If I Die Young

There's a boy here in town, says he'll love me forever,
Who would have thought forever could be severed by,
The sharp knife of a short life,
Well I've had just enough time

Band Perry

Sam had given him more answers than he'd expected, but not nearly enough.

Rachel Berry had come into Sam's life when he was twelve. (He actually remembered that now. Jesus. When did Sammy get so old on him?) They'd struck up an unlikely friendship after his brother had rescued her from bullies. (That he believed. His brother had always been the white knight type.) Even after the job they'd had in her town was over the two had maintained a long distance relationship. (Old oddities like wondering where the hell Sam's cellphone had come from, where he went whenever he ran away and wasn't with Bobby or Pastor Jim, and his strange fixation with Ohio were finally explained.)

His brother had continued to babble meaningless factoids about her long after Dean stopped caring, and Dean could almost puke from how sickly sweet his recounting sounded. However, the warm nostalgia became cold and despondent as Sam began to tell him about the day he got a call from her father telling him that she had died and inviting him to the funeral.

That had really caught Dean's interest. When a normal person died, you didn't just find them somewhere else walking among the living. That usually meant you were dealing with some nasty undead son of a bitch. The only exception he'd ever met was himself, and he highly doubted that the same thing that happened in St. Louis would happen here with this Rachel woman. Girl. What did he call her? She was two years younger than Sam and looked even younger than that.

So now what he wanted to know was the how and why. How was Rachel Berry alive after being legally declared dead? If she'd faked her death, why had she needed to? What kind of trouble could some silly teenage girl have gotten herself into that she had to fake her death and not tell her friends and family?

As much as he needed to know, the feeling in his gut told him he really didn't want to.

Madison had been present for Sam's explanation as well, and the more he spoke, the sadder and more sympathetic her expression became. She reached out to Sam to offer comfort, but he was too caught up in his remembered grief to acknowledge it. Deciding he'd heard enough of the story from Sam for now, he dragged both of them inside so that they could get down to the business they'd originally come for. Rachel was waiting for them in living room, sitting in the chair set across from the couch. Though the sight of it made his skin crawl, Dean lowered himself onto the couch with the others to face her. No one reached for the glasses of water or the tray of cookies she'd set out.

"So let's cut to the chase why don't we?" he said first, breaking the silence, "Even though I doubt someone like you found the answer when my dad couldn't, let's hear what can you do about Madison being a werewolf."

At his side, Madison started tugging at the sleeve of her shirt. Trying to pull it over the hand where her cut was. Dean tried to pretend that it didn't bother him.

"Bobby informed you that this isn't a cure, correct?" She eyed all three of them, Madison in particularly, very carefully.

Dean frowned and Madison nodded after a beat.

"I just want to stop killing people," Madison whispered.

"And I want to help you do that. All that I ask is that you have an open mind about what I'm about to say. Alright?"

"Alright," the newly turned werewolf answered.

"I want to encourage you to think hard about it, and gather as much information as you can, so that when the time comes, you can be confident in making an informed decision. And remember that if you want to go through with my proposition, the decision is yours. Not mine, or Sam's, or Dean's."

No one ever accused Dean of being smart, but he wasn't stupid. There were alarms going off in his head as she spoke and their urgency peaked as she got to the end. Something was wrong with this situation. It had felt that way the moment they'd found out their contact was some old friend of Sam's that was supposed to be dead. It was only Sam's warning glare that stopped Dean from dragging his brother and Madison away from this girl. He squared his jaw and glared back, but made no move to leave. When Madison nodded and no one said anything, Rachel continued.

"The main problem with being a werewolf is that the person who is afflicted with lycanthropy has no control over their change or their instincts. Despite the fact that you don't want to kill anyone, you still unconsciously transform and kill anyway. What I'm suggesting is a way to transform and yet be able to keep your mind so you can control the base instincts of the creature. Understand?"

"How is that even possible?" Sam suddenly blurted out, "Everything I've ever seen about werewolves says that control is impossible."

"That's because for werewolves, it is." Madison looked crushed. Dean was ready to tear into Rachel, but she was talking again. "However, werewolves are only one kind of shape changer. I've extensively researched the connection between all kinds of shape shifters, from werewolves, to shifters, to skin walkers. While of those three, werewolves have no control, shifters and skin walkers do. Of those three, werewolves and skin walkers are most closely related. They are both states that are caused by infection through bite, both have animalistic transformations, and both have extreme, typically fatal reactions to silver."

"Is there a point to this?" Dean demanded, "This is all stuff Sam and I already knew. How is it supposed to help?"

"It's called dramatic lead up," Rachel remarked, for the first time sounding a little less zen than she had been the entire time they'd been talking so far.

He took a moment to savor the satisfaction he got from being responsible for that.

"Anyways, what I was trying to say was that after I noticed how closely linked the two species were, I wondered if there would be a way to apply the control that the skin walker has to the werewolf. I hypothesized, theorized, and then tested it. It worked."

The girl smiled and it made Dean uncomfortable.

"What was your theory? How did it work?" Sam asked cautiously.

"If the skin walker is strong enough, and the werewolf is low in standing, omega or beta at most, the lycanthropy curse can be overtaken by skin walker curse. My way of helping Madison is by helping her become a skin walker instead. As a skin walker, she would still feel the urge to shift and kill, however she has the choice to not do so." She paused and looked Madison in the eye. "So now that you've heard what I have to say, I'd like you to think about it, without rushing, and make your choice."

"Make a choice?" Dean choked out after a minute of silence, "What choice is there?"

"Dean!"

"No Sam." He pinned Sam with a flat look. "She's insane. She's spinning this bullshit like it's actually a solution to the problem." He swung his gaze back to Rachel. "How is being one kind of monster any better than being another? They're all evil sons of bitches we're supposed to hunt one way or another."

Both Madison and Sam flinched away from him as if he'd just struck out at them. For a moment, he couldn't figure out why. When he tried to think about what he had said, really think about it, he felt like punching himself in the face.

Shit.

It was obvious why Madison was upset. She was a werewolf and he'd pretty much called her a monster for being one against her will. Sam though... Shit. Sam who had been screwed up about his freaky powers and what Dad had said. He'd really screwed up. It was too late to take it back because Sam had already stood up and walked right out the door.

Cursing under his breath, he made to stand and go after Sam, but couldn't. How did he explain to Sam he didn't think he was a monster like the things they hunted?

The sound of a sniffle made him jump. Looking to his left, he made a noise of distress in the back of his throat when he saw that Madison was crying. This was the first time she had cried since they'd left San Francisco and it was his fault. You don't make girls cry. Way to break that rule. He dragged a hand down his face. Did he go after Sam or try to calm down and apologize to Madison first?

The decision was taken out of hands when Rachel stood first and went to the door.

"I'll go talk to Sam. You fix things with her first and then you fix things with him." She opened the door. "My journals on werewolves, skin walkers, and the method are on the table in the dining room if Madison wants to begin researching. You may not agree with it, but it's ultimately up to her on whether she wants to go through with it."

She nodded at him and then stepped out, closing the door behind her.

Dean wrestled internally with himself whether he should ignore what she said and just go to Sam, but a choked off sob stopped him short. Even if he really didn't trust Rachel Berry around his brother, he really couldn't just leave Madison the way she was. Especially when it had been his stupid mouth that had caused all of this. With a grimace, he placed a hand on her shoulder and began his awkward attempts at trying to console her.

It really shouldn't have bothered him. Time and again, Dean had told him that he would save him if it was the last thing he did. That he wouldn't let him go dark side. What could Dean do though? This thing with his powers, it was beyond his control, and it had even been beyond Dad's. Sam didn't want to be evil, didn't want people to look at him and see a monster. Maybe Dean was willing to fight for him, what about the rest of the world?

"Do it. Do it! Show your brother the killer you really are..."

"He said I might have to kill you, Sammy."

There were more people out there like Gordon. Even worse, there were people out there like his father who were a thousand times worse. Worse because they would get to know him and would still believe that if he was evil and that if it came down to it, putting a bullet in his head would be the right thing to do. He wondered if the hunters he knew, his friends, would. Would Jo? Would Ellen? Would Bobby?

With a groan, he realized that there was one more person who could land on that list.

He wondered if Rachel Berry would ever try to kill him. He wondered if he'd even try to stop her.

As if summoned by thought, she appeared at his side. Unable to stop himself, he turned to stare, greedily drinking in the sight of her. She seemed smaller to him, and he supposed it was because he'd only grown taller after going off to college. It had been similar to how it was when he'd seen Dean again, and finding himself significantly taller than his brother after the years apart. Almost everything about Rachel was different. She'd always favored having her hair long and wearing those ridiculous sweaters, and skirts, and socks. It was hard to believe that this woman, with her short wild curls dressed in a men's winter coat and actual jeans could be her.

His chest tightened. He'd missed those things after she'd gone. Missed the way she would call him all the time, sing him to sleep when he needed it, and greet him with hugs.

The one thing that had remained the same was her face. Her warm brown eyes, her lips, her nose. He couldn't help but be relieved that at least that part of Rachel was unchanged.

God, he'd missed her so much.

So why had she allowed him to think she was dead?

"Rachel..."

"Let's sit down over here." She motioned to the bench on her porch. "What you want me to tell you will probably take a long time tell. We won't want to stand for the entire thing."

He was starting to hate how she was anticipating his every thought and feeling so easily. While she had been able to do it back when they were teenagers, at least he'd known her just as well inside out back then. He felt like he didn't know this Rachel. Or was she actually Dorothy Gail now? Sam knew something about going somewhere else and becoming a new person. Though he hadn't changed his name, when he went to Stanford he'd almost completely left behind hunter raised Sam Winchester in favor of normal guy Sam Winchester. Were the changes on the inside just as stark as her superficial ones on the outside?

If they were, he was probably going to find out now.

"I remember the last time we talked," she spoke suddenly, breaking the long stretch of silence they'd fallen into after they'd sat down, "You'd missed coming home for spring break and I'd been pouting about it. I told you I had something important to tell you the next time you could come home. It was something I'd been keeping secret for a long time that I felt I finally had to tell you. I'd been convincing myself that it would irreversibly damage our friendship. But after I while, I admitted to myself that I was just being a coward. After taking some time to think about it, I'd come to the realization that no matter what, you'd still be my best friend regardless of what I said." The soft smile that had touched her lips twisted bitterly. "How could I have known that we wouldn't have any say in staying together?"

"What were you planning on telling me?" Sam asked, frustrated with the vagueness of what she was saying.

The conversation she was bringing up, he remembered it too. It had been the last time he and Rachel had spoken before he'd lost her. Almost every night after her death, he'd replay that call in his mind wishing they'd had the chance to actually have that talk she'd hinted at. He'd regretted being so focused on his studies, he'd decided against going back to Lima that spring break he'd missed. Missing his last chance to have seen her before…

"I was going to tell you that I loved you," she admitted, her words barely louder than whisper.

Everything went still. It felt like the world had stopped and the only thing that reminded him he was alive was the sound of his heart beating violently in his ears.

"You what?"

It was like he couldn't breathe as he waited for her to explain further. Maybe she was joking. Maybe it was just that she'd always loved him as her best friend or a brother, like the way he'd loved her back then.

Unbidden, something mockingly reminded him that he hadn't always loved her as just a friend or a sister. He knew what loving a sibling was like and he knew that what he'd felt for Rachel was a thing wholly different than how he felt about Dean. Something a lot closer to what he'd felt about Alex. Maybe even more.

"I wanted to tell you that I loved you," she repeated, sounding guilty and he didn't know what for and why it bothered him that she did, "I don't know when it happened, but I realized it when you came to McKinley. It got so hard to hide it, that became I terrified of the day that you'd find me out and everything between us would change."

Sam didn't know what to think, let alone say after that. Had he really just been confessed to? She paused to give him time to respond, and when he didn't, she continued.

"It wasn't long after the phone call that I went on a hunt with Noah. We thought it was a run of the mill haunting job," she told him as she punched through his scattered thoughts, "We were wrong. It was a trap. Someone had left behind a trail of false clues to make us believe we were hunting a poltergeist. However, instead of us hunting it, it was hunting us."

"What was it?" he asked, though the bad feeling in his gut was telling him he already knew.

"A demon." Her eye fluttered shut and her face tightened. "The minute we went in, we knew something was wrong. Everything smelled like sulphur. I turned away for one second to investigate a spike on the EMF meter and suddenly, Noah attacked me. I was so confused, I couldn't even defend myself properly."

With shaking hands, she pushed away her coat and tugged her shirt up, exposing her midriff. The skin there was raised with strange scars that he recognized, with a wince of sympathy, had been caused by rock salt. His eyes roved over her stomach and narrowed when he saw another scar, a long and thin one, stretching from one side of her stomach to the other.

"The demon who had possessed Noah started ranting at me. Telling me I'd gotten too close."

"Too close to what?"

"To you." She sighed and put her shirt down. "I don't remember the details well since it was hard to pay attention to it while trying to keep from bleeding out. From what I could understand though, it was angry I had gotten close to you. That I was pushing you off track. I wasn't able to get much more after that. I'd lost too much blood at that point."

"How did you get away from the demon?" Sam blurted out.

"I didn't." Rachel's eyes lifted until she was staring unblinkingly above at the overhanging roof. "I died on the forest floor."

"But that's not possible... Unless..."

His head snapped in her directions, his eyes wide with horror. She hummed thoughtfully.

"Unless someone made a deal to bring me back," she finished for him, "I still don't know who did it. All I know now is that it wasn't you." She sighed. "I'm glad it wasn't you…"

He was going to be sick.

In a second, Sam was on his feet, bent over the railing of her porch and dry heaving. It didn't matter how strong his stomach was, how used to death and gore and blood he'd gotten. His best friend had been murdered by a demon. And it had been his fault. And he'd never even known.

He remembered.

It had been two days and she hadn't called him. Jesse had texted him several times over those days complaining that Rachel was ignoring him.

Then Hiram had called him, sobbing and hysterical. At first he and Leroy had said she'd gone missing. They told him to stay in California, focus on his school, and that they'd keep him updated on the search. Their calls at first had been so hopeful and optimistic.

However, when that phone call had come, it had been like the world had ended. The search had ended when her body had been found, beaten, mauled, and cut up. He didn't know how he'd gotten to the funeral, but he had. And he hadn't been able to look at the body in the coffin.

The shock of her death, her murder, had left him so off balance, so numb, he hadn't thought to check for any supernatural causes of death. Everyone had been convinced some sick fuck had targeted her and killed her that he'd believed it too. And no one had asked any questions about Puck's disappearance after her death. They all thought he was so upset he'd run off and tried to hunt the motherfucker who'd killed her down.

Oh God.

A tiny clasped his shoulder.

Instantly, he jerked away.

Rachel stood there, her arm still out and reaching for him. Her eyes were sad. Did she feel sorry for him? He could feel hysteria bubbling up in his chest. How could she ever feel sorry for him when it had been his fault she'd been killed by her own friend? He didn't blame her for never trying to call him after being resurrected. God, had she dug herself out of her own grave?

Looking her over again, Sam reeled as it all hit him. It had been his fault all the way from the beginning. He should have never tried to approach her. He should have just left her alone. She never would have known about the supernatural. Rachel Berry could have lived her life just fine without him. She would've found a safe guy like Finn to have fallen in love with, she could've lead glee to win Nationals, she could have gone to a school in New York, and started getting parts for shows on Broadway like she'd always dreamed she would.

Instead she was alone, neck deep in the supernatural, dead to everyone she'd known and loved, and stuck in Windom, Minnesota of all the fucking places.

And it was all his fault.

Stumbling, he continued to back away from her. She stepped closer, her mouth opening.

"Stay away from me!" he yelled cutting her off, making her freeze with her hands still outstretched, "Just, stay away..."

Or else I'll get you killed again.

He turned and ran. And she didn't follow.

AN: So it's been a while, huh guys? I've just got a lot going on and other fandoms have been stealing my attention away from SPN and Glee. Also, I've been having some personal issues with both of the shows lately (mostly, I've been wanting to stab both shows' sets of writers). I can't promise I'm going to be updating a lot for this, but I'm not abandoning it. It's just slow going. I'd like to dedicate this chapter to kyella0203, who has been keeping me honest about working on this story. And if I've forgotten to say this already, try going back and re-reading the story, those of you who are veteran readers of this fic. I've gone back and rewritten some parts of certain chapters and it's worth a looksie.

Notes on this chapter: Sam keeps running away, doesn't he? Yes, Rachel's hair is short, le gasp. Yes, I anticipate many bitch fights between Rachel and Dean. The italicized portion of Sam's POV at the beginning is remembering thing Gordon and Dean said respectively in S2 E10 "Hunted". Everything I said about werewolves becoming skin walkers? Bullshit. But I'm hoping it's brilliant enough bullshit that you guys think it's a believable solution to the werewolf dilemma.