Time and Time Again

A/N: The final part of this seemingly never ending story. To all of those still reading; Enjoy! I was actually pretty happy with the way this turned out. I appreciate all the reviews I've gotten for this. Honestly, after a while, they were all that kept this fic going. And for those of you who wanted an ending, congratulations! You brought this about. Much faster than I would have originally imagined.

Epilogue

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"Everything will be fine in the end. If it's not fine, then it's not the end." -Judging Amy

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They walked slowly through the town. Though they hadn't spoken of it, all three knew exactly where they were headed. They walked slow because they weren't sure they wanted to reach their destination. They were all expecting grief.

"Sammy?" Dean spoke first, the taller man's long legs were setting the pace for their journey.

"Huh?" He grunted, head still buzzing slightly. Now that all this was over, he felt guilty, more than anything else. He'd been so focused on getting out, on freeing himself, he hadn't truly comprehended the consequences.

Lyn's silence spoke volumes in the would-be peaceful calm of the night.

"What happened? During the spell?"

A fair question, Sam had to admit. One he wasn't sure he could answer.

"I don't know exactly." He tried. "I...I've never been suicidal," he picked his words carefully. "But I... that's what it felt like. Nothing but desperation and pain."

"I don't understand." Dean shook his head. "How could that spell cause that?"

Sam shrugged. It probably had something to do with his freaky powers, he thought to himself, something in his head that had conducted those elements. "Just a side affect." He said aloud. "It could have been worse."

Dean seemed accepting enough of that idea, as he simply bit his lip and let it go. Sam himself felt shaky, empty. Like he'd spent all afternoon throwing up, and while the post-nauseous trembling wasn't exactly a warm and fuzzy feeling, it was comforting. Because he knew he had nothing left to cause him pain.

He wanted to get in the Impala and drive away as fast as he cold. Crash in a big city for a while. New York or Vegas. Somewhere with lots of lights and noise; a dense population. Somewhere he could feel safe.

But he knew it would be a while before he got his wish. They were just nearing the edge of town now, and Dean and Lyn slowed their steps considerably. Sam had a feeling, deep in his gut - a place that never lied - that told him exactly what they would find when they got to the diner.

He said nothing to his brother or Lyn, though, because he couldn't risk being wrong. Though he knew he wasn't. Knew as if he'd seen it in a vision or been told by Dean himself - he trusted the knowledge he had unwaveringly, but still he stayed silent.

Five minutes and thirty-eight seconds later had that little bell above the door in the diner jingling their arrival.

Five minutes and forty seconds after that, Sam's belief in God was reaffirmed.

"Kimmy." Lyn gasped.

The young woman in question turned on her barstool seat and grinned genuinely, if not a little confusedly. "Hey." She said back.

And in that moment, there couldn't have been a sweeter word.

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"Don't lose hope. When it gets darkest the stars come out."
-Unknown

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There's very little in this world that is always true. With every set of circumstances, every situation, every person, every decision; the context changes. We try to install universal rights and wrongs - in our children, others, ourselves - but its the people who cling to those rights and wrongs, those blacks and whites, like a three-year-old to a blanket that end up lost and alone.

To teach a child to respect their elders is to make them believe that the man down the street with the big white van and all the candy is a man whom they should listen to and trust. This could get them killed. To stick to the moral code of 'lying is bad' is to say that we should protect no one, we should speak the truth, no matter how cold or how harsh, to anyone who should ask. And what will be, will be. What will be, should be, no matter how brutal.

Simply stated; there is no such thing as universal truth. Ethics are forever debatable.

Is murder wrong if you're taking the life of the person who killed your mother?

Is infidelity reprehensible if you're love is dead?

Is doctor-assisted suicide a crime, seeing as the patient obviously wished it for themselves?

Is abortion murder?

Is a lie a lie if everyone knows its a lie?

Is it stealing if you're taking back what's yours?

Philosophies dating back hundreds of thousands of years have been written on topics of these nature, and only one truth had been agreed upon; nothing is ever concrete.

Every person, every second, every life, is different. If you try to put a label on each and every what if you'll end up wasting your whole life on one infinite task.

It's an old adage of the Winchester family; What's dead should stay dead.

And when they were dealing with zombies, and the underlying death of their father, that rang very true. It's hard to envision, sometimes, what the world would be like if we could bring the dead back to life. No one would die. Ever. The planet would stop functioning and eventually stop existing all together. The circle of life would no longer be round. It'd turn into one giant line of false hope. It's an ugly thing to think about.

But even this - what should be a cosmic bottom line - has its exceptions.

This - the Winchesters in El Groton, New Mexico, the time-reversal. Kim - this is one of those loopholes that appear daily in the world around us. It's something that can't necessarily be explained or even rationalized. Though if he had to try, Sam Winchester would call it retribution. The world - fate, karma - was finally giving back a little of what it took away.

Their mother was dead, and Dean had watched her die - suffered through an unfair childhood taking care of his little brother and bending to their father's vengeful will. He'd left Cassie behind after opening up his whole heart to her; so he could go on without her and save the world. Jo had offered him nothing that he needed and a whole hell of a lot of what he didn't - more responsibility.

Sam himself had abandoned him for a different life. Dean had taken care of him once again after Jessica's death. Dean had saved more lives than current mathematical forms could calculate - including his little brother's several thousand times over.

Then John Winchester had died, and no one needs a reminder of how much that had hurt.

The universe seemed to be always taking from them. From Dean. Expecting too much, pushing too hard. It would only be a matter of time before he cracked.

So in the end, that's what Sam liked to believe, that the world was correcting itself of all its wrongdoings. Offering up an apology, a plea; before it got so bleak and hopeless from Dean's point of view that he threw in the towel.

That's what Sam had experienced during the spell-casting; what would become of Dean's view of the world if life continued on the way it currently was.

Dean and destiny had faced off, fought each other with all they had.

When Dean was happy, something shifted to make that not true anymore.

When destiny tired its hardest to take Dean out, the eldest Winchester came back from the brink, time and time again. Heart attacks, comas; Dean had people on his side. Human alliances that destiny had to work around and often couldn't fight against.

And now they'd squared off, playing every hand they'd been dealt, and it was destiny that had folded. Dean had made the world bend to his will, and somehow, Sam just couldn't find that shocking.

Kim lived so Dean wouldn't give up, and Sam just sat back and grinned. Because his brother had earned it. Because in his heart he knew that this was right. Because he knew there was no universal always.

And this time, in this place, dead had no right staying dead.

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Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it.
-- Jacques Prevert

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Five days, sixteen hours and twenty minutes later found both sets of siblings crammed in that one little motel room yet again. Everything about the scene felt right. Dean and Kim sitting on his bed together, close enough to reaffirm existence, but not close enough to be obvious.

Sam standing over his own bed, packing the few remaining things that needed to be packed while Lyn flipping casually though their father's journal.

Conversation flowed easily.

"Everyone else in town seems to be caught up," Dean was saying. "Memory wise. It's hard to say exactly what the long term repercussions might be, but I doubt it'll end in murder or Alien pod people."

"Well, that's good, at least." Kim's hand snaked out subtly to wind itself around his. And Dean smiled. A real, hold-nothing-back smile. Sam's heart leapt at the sight. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened between the two of them in the past week, but he hadn't missed the fact that Dean had been absent from their motel room quite a lot.

It'd been a hectic time for all of them. Going around town, trying to see if the time-loop would have any lasting repercussions. Sam had gone over the specifics of the original spell with Lyn again and again. They'd been holed up in Calvin's Corner for hours on end every day. But still, when night fell and Dean wasn't in their room - coupled especially with Lyn's similar accounts of a missing sibling - it didn't take a Harvard Grad to put two and two together.

In all honesty, Sam couldn't have been happier for his brother. And while a part of him - a cynical, weather worn hunter that had seen too much pain for a hundred lifetimes - was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, a bigger part of him was convinced that, for once in their lives, it wouldn't.

This was their shot at happy. This was Dean's shot at happy. And Sam would fight like hell to keep that alive.

"Did you guys really kill a Werewolf?" Lyn piped up, lifting her head from where it'd been lowered, studying John Winchester's messy scrawl.

"Long time ago." Sam said casually. "I think I was only fourteen."

"Yeah," Dean chuckled. "And you screamed like a little girl."

"Bite me." The younger man responded, no real force behind the words.

"This is all so unbelievable." Kim sounded, once again, beside herself in awe.

The night after the spell had been completed successfully, Lyn and the Winchesters had sat down and had a long, drawn-out conversation about everything that had taken place over the last three months, two weeks, and six days.

Kim, while reluctant at first to believe such things really existed, had been rather easy to convince once Lyn made it incredibly clear there was no punch line hidden in their story.

Sam found himself warming up to the brunette woman considerably when she eventually accepted what they were telling her. Taking it a face value and asking question after question.

"Yeah," Dean agreed. Anyone who knew the eldest Winchester would be able to tell just by the unguarded quality of his tone, that he was walking on water. "Pretty sweet, huh?"

"So what happens now?" She threw the question out there like a grenade, and everybody ducked. Sam knew they would have to move on, to leave this town, and soon. While he couldn't deny that's what he wanted - he also hadn't seen his big brother this happy in over a year.

He was the first to answer, of course, it seemed to be his role here - just as it'd been Dean's all those years ago. Peacemaker. Deliberator. "We have to go see some friends of ours. Ash and Ellen. We're taking the spell Lyn created and reworking it."

"To kill the demon?" She clarified. Because yes, they'd told her about that too.

"Yeah." Sam nodded. "Ash and Bobby have been searching for months and they finally found something that might help us."

All eyes looked to him, fascinated.

"It's an interlocking set of railroad tracks in Wyoming. No demon can get in. So our plan is to open it up, just enough to trap the demon, and close it again." He took a deep breath. "Say the spell and watch the sucker spontaneously combust. Just like Jim Paulman did."

"But it'll take some time to work out, right?" Lyn asked, sounding a little scared. "I mean, you can't just go in with my spell and do this, right?"

"No," Dean clarified, speaking up on the matter for the first time since Sam had talked to Ellen three days ago. "It needs tweaking. We're hoping Ash'll be able to do most of that."

"Sounds like fun." Kim said, something unreadable in her tone.

Dean snorted.

"Well, I'm leaving town too." Lyn picked that moment to share. Sam wasn't that surprised at the announcement, and judging by the look on Kim's face, it wasn't the first time she'd heard about this. "I've got a couple friends in Seattle I'm gonna go stay with. If I like it out there I'll find my own place."

"And if you don't?" Kim questioned.

"Then there are two dozen other big cities to choose from." She answered swiftly, then her features softened. "You sure you don't wanna come with me?"

"No," Kim shook her head. "I already have some plans of my own."

"Oh, yeah," Dean's tone held a very slight edge. "What's that?"

"I'm going with you guys." She announced.

All three sat in stunned silence.

Sam, yet again, was the first to find his voice. "And by 'you guys', you mean..."

"I'm going with you and Dean. To this Roadhouse place. I wanna know more about hunting. I wanna know what exactly you guys do." Her words were solid and sure.

Dean chuckled nervously. "Kim-"

"Look," she interrupted. "Lyn only did this spell, only screwed it up-"

"Thanks." Her big sister cut in.

"You're welcome." She smiled cheekily before going on, "-trying to save my life. And now that it's worked, I just can't...let it go."

"This is a dangerous gig." Dean started, Sam could see his hand squeezing hers. "You could get seriously hurt."

"I could get seriously hurt doing almost anything." She pointed out, then dry panned. "Apparently even going to a diner for dinner."

All parties had to accept the truth of that.

"At least this way I know I'll be doing something worthwhile. Besides..." she smiled up at Dean. "I wanna stay with you."

Dean swallowed, Sam could see his Adam's apple bob slightly. He seemed at a loss for words.

"Well it works for me," Sam said into the silence her announcement had produced. "But if you're riding in the Impala, I so call shotgun."

"Don't worry, little brother." Dean smirked, apparently getting over the shock of the moment and reverting back to the perverted guy everyone knew and loved. "I call the back seat."

Sam cringed goodheartedly, Lyn rolled her eyes and Kim smirked a smirk that could easily match Dean's. And maybe it wasn't perfect, maybe they were about head into the biggest battle of their entire lives, and maybe there was a very real possibility of them not surviving that.

That was tomorrow's problem, however, and Sam had every intension of leaving it be until then.

If they'd learned anything at all from this experience, it was to be weary of time. To take what they had now, and leave the future alone.

"Maybe we should reconsider our motel room arrangement," Sam threw in, then looked to Kim. "There was this incident, when I was in the ninth grade, Dean had this girl-"

"Sammy," his big brother tried to growl his name warningly, but it came out so pathetically desperate and comical, that Sam just laughed.

"That's nothing," Lyn chimed in. "In high school Kim always seemed to think it was fun to bring guys home and fool around with them in the weirdest places,"

Kim flushed a slightly red color and purposely ignored Dean's raised eyebrows and hopeful gaze. Instead she bit back, "They weren't weird..."

"Bathroom sink."

"Wow," Sam admired as Dean laughed and Kim lowered her head into her hands. "You two are gonna have fun."

Looking up, pained expression painted exaggeratedly on her face, Kim asked Dean, "Tell me again why we put up with our siblings?"

Dean chuckled. "Ah, I don't know," he shrugged as the laughing carried on amongst them all. "Something about being lost without them."

"Oh, yeah," Kim smiled, kneeling on the bed and wrapping her arms around Dean's chest, her chin coming to rest on his shoulder. "That must be it."

FIN

A/N: Okay... Well, I guess saying that I'd love to know what you think would be pretty pointless, but since I've got your attention; Review!

Now, a couple chapters ago I mentioned a sequel to this I had in the works. Well, that sequel is actually completed and waiting to be posted. It's a sequel that could be read as a stand-alone, as it's not too, too linked to this one - its set five years in the future. Kim is in it, though. And I started writing that sequel a LONG time ago. So I pretty much knew from the start of this that Kim was destined to live. What can I say? My muse likes her. The sequel is titled 'Time Is On Our Side.' It's a one-parter that should be out within the week. And...well... that's all she wrote.

Sayonara for now!