snaps, rubbing his eyes.

“Hey!” Jody raises her voice and Vic’s already making a loop for the throw.

It’s still not a proper plan, but it beats Sam just running inside any time. He does itch to crash through those glass doors sliding open and closed like one could count time by it. They’ve been hiding out on the other side of the street, Sam still using a small cloaking device. In case the Wonders are at work and might spot him. The last thing they need is hounds after them, or well, being burned into the ground.

Climbing is not as hard as it looked from the ground, not easy, but with the rope’s help everyone can manage. It is an old and sturdy tree, resembles an oak, but the colours are so off he can’t be certain what it really is.

“Oh this is fucking high!” Vic’s breathing has become faster and of course it’s the guy with the idea that can’t stand heights.

“Okay, this tree is way too big to be normal.” Jody drags the rope up with them and they peek around to see if anyone noticed their climb.

“Remind me again how you know this right here ain’t a trap?”

Sam shoves a hand through his hair and sighs. “Whatever, I’m going in and I’m gonna get my brother back.” He almost hopes he’ll have to kill someone while doing it, he just needs to do something already, they’ve wasted so much time.

“We’re gonna come with, it’s why we’re here.” Jody shakes her head and is the first one to cross the branch and reach the edge of the roof. They’re holding their breaths, but she manages without setting off any alarms and there’s nothing to give her an electroshock either. Very close to too easy, but they all take it.

Jack closes the door and locks it right after him. He can sense a disturbance in the building, but he can still overlook it. It hasn’t become too strong yet, he can give them some time. He’d almost gotten out with Claire and Kaia, but he can’t risk the same now. They haven’t come for him. He sighs and closes his eyes to open them with a golden light sparkling through. Fast forward, fast forward, maybe he can talk to the girl today, maybe she’ll actually see him today. But no, he can’t even… he tries again, tries to find her in space and time of this world, but there is nothing, only the grey emptiness. She’d been searching something and Jack thought it had been him, but now she’s gone altogether. Had she been searching for a portal instead? Maybe a crack in time…. His thoughts are interrupted when the alarm goes off. Oh well, that was all the time he could buy them.

“Oh thank God, I wasn’t imagining you,” Patience says as the man looks at her.

“Does God have anything to do with this?” Castiel squints his eyes, but then shakes his head. “I feel like I should know you?” he asks instead.

“Patience, umm, maybe you’ve heard of me? Don’t think we’ve ever met.”

“The psychic? Forgive me, but I don’t think this is a good place to be at.”

“I can see that.” She looks around now, but can’t really see anything. The place, the world, is not empty, but everything is covered with dark matter. They seem to be standing in it.

“I think this place is alive,” Castiel’s voice gets lower and Patience takes a deep breath.

“How did you get here?” Cas asks and Patience almost laughs, because it’s exactly what she needs to know of him.

“I followed you, we’ve been trying to locate you...”

“What? Why? Is...is Dean alright?” he takes a step towards her, voice urgent and commanding in a way.

“Oh, well, umm, you’re, well, it was Anael, Sister Jo? The blood connection you share with her. Dean, he… doesn’t really know.” Oh fuck, why is she so unprepared? She’d thought once she finds Castiel everything would fall into place on its own and now she doesn’t really know what to say or do. So she hugs herself closer.

“I’m sorry, are you alright?” She feels a hand land on her shoulder, the voice sounding worried and it does calm her a bit.

She nods. “Just… really tired,” she mumbles, realizing it’s the truth, “doesn’t matter, we gotta figure it out. You should be the key.”

“Of course it matters.” The hand is taken off and she feels cold again. “What do you mean by the key?”

“So, you know I’m a psychic, right? And I was so sure the timeline got messed up somehow when you disappeared. Where are we anyway?”

“No clue. Before you came, I almost thought I was dead. We’ll get you back, Patience, alright?” he keeps reassuring her.

“No!” Her urgent whisper sounds like a yell in this world, the surface vibrating and she’s not sure if she’s imagining it or is the ticking of a clock really surrounding them here? “I mean, yes, but we have to make things right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the hearts, the clocks, Dean taken away,”

“Dean’s been taken? By who?”

“The Wonders, listen, there’s gotta be something here to help, something that can turn it all back, the threads of time, they’re so messed up I can’t understand anything anymore and I can’t have five minutes without a vision of sorts and none of them make any sense and I think it all changed or started or whatever when you disappeared!” She knows she’s getting breathless in throwing it all out, but she can’t find any strength to care. They either make it right or stay trapped in this, this non-existent living world.

“All right? But I can’t be that important to change worlds in such a way? And nothing..., nothing significant happened, we were on a hunt with Dean, there was something, some shadow trying to get to him. I stepped in between and then woke up here later on. It must’ve been a part of this world.” He looks around and Patience steps closer, her feet swallowed by the surface.

“Here, let me help.” Castiel supports her, more like they support each other. “Hold on, we can’t get separated.”

His last words get drowned by a bang of a gong and the surface pulsates, moving like an earthquake, but only with a shift to the right. And then another bang comes with another movement like that. They stay frozen, holding onto each other.

“It’s like a heart counting the time?” Patience whispers and closes her eyes. Where are those threads she needs to find? It’s all grey and black and red, but there’s something directing her, roots of a giant tree. It must be the size of a house. And under those roots, there’s a heart beating, oozing out smoke in the shape of numbers, counting the time. It is trapped within the roots, smothered by the shadows and there’s something even growing out if it. But she can’t see what it might be or where the tree might end.

“Patience? Are you still here?”

“Yeah, yeah, I saw something. I think we need to find the --”

“The heart of this world,” Castiel ends the sentence for her. Patience opens her eyes and she knows why he said that.

It’s all black around them, but her eyes get used to it soon enough and they have moved with the ground, oh they have moved inside the surface. There are grey and red lines cutting through the beat of the shadows all around. They are almost hanging in the air, the globe around them, crossing them, circles everywhere. And in the middle of it all there is a shape of a woman, her hair flowing around her like the shadows she’s shrouded in. She’s tied to a clock-work, her eyes closed, the ropes moving with the world, moving like the pointers of a clock. Her chest is open and there is no heart there. There is no clock there either. Just pure emptiness, the darkness growing out of it, swirling on the ropes that bind her and flowing towards where the skies should be, climbing like the tree’s roots. Above her there are actual tree roots holding a heart in prison. It seems to be growing as well, the tiny threads of grey around it, gripping to the surface of the world still beating. The black thick soil is making the heart beat and glow on occasion.

“I feel sick.” Patience suddenly wishes she was back at the Sanctuary, that she hadn’t jumped into this empty world being fed and feeding a heart.

Castiel walks closer to the woman. “Who are you?” he asks and when the woman opens her eyes, Patience jumps back a little.

“Blue eyes?” Her voice is hoarse and barely above a whisper and she needs to close her eyes after a second, looking as if she is in pain. She struggles, but opens her eyes again: “He knows you.”

Chapter Text

open eyes and world of wonder

melts

“Who? What are you talking about?” Castiel looks at the woman. She is intense even while she’s bound by everything around her, bound by this entire world.

“Him.” She blinks, her eyes devoid of light.

Cas flicks his wrist, ready to pull out the blade he carries there.

“The heart I needed to overcome my brother.”

“What heart?” he asks, even though he has a feeling he knows the answer to that.

“You always got in the way, I tried to get to him many times before and ended up with you instead.”

“You’re talking about Dean.” He wants to attack her, but there doesn’t seem to be any need for that, she’s already drowning.

“What? Dean?” Patience’s voice carries through to Cas, but he tunes it out, keeping his eyes on the woman.

“Who are you? And what do you want from Dean?

“Oh, I already have a hold of his heart. Can feel it beating all around me, it’s calling me, it’s bound to me.”

“Castiel! Listen!” Patience grabs his sleeve. “I think we need to work together with her. Take a step back, will you? Umm, lady, can –, can we somehow untie you?”

“Untie her?” Cas turns fully to the girl, but she only shakes her head, eyes focusing on…

“My name is Amara and yes, I am your best hope, sorry.” The woman coughs and the ground vibrates along with her chest. “Chuck is my brother, but I know how to make him weak. I know how to burn everything he’s created to ash.”

“And Dean?”

“He will be fine, I would never let any harm come to him. And through him I can sense my brother. You need to contact the boy.” She looks at Patience now, but closes her eyes to take another deep breath.

Dean is not feeling well overall. Sure, the place is sweet and people ain’t bad, but the clock inside him has been growing louder and louder with each step and the memories so far gone still jump and make him feel a phantom pain as if his heart is still there. It is peculiar, distant and he doesn’t want to let it closer, but it’s there. Chuck finds him on the fifth floor and shows him his screens of the world. He literally calls it The World and it’s just some random cameras at random places in the world showing people living peacefully together, walking the way a hand on a clock would. Precise, without doubts in their mind. And Dean doesn’t have those either, he really doesn’t, it feels right. It’s just…, on some moments it’s just loud.

The alarms start when he’s looking at a sand clock on Chuck’s table. He moves to protect the man without thinking. It could be the sense of duty instilled in him ever since he was a kid, but that sense of duty was mostly reserved for Sam. He knows it, but right now the only thing that seems right is protecting Chuck.

“No need to worry,” Chuck smiles at him, “there’s not many intruders and my Wonders can pin one of them it seems.”

“How come?”

Chuck squints his eyes when he asks it. Probably not the right way for Dean to act around here, questioning anything.

“Well, Jack is their center after all, he can find any psychic out there, if he wants to that is of course. The kid hasn’t been very cooperative recently. I should have a word with him.” Chuck doesn’t seem to have a care in the world. And why should he, he has everything planned down to the last detail, down to the last millisecond.

Dean can hear gunshots then and he knows it’s Sam coming. It doesn’t matter, Sam can never understand the whole world, can never understand how time has wrapped them all within itself.

“Ready when you are,” he mumbles and searches his own weapon.

Jack locks himself in the preparation room, he can feel his powers tingling, like tiny needles all over his body, waiting for an outlet, waiting for the answer. There is a ping from the girl, the psychic he couldn’t find earlier, the one who’s been messing around with the timelines. He threads a golden string in his mind to guide her. So long, he’s been trying to find a way out for such a long time and it seems she has found it! But she’s so many times away, inside, inside, inside the ground? Inside the clock? Inside the darkness that’s moving, the seconds that keep ticking away, bound into the Earth where hearts take their root.

Finally, he can sense her, but she’s not alone… “Cas?” He can’t help the name escaping his lips.

They can’t see him, but he knows it’s Castiel there. He thought he never existed, just a warm dream from somewhere far away, from another timeline, another universe, they’ve never met in this one as far as he knows.

“The hearts, Jack, you need to release the control of the Wonders as we release the hearts,” the psychic is saying urgently. She still can’t see that he’s right there with them, but has her eyes turned inward, almost glowing blue hue, fingers caressing an amulet on her neck. He hasn’t seen her this close before.

“Hurry!” The vision clears, the connection lost again.

“Releasing the Wonders,” Jack shakes his head, it’s something similar to what Claire had told him. This time it means something else, it means he needs to depower himself and then restart his powers. He needs to get to the center to do that, to have a way to reconnect when necessary.

The clocks chime, chilling the air again. There must be a fight going on, his chance for a clear way.

Sam isn’t sure how he managed to get this far into the facility. Others are scattered around, having a fight of their own. He lost track of them on the second staircase. There’s two men right in front of him, a woman lurking on the side, their clocks silent but all the more menacing. He ducks and fires, the gunshots sure to give away his position, but it doesn’t matter. He’s close enough already, there’s just one door and he can reach Dean, he can sense it.

His mind didn’t warn him that Dean would be greeting him with a gun.

“Dean.”

“Step away and move out of the room.”

Sam swallows, almost dropping his gun. That –, that does not sound like his brother. It’s Dean, but he sounds like ice and he doesn’t have a heart. They’re too late.

“Dean, it’s me, Sam,” he says, not even knowing what he’s trying to say. He knows sometimes people can overcome the clock, but usually they die like that.

“Yeah, I know who you are, my little brother Sammy. Doesn’t mean anything these days though.”

“What?”

“Oh, what a lovely family reunion! Should I leave you to it?” There’s a short man hiding behind Dean, hands clasped behind his back, eyes curious. “I’m Chuck by the way, heard you’ve got a bit of wonders inside you, Sam, was it?”

“Shut up!” Sam looks back at Dean instead.

His hand is shaking, perhaps there’s still a chance.

“Poughkeepsie,” he whispers.

Dean laughs, but he’s affected, his eyes looking around as if searching for something.

“That doesn’t mean anything here, this is real, Sam, more real than anything we’ve ever seen before, cause there’s nothing clouding what I see.”

“You mean emotions? Dean, of course you still have them! A soul doesn’t live inside one’s heart, that’s just something for Valentine’s cards. Your words, Dean! Remember, those were your words!”

It seems to be working, Dean starting to lower his gun. “It’s so freaking loud.”

“Oh come on, do I have to do everything myself?” Chuck grabs his gun and just as he’s about to pull the trigger on Sam there’s a blackout and time freezes.

Chapter Text

threads of time are found again

a chance to find the better end

Amara closes her eyes, sensing the world all around them with her shadows. It’s all she can still do, her heart disconnected from Earth, pumping to the machines instead. The day her brother decided that controlled creation was more fun than creation developing on its own was the day time broke. To a being like her it shouldn’t matter much, time was a human idea after all, and what she and her brother were, well, they didn’t have their own time or space, they were beings. Chuck had wasted it all, weaving thread after thread after thread, ‘creating’ he had called it, braiding a new time to his liking.

He never liked the outcome.

And then his power ran out. Neither of them had known how great of an energy source changing one moment in time took, one little feeling of déjà vu, one vision, one heartbeat too late, one heartbeat too early.

Amara had distanced herself, staying inside the darkness of the Earth where she could still feel herself whole. Nature growing and dying around her, from her, despite the games of time Chuck was playing.

She borrowed him her power. Not because she enjoyed his goals or causes or ideas, not because he looked pitiful asking, but because he was her brother. Without him there would be no her. They were not siblings in the human sense, they came to being at the same moment and they would cease from being at the same moment. So, she borrowed him her power and got enslaved for the trouble.

When the hearts started taking roots inside of her she became a vessel for the power of control. Her darkness flowed in the system of every human whose heart had touched her, but there was nothing she could do with it, she was bound, her eyes shut.

And then one day, she felt a heart that wasn’t growing into her, that was still free. She didn’t feel free hearts, but she felt this and tried her best to touch it. It didn’t react to her, but someone else did, someone wrapped around that heart, protecting it and being protected by it. She took what she could and not long after the heart followed, beating so fiercely, giving energy to her essence, growing into a potential new world… And it woke up the blue-eyed protector.

“Burn it, my heart.” She says to the girl that can see the broken threads.

Patience shakes her head, taking in the woman before her.

“No, you’ll die! Why do you want it burned?”

“It will burn all the hearts he has, it will burn the clockwork.”

“Dean… his heart.” Patience looks at Castiel from the corner of her eyes, he looks kind of scary with his tunnel vision on Dean.

“I needed his heart to wake. We must’ve been connected in another timeline. No harm will come to him. I don’t know about his heart. But as it is, it would die left like this. It is strong but is not able to thrive.”

“What’s gonna happen when we do burn them?”

“I told you, he loses power.”

“No, I mean, what happens to you?” Patience is tired of sacrifices. Can’t people just live their lives?

“Oh, you worry for me? That is interesting. Very human of you. I don’t know, but I won’t continue living like this, his prisoner, his energy source.”

“All right,” Castiel says, “where do we get fire?”

“That’s inside of you.”

Her eyes and mouth shut again.

“I don’t like this.” Patience hugs herself and wishes she’d never had that first vision. Not that it would’ve changed the outcome. No, that’s why they’re here, to do just that. To change the outcome.

“Maybe we should hold hands.” Castiel looks at her arms and she uncurls. They still don’t touch.

“This is weird,” she mumbles before grabbing his hand and raising it towards the heart of the world. Tiny sparkles fly out. She concentrates harder and the heart starts to bubble. The woman doesn’t even move. She either doesn’t feel it or has chosen not to feel. And then the flames light up, catching the roots and traveling upwards, burning everything on their way.

“Uh, Castiel? Think we’ve done what we needed, but how do we get back to our world?”

Just as she says it the ground shakes and starts burning as well. A flash and the ash remains. Amara’s bindings fall off, burnt out like everything else.

“I’ll drop you off while taking my brother.” She steps forward and the lines of the world start blurring. Patience only has a moment to remember that she was wrong about everything, about the threads, about what changed everything, how her visions are connected, when they’re in a room filled with darkness. And then it lights up again.

The ticking stops. Just as suddenly as it had become loud enough to pierce through Dean’s ears it has now finally stopped. The silence isn’t comforting, but the darkness around him is full of life.

“Hello, Dean,” a woman’s voice tells him. Her hair swirl with the shadows, her eyes deep like black holes.

“I wanted to thank you before we part.”

“Listen, lady, I don’t even know you.”

“Your heart does. It saved me, your honestly terrifying love gave me power to wake. I’m afraid I cannot give it back.”

Dean looks down at his chest. It is empty now, the clock is gone, but his heart is still missing. How the fuck is he even alive anymore?

“Well, sorry to disappoint, but I kinda need it, so if you ain’t gonna give it back, I’ll take it from you.”

“You really don’t want to do that. You don’t even need it, not really and it’s already growing into a new world. It’s free to grow as it wants, I will continue guarding it. I will leave and I will take my brother with me. You want him gone, don’t you? Chuck?”

Dean swallows. He knows they need to get rid of Chuck, the whole Wonders system, the hearts and clocks and this entire mess of a world.

“You can have Castiel back. I only took him because he was in the way. My powers wanted to contact you, but as always –, he came to your rescue.”

“Cas… Cas is alive?” Something short circuits in his brain and the world feels right after so long, it feels like finally there is something to breathe.

“Oh, those blue eyes can survive anything. As can you.”

“Okay.” Dean doesn’t even register saying it, his chest light, but still scared to hope. How can he feel so much love without his heart? He doesn’t know and he doesn’t care as long as he can feel it.

“Goodbye then, Dean, make the best of this timeline.”

Dean blinks and he’s back in the room. He can barely see some dark shadows swallowing up Chuck and then he’s left with Sam and Castiel and – is that Patience?

“Dean.” Cas pulls him into a hug before Dean can process anything else. “You’re alive!”

“I’m alive? You’re alive!”

“I’m guessing you’re back to yourself?” Sam’s voice carries to him and he nods into Cas’s shoulder.

“Yeah, sorry about, well, everything.”

Patience takes a step backwards. She’d been so sure the moment lost in time was Castiel, but it seems like she was wrong and it might have been nothing? Amara doing it all… were all those visions from previous months just a way to get to her and not a way to fix it? She can never fix anything at this rate. The boy, Jack, she should find him, it’s not like she’s needed in this family reunion.

She finds him on the roof or what’s left of it. The tree roots are burned to cinder and the courtyard down below is covered in ash. Jack is standing on the edge and looking down. He looks as sad as Patience feels.

“Jack?”

He turns, conjures up a smile and waves. “Oh, it’s you, hello!”

“You thought it would end differently as well, didn’t you?”

The smile fades. “I didn’t expect anything, really. The control is gone, all psychics are free, I did my bit, still got some of my powers left… and the hearts are all burnt out, there’s only ash left now. I’ve heard that’s a good fertilizer as well. But you’re right, I guess it all just happened.”

“Yeah. I think they were some sort of deities, Chuck and Amara.”

“Oh, Chuck certainly was a being. He’d just lost his mojo and had to be creative. His own words, he liked to give speeches.”

“So, we really beat a being out of imagination?”

“Doesn’t feel like it, does it?”

Patience shrugs and takes in the fluttering flakes of ash in the air.

“Amara took him into a world of their own. I’m guessing she has the control now. I should –, I should let Jody and Alex know I’m fine, they’re probably worried.”

“Yes. I should find Castiel, I thought he wasn’t even real, just a vision of sorts.”

One of the ash flecks shines golden.

“I thought the golden lines were time threads...” Patience mumbles before hugging herself again.

“Oh, they are! We just need to weave them together.”

“What?”

“There’s so many worlds and times, sometimes..., sometimes I wonder, maybe I’m living in more than one at once, I feel so connected with everything, but other times it’s hard to find my roots. I can show you!”

Patience hesitates. She wants to see, but more than that she wants to try that weaving thing.

“How do we weave the right timeline?”

“Well, we just rewind back to the moment. That’s how the clocks worked, threads of time were feeding them. Along with Amara and the human hearts. Souls are way more powerful, but that was for me to monitor.”

“Should we try? I don’t know, this is already a kind of happy ending right? Why mess with it?”

“We won’t. We’ll only find the potential.”

She wants to, but she doesn’t think she’s ready for another mission on this day. She sighs.
“Another day, Jack. We should get to the people that care about us first. But we’ll keep in contact?”

“Sure. We’ll keep our eyes open.”

“For a chance at a better end?”

“Yep. Do you need help getting back?”

“Can you teleport?” Jack shakes his head. “That’s what I thought. I’ll just take a bike, can’t have Claire be the only one who rides one.”

With those words she turns around and smiles. Perhaps she doesn’t need to fix everything at once, perhaps a possibility is good too. And she can finally sleep!