Down the Rabbit Hole

The Thing You Love the Most Part 2

Soundtrack:

Rachel Platten Fight Song

Daft Punk Get Lucky

ACDC Walk all over you

As soon as Balthazar had disappeared they called Bobby back.
"So, Balthazar un-sank a boat, and now we got a boatload of people who should never have been born." Bobby surmised, on speakerphone.
"Yeah. Like 50,000." Sam told him.
"Makes sense."
"How does any of this make sense?" Sam asked, puzzled.
"Because I got an idea who we're up against."
"What?" Dean asked.
"Fate."
"You mean...?"
"I mean Fate, like the Fates. Or one of 'em at least."
"You mean like Greek mythology? Like the sisters?" Sam guessed.
"Bingo."

"Nerd." Dean accused. Lacey shook her head.
"Dude, we are so watching Hercules."
"These ladies are responsible for how you go down, literally." Bobby continued. "So if you get creamed by a garage door or crunched by a copy machine, they're the ones who hammer out the details of how you die. Spin out your fate on a piece of pure gold."
"Gold thread." Sam nodded.
"And then one of 'em writes it all down in her Day Runner of Death. It's high level stuff. Anyway, fits. Now we know what Balthazar did. It seems to me that maybe Fate is just trying to clean up the mess."
"So, how do we stop it?" Sam asked.
"How do we stop Fate? Good question."
"Well there's got to be a way."
"Or there ain't. I mean this is Fate we're talking about here. You know, the easiest way would be to get that angel to re-sink the boat."
"No. No way. Forget it." Dean argued.
"Big difference between dying awful and never being born, Dean."
"We are not sinking the boat, Bobby. Okay? Don't even think about it."
"Well, okay. What's got your panties in a clench?" Bobby grumbled.
"Nothing."

"Try that again?" Bobby insisted.
"It...look.. it...it doesn't even really matter, but..."
"But?" Dean let out a sigh.
"Apparently a crapload of dominoes get tipped over if the Titanic goes down. And, the bottom line... Ellen and Jo die." There was silence on the other end for what felt like ages.
"Okay, you three. Listen up. You make sure... keep those angels from sinking that boat. Do you understand me?"
"Of course." Lacey told him.
"Yes." There was a noise as Bobby hung up. Dean let out a breath. "Oh, he's bad enough with her. Think how he'd be if she was gone."
"Yeah. So, what do we do? I mean, how do we save 50,000 people?"
"I got no freaking clue." Dean admitted.
"Yeah. We don't even know who they are."
"Well, we know one." Dean held up the pamphlet he'd picked up at Russo's office.

The following day they headed to Russo's office and were told by his assistant that he was on his way to the courthouse. After getting directions they drove over there.
"That's him. Let's go." Dean said as he pointed out Russo, walking with a guy in a neck brace. They parked the car and headed in the direction Russo had taken.
"Mr Russo!" Dean called after him as they tried to catch up. "Shawn! Russo!" He paid them no attention and continued talking on his phone. "Russo, stop!" He finally turned to face them. As he did this a car came barrelling out of nowhere and almost hit him. Russo fell to the ground as he did his best to get out of the way of the car. The three of them rushed over to him and Sam helped him to his feet.
"Get off me. And you.." He pointed at Dean. "I told you to leave me alone, didn't I?"
"Look, we're just trying to help you out, okay?" Dean reasoned.
"Help me?! You almost killed me, you lunatic. Give me that." He grabbed his phone from Dean who had picked it up from the ground for him. "Unbelievable" He went to cross the street again.
"Russo! Hey!" Dean called after him.
"Just be glad I'm no suing you're a....." He never finished as he was hit by a bus. Lacey let out a small cry in shock and Dean pulled her towards him so she was facing away from the crash.
"You've got to be kidding me." Dean muttered as he looked at the back of the bus which had a large advert for Russo's law firm on it. "Sam, check it out."
"What?" Dean pointed at the advert.
"Too soon?" Dean tried not to smile.
"Yeah, Dean. I'm pretty sure six seconds is too soon." Sam's gaze shifted past the bus and towards the building behind it and the woman who was staring out the window at them. "Hey. Hey, hey, hey. I think I saw her. Right over there."
"Her? Like Fate her?"
"Yeah."
"What'd she look like?"
"Kind of like a Librarian." Sam shrugged.
"You're kind of Librarian or my kind of Librarian?" Dean smirked. Lacey shoved his arm playfully.
"Well she was wearing clothes, if that's what you mean."
"All right." Dean went to cross the road.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, wait, wait. We can't just walk over there." Sam stopped him.
"We're not on the hit list." Dean reasoned. "We have nothing to do with the boat. Let's go talk to her."
"Talk." Sam prodded.
"Yeah, you know." Dean pointed to his gun. "Talk. Worth a shot, right?"
They approached the abandoned building and Dean picked the lock, letting them in through a side door. Lacey looked around as they entered, this place had clearly once been a restaurant of sorts, there were lots of industrial cooking equipment lining the walls.
"Hello? Hello?" Dean called out, but got no answer. He turned on his flashlight as they walked further into the room. "Hello?" The flashlight began to flicker and went out. "Oh, come on."
"You got a lighter?" Sam asked.
"Yeah. Okay." Dean pulled out his lighter but it wouldn't light.
"Oh, come on. It's out of juice or something?" Sam asked as Dean kept trying.
"It shouldn't be."
"Here." Lacey rolled her eyes and created a fireball in her hand. There was a wosh sound as the room seemed to catch fire. Then jusr as suddenly they were standing in the middle of a field.
"Cas!" Dean looked surprised.
"Hello, Dean, Sam, Lacey." He nodded at them.
"Hey, thanks man. Where are we?"
"White Russia." Lacey stared at him in shock.
"What?!" Sam exclaimed.
"Are you aware of what your frat bro did?" Dean asked.
"I'm aware. Balthazar can be impetuous."
"Well, riddle me this, if fate's going after the boat people, why'd she try to waste the three of us?"
"Well I imagine she harbours a certain degree of rage toward you."
"What did we do?" Sam looked confused.
"Nothing of import, just the tiny matter of averting the apocalypse and rendering her obsolete. I think maybe she's a little irritated about that. And then you go and dangle yourselves in front of her..." Cas explained.
"So we've pissed her off personally."
"If I know her, and I do, she won't stop until you're dead."
"She can try." Lacey muttered.
"Awesome. So what do we do."
"Kill her."

"Kill fate?" Sam raised an eyebrow.

"Do you have another suggestion?"
"No, I...I just mean... can you even do that?"
"Balthazar has a weapon that will work against her." Cas nodded.
"Of course he does." Dean grumbled. "Yeah. Boy, that guy's just got it covered, doesn't he? You need new friends, Cas."
"I'm trying to save the ones I have, Dean." Cas retorted. "We'll have to draw her out."
"All right, well, she's gunning for us. She's bound to surface again eventually."
"We'll make it easy for her. I think you have an expression for it, 'Tempting fate.'" Lacey groaned and shook her.

Lacey teleported them back to Chester and they were walking down the sidewalk.
"Okay so, we're just gonna meet our fate at any time right?"

"Yeah. Just walk. Act natural."
"Easy for you to say. I'm going to be trying my hardest not to blow up anything that comes near us." Lacey told them. Dean took hold of her hand and squeezed it. They began to walk across a square. A skateboarder hurtled down the stairs right in front of them.
"Okay." Dean said, looking panicked.

"That's fine." Sam nodded. They made their way past someone on a bicycle and a guy with a couple of vicious looking dogs. As they reached the top of the steps Dean came to a halt.
"Oh you gotta be kidding me." Blocking their path was a couple of street performers throwing swords.
"All right, just... just keep walking." Sam said decisively.
"Sam, they're juggling knives. And hatchets." Sam shrugged.
"Yeah, I know. Can't avoid fate." At that moment the jugglers changed to flaming batons. Lacey gripped Deans hand tighter as they walked straight through the middle of the act. As they rounded a corner they found themselves next to a construction site and a guy was trying to un-jam his nail gun.
"Ah." Dean winced as the guy pointed it at him but still nothing happened.
"All righ. I don't get it." Sam confessed as they carried on walking.
"I don't either. Who do you gotta kill to get killed around here?"

"Maybe Cas was wrong."
"Look out!" A cry went up and Lacey looked up just in time to see and air conditioning unit about to fall from above. She shut her eyes and waited for it to hit. And she waited... but nothing happened. She opened her eyes and found herself sitting in the back seat of the Impala. Sam and Dean began to stir in the front seats.
"Dude, what time is it?" Sam yawned. "I just had the weirdest dream."
"20 bucks says mine was weirder. I am not kidding." Dean shook his head.
"No, no, no. I'm not kidding either. I mean, it was... just bizarre."
"Mine had the actual Titanic in it." Sam shot Dean a look. "What? Something on my face?"
"Did it uh... not sink because Balthazar..."
"Had a hate on for Billy Zane? Why are you having my dreams dude?" Dean asked as they got out of the car.
"I don't think that was a dream." Lacey told them. "It felt way too real."
"She's right." They turned to see Cas by the front of the Impala. "Wasn't a dream."
"Wait, what? You're saying this actually happened? That the whole...whatever, that was real?"
"Yes." Cas confirmed.
"Wait. So, what happened?"
"Well, I insisted he go back in time and correct what he'd done."
"What? Why?"
"It was the only way to be sure you were safe."
"So...so you just killed 50,000 people for us." Sam clarified.
"No, I didn't. They were never born. That's far different from being killed, wouldn't you say?"
"Ellen and Jo?" Dean asked.
"I'm sorry." Cas shook his head, sadly.
"Hold on. So, if you guys went and changed everything back, then that whole timeline or whatever, it just got erased?"
"Yeah, more or less."
"Well then how come we can remember it?" Dean asked.
"Because I wanted you to remember it."
"Why?" Sam looked confused."
"I wanted you to know who Fate really is. She's cruel and capricious."
"I'd go so far as bitch." Dean asserted.
"Well, yeah. You're the ones who taught me that you can make your own destiny. You don't have to be ruled by fate. You can choose freedom. I still believe that that's something worth fighting for. I just wanted you to understand that."
"So wait, did Balthazar really unravel the sweater over a chick flick?"
"Yes. Absolutely. That's what he did." Cas looked back at them, awkwardly.
"Wow. Well, might want to take away his cable privileges. Beside, Titanic didn't suck that bad." Sam and Lacey raised their eyebrows at him. "Winslets rack." Lacey rolled her eyes and Cas disappeared. "I'll tell you one thing about Cas, he does not appreciate the finer things." Dean said as they headed into Bobby's.
"I guess things are back to normal, huh?"
"Normal. Awesome." Dean replied sarcastically. They headed into the living room and found Bobby asleep on the couch.
"Poor bastard. Doesn't even know how good he had it."
"Yeah well, what he doesn't know won't hurt him. I say we keep our mouths shut." Lacey looked sadly at Bobby but nodded her assent.
"Yeah, I'm with you guys. Should we wake him?"
"Nah. That's probably the best he's felt all week." Dean replied as he covered Bobby over with a blanket and the three of them left the room.