Title: Chronus

Summary: Two years after Dean's death, Sam finds a way to save him. As usual, something goes horribly wrong, and the youngest Winchester is thrown into a chaotic future of demonic making. Even worse, he's found Dean.

Rating: T

A/N: This story has been a long time coming. I got the idea while watching Charmed reruns while I was in the middle of writing Shifter. I finished that story, then got pneumonia, so I was too weak to start this one. I got better, wrote about six pages, then Charlie the Unicorn 2 came out. I had to make the Supernatural version, and that took a week. Then I had to graduate, go to parties, etc., Finally, though, I was able to finish the story. Here it is. Please enjoy it.

Warning: Spoilers for most of Supernatural Season 3

Disclaimer: Supernatural doesn't belong to me. The writers may reference my fics from time to time, but I don't get paid for it. It's a pity, really.

Chronus

Chapter 1

Welcome to Existence

Two years, and he still got two queens. Two years, and he still expected to see that flimsy piece of wood that passed as a door fly open and announce his brother's arrival. Two years, and he was still searching. Two years, and he'd finally found it.

Sammy stumbled into the room, wiping the blood from his hands onto his dark shirt, shaking wild hair out of his face, heart clenching as the amulet of unknown origin glinted from its spot on his chest.

Two years. It had been two years since those damned hounds came for his brother, and he had finally found a way to save the older man.

Sam let himself plop down on the bed farthest from the door, the bed that had been his since before he could remember. He reached into his pocket, slowly, as if afraid that the magical hunk of stone that had cost so much might have disappeared.

It was still there. He pulled it from its safe hiding place, unwrapping the blood-spotted hanky that had been wrapped around it. He took time to savor the moment, to gaze at his prize, the monogrammed package. MR.

In another life, Sam might have cared who the handkerchief had once belonged to. He might have cared about his methods in retrieving said handkerchief. Hell, he might have even felt bad about it. But times had changed. Sam had changed. What was one more droplet of blood on his stained permanent record? What was one more bitch to add to the ever-growing list?

Ruby. Lilith. Bela. He smirked. The last one had put up a fight. The last one had actually been kinda fun. Finding her, tracking her, tricking her, killing her. In his other life, that would have scared him, but now it was just business, just another stepping stone to Dean. To Hell.

He closed his fingers around the small sundial, the final piece to the puzzle. He could fix everything now. Maybe not his own damaged psyche, but everything else. Everything that was fixable.

Sam's gaze traveled from his fisted hand to the table, the altar. He'd stumbled across the ritual nearly two weeks before, and had been gathering the ingredients ever since. The lamb's blood had been easy to come by, as had the various other artifacts. The sundial, though, had been the problem. It was the key, and it had been lost to the ages.

So, he'd done what anyone in his position would. He'd done some digging, found someone who'd found a loophole, and had acted. He'd offered up a fake name and a large sum of money that he would never have to the only person who could get him what he needed. She delivered, and he stabbed. He'd never seen Ruby's knife kill a human before, had been worried about the lack of flashes and convulsions, but he'd stabbed the British bitch right through her back. He hadn't had to stay and wait for the light show. It was a sure thing.

He stood slowly, savoring the moment of victory. He could see it in his mind, see the way that things were supposed to be. He'd perform the ritual, go back in time, save himself from Jake and that damned knife. In doing so, he would save Dean. He would save Dean, and they could spend the rest of their lives together, as a family, just as God had intended. If there was a God. Sam wasn't so sure anymore.

Everything was ready. It was the moment that he'd been waiting for since Dean had first admitted to hallucinating, to seeing things that he shouldn't have been seeing, to becoming Hell's bitch. It was what he'd wanted since he'd woken up in that fleabag of a house in Cold Oak, since he'd discovered the truth, since he'd shot Jake dead for killing what was left of the Winchester family.

He placed the sundial in the center of the elaborate altar and fell to his knees before it. His eyes slid shut as he recited the incantation that he'd converted to memory so long ago. He tried to visualize his brother, to think of Dean as he had been, happy and healthy and full of life. He tried to block the image of his broken, bloody, mauled brother from his mind, to rid his thoughts of the scattering of flesh and blood that the hellhound had left in its wake.

Sam choked back emotion, his eyes snapping open as his voice filled with the tears he'd been holding back for the past two years. Soldiers didn't cry, that was what his father had taught him. Soldiers didn't cry, and neither did Dean, even when facing down an eternity of torment.

"Stop it," Sam, muttered, shaking his head. He couldn't veer off into thoughts of that day, not now, not when it was so important to focus.

Bela's blood was still on his hands, still on his clothes, and he realized that that was a bad thing. He wasn't entirely sure how the ritual worked, and he couldn't chance being seen this way. He gained his feet and stumbled into the bathroom.

The mirror was cracked and smudged, but Sam could still see more of himself than he really wanted to. Blood had splashed up onto his face in a sick imitation of that night, his first real kill. His eyes were hard, glazed over. Dark hair hung in a face that had once been so soft, so compassionate. He didn't even look like Sammy Winchester anymore. He looked like a cold-blooded killer.

And he was.

Ruby had been first. The lying skank had promised salvation for Dean, and when she'd failed to deliver- as soon as he'd realized that she'd failed to deliver- she'd been marked for death. He'd hunted her, stalked her, actually scared her. Lilith had hidden her well, but Sam had contacts, Sam knew he could find her, knew that there was a job to do and he had better damn well do it. She'd begged when he finally revealed himself, when he moved faster than she'd ever imagined he could. In a fit of rage and poetic justice- more like a limerick, really, Dean had said once- he'd killed her with her own knife, stained it with the blood of a new host. Her own special magic knife. Right through her gut.

He smiled at the memory, at the feeling of her life-force running from her body, slicking the floor, her intestines in his hands. He'd savored it. His first kill since that night. Far from his last, though.

He ran water from the tap, his smile fading as he noted its color. Back when he'd been with Dean, their water was clear. The motels weren't always the nicest, but at least the water looked like water, and not milk. It had never been this thick and white back then, back before he'd seen eyes that resembled this water, that bored into his soul and threatened to take him.

Really, he didn't even count the demon as a murder. It wasn't his fault about the host. He hadn't chosen her. And it had just been instinct. After spending nearly a year tracking the thing that was supposed to be trying to kill him, after finding out that it was the one that held his brother's soul, that he couldn't get Dean back by making his own deal, his reaction had been understandable.

He'd thought that he could bring Dean back by offering not to interfere. He'd been getting close when the knock had come at the door and that creepy little kid stared up at him with soulless white eyes. He hadn't even thought about it, just pulled the knife, slamming her up against the doorframe with all the strength he could muster and demanding his brother. The little bitch had smiled at him. That girl had been dead before she even hit the ground.

Sam turned off the water and stared back at his reflection, wiping the blood from his face. He pulled off his shirt and ventured back into the room to find a new one. He scratched absently at the crimson that stained the bronze of his brother's necklace. Dean's blood just wouldn't come off. A constant reminder, a little piece of the man, the myth, the legend that had been left behind just for little bro. Lucky him.

He felt cleaner after washing up and changing, felt ready to face the past, to save himself and Dean. He knelt again in front of the altar, closing his eyes, chanting, visualizing Dean. He saw the older man as he had been, all smiles and prank wars and mullet rock. He saw eyes that told more than words ever could, calloused hands that had sewn up many a wound, a subtle spattering of freckles. He smiled.

The image in his mind changed as the ritual came to a close, as the incantation was nearly finished. It always seemed to happen that way when he imagined his brother, always warped the man that he'd needed his whole life into something that he should never have had to become. Shining eyes turned dark, the loveable smirk sinister. The familiar face took on a darker tone and Sam couldn't help but shudder. This was what his brother had become because of him. This what he was going back to change.

Black eyes swam before his mind, wind began rushing in his ears, blowing his hair around his face. He teetered on his knees, nearly falling over. He reached out for the altar only to find it spinning away from him, the ground falling from beneath him. His mind wavered, his stomach protested, and those black eyes just kept staring. He whispered his brother's name, and fell from the world.

Well, there's chapter 1. As you can tell, I'm trying to write about Sam for once. If I'm failing miserably, please tell me, because I'd really like to know. Heck, even if I'm not failing, a review would be nice :)