Reality Crisis

Sam had promised Fred that he would talk to someone but first he needed to talk to the Constantine and Zatanna. He vowed to do that the next day. For now, he just wanted to sleep.

He had a somewhat odd relationship with sleep at the moment. A lot of the time he just avoided it because the nightmares were continuing to get worse. Some nights he was able to sleep without them, particularly when Fred was around. But there were nights when he didn't want to take that chance.

Tonight, however, he was exhausted and hoped that he would have an uneventful night's sleep.

Unfortunately for Sam, that wasn't in the cards.


Sam sat up in bed. Fred was still next to him, but they weren't alone in the room. Lucifer sat in a chair nearby, simply smirking at them. Before Sam could do or say anything, flames sprang up from the bed, engulfing the blankets and engulfing Fred.

"Fred!" Sam shouted, trying to put out the fire. Trying, in vain, to do something to help her.

Lucifer's laughter filled his ears even as the flames in the room rose higher. They danced around Sam, never merciful enough to put him out of his misery but hot and licking at his skin.

"Did you really think you escaped?" Lucifer asked with a shake of his head and a chuckle. "You're in the box, Sam. No one leaves the box. Don't you think Death has better things to do than to stroll inside and rescue you?"

In the wake of the tremors, Carlos had heard about people going missing. There were the people from the other world who had shown up here all at once after the first tremor, but also some of the chosen from this world. A stop by Harry and Murphy's apartments did nothing to ease his worries since the wizard and the (former?) police detective were nowhere to be found.

It was possible they were out looking into the disappearances too. There were a lot of possibilities, but that didn't stop him from worrying. Which turned his attention to the other person that he'd miss like hell if suddenly she wasn't here anymore.

Carlos set out for the fairy forest and the sanctuary within the forest.

The trip was fairly uneventful, which was good. The mood he was in, Carlos might have vaporized any ROUSes that tried to get into the way. When he finally made it to the camp and to the hut for the woman in question, he knocked on the door and tried not to hold his breath as he waited.

None of them had really had been able to figure out exactly what was going on with the thing in the sky but other than making some extra people show up it hadn't seemed too disastrous. But even though he didn't think it would crash into them and kill the rest of humanity John had kept watching it and waiting for the bad shit to come.

Instinct unfortunately turned out to be right when Zee up and disappeared on him. He heard about/felt more gone with her and suddenly the extras were all gone too. Fuck if he was letting that happen to her with him being left behind.

It was time to call on the resources here and see what the fuck could be done about getting her back or getting him there. Could be the library would have what he needed but since none of them had paid off the demon yet that was out of the question.

So he decided to start with tall and gawky with the dog. Harry knew others that might be able to pool ideas but it would sound better coming from him than from John.

"You bloody home?" John could tell their were wards up but knocking was all right as long as you weren't trying to break in so he pounded on the door.

Murphy didn't like the idea of Harry storming into Magneto's colony to talk to him. It wasn't that she liked or even trusted the man who appeared to currently hold Molly's trust, but she didn't like the idea of Harry's temper getting mixed up in the situation. As far as she was concerned, if Molly was with the metal-manipulating mutant by choice, there wasn't a lot they could do about the situation.

All the same, she wasn't going to let him go into that without her. She hoped to be able to keep him from flying into overprotective neanderthal mode. She also didn't trust the company that was attending the summit with Magneto and Molly. She didn't necessarily dislike Zatanna, the female mystic, but she didn't trust her and she wasn't sure she liked Constantine at all. She certainly didn't trust him.

She was glad to have Carlos along, but he was from the same dark future that Molly was from which was extremely unnerving.

With all that was going on, Murphy was glad to have the sword strapped to her back. She knew, as with the last time she'd been here, that it was a risk to bring it in. She also trusted the holy sword to remain within her power.

Perhaps there was a reason that she'd been granted the Sword of Faith after all.

She had been to the colony before, so she led the others to it and stopped just outside it, waiting for Harry's lead once they had reached their destination.

The guy that had pulled out half a building to toss at Zee was loose on the streets, and someone had sprung him. They had a suspect, but John wanted to be sure on the who before they went after the escapee. Apparently there were more practitioners here and Zee hadn't known. One of them was missing someone, and only someone well versed in magic could have dismissed those bindings John had put on the guy.

John had the lead since he was working the locator to track down the other mystic, and Zee followed him with her eyes burning holes in his back. She was still pretty miffed with him over the whole Batman argument so was silent. For the most part.

"You know this Batman isn't the same one from our Gotham. You don't know that he'd do the same things."

Zee hated it when she and John fought. Somehow she always ended feeling like she was the one at fault. It frustrated and upset her. Bruce had been a long time friend of hers and she was grateful for the opportunity to perhaps be friends with him again. It was a chance to eliminate the wrong she'd done to him not that long ago in her memory. John felt that Zee was just setting herself up again. It went downhill from there.

She wasn't avoiding John exactly, but she wasn't exactly inviting attention either. She spoke when spoken to, but limited any other conversation that didn't have anything to do with their argument. She wasn't going to budge this time.

Murphy. Murphy, Murphy, Murphy! Murphy kisses were pretty dang cool. Yes. That's right! He was being stupid about this whole thing, but if you knew Murphy you'd understand, so shut up!

And it might be distracting him a bit, though he was still on the look out for Molly. He hadn't seen her in a long time now and he was really getting worried. Mouse could find her, and did from time to time. Carlos had seen her, but that was it. Anybody he asked either didn't even know she existed, or what he heard from some of the locals was that she was really good at putting those Netvor things down and they were grateful for her helping out. Good for Molly, but Harry would feel better if he could observe her technique, make sure it wasn't edging towards the dark side.

Speaking of Mouse, Harry had him out for his nightly constitutional visit with the doggy loo. The big guy was pretty good about taking care of business in places where no one would step in it, and Harry wouldn't necessarily have to have an intimate moment with it. But he was still taking his damn time about finding the right spot tonight!

"C'mon, Mouse! This isn't that difficult!"

It was like the magnetic field had turned inside out and picked him up in a storm. The only thing he could think of was that it was an attack against him and he lashed out as best he could with his powers. Nothing he did seemed to matter and despite feeling like an hour to him it was probably only a fraction of a second before he slammed into the ground with all the breath knocked out of him.

Erik was on his feet in a flash anticipating the attack to continue.

Nothing happened.

He relaxed fractionally as he looked around him and found that he was in some sort of city but it didn't look like anyone lived here. Or if they did they didn't take care of the place.

This wasn't where he was supposed to be.

Someone was playing with his mind even with his helmet. And that person was going to pay.

It had been days since Sam had gone to John and Zatanna for help. His memories had trickled out through the holes that John had punched in his head. Sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly. He never woke, but he was still waging a war. His mind was fighting to assimilate all of the trauma that had been walled up.

There were memories of being soulless. Of killing without the blink of an eye. Of letting Dean get bitten by a vampire.

There were memories of fire and brimstone and torment.

Memories of Lucifer taunting him. Of Lucifer creating the illusion of being safe, of being rescued. Only to tear it all down and start the torment all over again.

There were a lot of things that were almost instantly shoved to the back of his memories. They were still there, but his mind was already working at trying to naturally repress them.

There was enough that it might have overwhelmed him if it had been let down all at once. It might still overwhelm him, but Sam had reasons to fight. And he had John there, guiding him. Always guiding him. He could feel Zatanna's presence too. She was less visible, but she was still on the outskirts of the memories, a calming presence trying to help him find his way home.

Finally, the last of the memories trickled through and the wall was no more.

Sam shook violently and then his eyes flew open. He gasped for breath, noting as he did that his throat was parched, and his stomach was churning. He didn't instantly know where he was or even if this wasn't just another memory.

Or worse, another of Lucifer's tricks. That fear was there. It might be there for awhile now.

The damn ROUSes were either smarter than they looked, or they were being directed. Eventually the trio were standing outside the forest. He was actually considering going back in, but thought better of it at the moment when he saw the snouts peeking from the edge of the forest, as if to remind them that the woods were not so sweet and innocently empty. Eventually the trio had to give up on the forest, and Dean could finally go see his brother. Maybe beat some sense into him before he did something stupid.

"We'll come back. We won't just leave him in there." Dean had told Dinah, promising that they'd return for the Superkid. He didn't want her to stay behind, or try to go into the forest alone. She might have had her curse lifted, but who knew what the fairy would do to Dinah on another trip. He didn't like the idea that she could be surrounded by those overgrown rats either.

Taking the lead, Dean got them back to Jackson's camp. He had been this way before with Sam walking Fred back. He honestly didn't think he'd be coming back to get his brother this way. Maybe coming back for the blowout the Fred chick had invited Sam to, if it could really be considered a blowout, but not to keep his brother from committing one extremely stupid acct, no matter how much the Sasquatch thought it was for the good of everyone involved. Dean honestly wondered if Sam could handle what was on the other side of the wall. Dean had a hard enough time with his own hellacious experience, and he'd been dealing with demons only, not two archangels, even though one was fallen.

"Okay, Cas. Where is he?" He looked to the angel to take them where they needed to go.

Dean was a tree.

A tree.

Sam was pretty sure this was one of the weirdest things they'd ever faced.

He hated leaving his brother behind in the forest, but the fairy had been pretty clear about what needed to be done to fix things. Sam supposed that at least now he wouldn't have to argue with Dean about whether or not to let Constantine help him with the wall.

He was nervous, and there was a small part of him that hoped to see Fred before he ventured down a course that could lead to insanity or death. But there was yet another part of him that thought it wouldn't be fair to her, and there was really no time to waste.

So he only halfway kept an eye out for the brainy female when he wandered into Jackson's camp set-up. He'd checked in with one of the perimeter guards and gotten clearance to go in and general directions toward where he might find Constantine, and now he was on his way.

He was nervous, of course. But this at least had more of a chance of success than the plan to take control from Lucifer and jump into the pit. At least with this, he wasn't guaranteed either a lifetime of being Lucifer's meat suit or eternal torment. There was at least a small chance of coming out of this on the other side okay. That was... something, he supposed.

Fred sat around the fire, staring into it. They'd been traveling for sometime, and she still wasn't sure where they were going. Or, she hadn't been until someone mentioned a library. Jackson had said nothing about any sort of library. Sure, Fred could have guessed there was one; what technology she'd seen suggested there had to be some sort of collection of knowledge. She was even happy to know that the collection had been in many formats, though the best to use currently was in bound book form. What bothered her was that no one had said anything until they were practically there. It was as if people just seemed to know.

She'd asked to be allowed to go with the new couple that she'd found with Sam. There were a few others going, but Jackson seemed more interested in other information. He wasn't one to be bothered by the chosen and the prophecy much. The camp had a few of the "prophet" types, but none who actually knew the Prophecy with a capital p. Just men and women who saw through to other worlds. They seemed just as special as the chosen in Jackson's camp. Everyone was the same, more or less.

So, there she was, standing before some great ruin of a building. It looked and felt like a library without even stepping into it. She was reminded of the scene from Logan's Run in which Logan met his first old person. She wondered if there would be some old fellow inside with too many cats. Now all they had to do was find the one room, right?

"This shouldn't take long." She started up the stairs to head into the buildling.

They'd been given their orientation by Jackson and shown to their tent. Zee smirked when she saw it and glanced at John after their guide left them to their own devices.

"Cozy." She smirked. Even though she was used to living in a huge, gothic mansion like Shadowcrest the humble quarters didn't bother her. (Okay maybe a week without a real shower and a razor might get to her, but no way was she giving John that kind of ammunition!)

There were more new people in the camp. Four in one day. This was quite a busy day, Jackson reflected. He wasn't unhappy that Fred had brought new people into the camp. In fact, he would offer protection to any who were willing to work to earn their keep.

However, he worried about the safety of the chosen few. He knew full well what was going on in New Troy and he didn't trust Belia's agenda regarding the interdimensional visitors either. He would offer them protection as long as he could, but he feared that his small band of travelers wouldn't be enough for Dr. Lucius' or Ms. Ohorek's forces or for any of the other forces at work that might want to get to them.

All the same, he was ever the stoic leader, hiding his worry behind a calm expression as he settled into the tent used for meetings and waited to meet with the two newest arrivals.

Sam was back to guarding the perimeter of the camp on his own again. Fred had led Zatanna and John to Jackson. To his disappointment, she hadn't returned to sit with him.

Not that he'd expected her to come back, but the company had been nice while it had lasted. But he was sure that she had her own work to get back to.

He wondered about the couple that they'd brought back to the camp. He really wished he was able to keep a better eye on them. He hadn't been here long, but he had a strong desire to protect the people of the camp. They'd taken him in without the blink of an eye. Sure, they'd put him to work, but with everything that was out there they could easily have left him to fend for himself rather than risk themselves to let newcomers into their group and under the protection.

And if what Fred had said was right, and his story was out there in this world too, then they'd taken him in possibly knowing about the things that he'd done. About what he was and all of the mistakes he'd made.

They were arguing.

Big shock right?

John was supposed to show up and of course he didn't show up on time. The problem was he didn't even show up on 'John time' as Zee liked to call it. In fact he was kind of in the wrong side of the day which made her have to sit around waiting on him.

So she was irritated, he was defensive...it was all pretty normal until the world kind of hiccuped around them and tossed them to the floor. Only this floor had dirt and leaves and a great bloody stick jabbing him in the ribs.

"You know luv, normally I wouldn't complain about how you're touchin' me but can you let me up?" He'd had his usual luck to fall under her so he had her boobs pushed up against his back but that stick was a definite mood killer.