"He's a Winchester.  He's already cursed."

I leaned against the doorframe, watching Adam's chest rise and fall as he slept on a bed for the first time in five and a half Earth years.  And it was much, much more than that in Hell, especially in the Cage.

Sam walked up to me, handing me a cup of hot chocolate, since he knew I wasn't a coffee fan.  I nodded in thanks.  "How is he?"

Adam squirmed, his face twisted.

"Okay.  At least, for the state that he's in.  He's just going to have some pretty bad nightmares."

Sam nodded, hurt in his eyes.  He could relate to what Adam was going through, at least for some of it, when the two of them were together.  Sam had never really talked about their time together in the Cage, only about Lucifer.

"Do you...?" I stopped myself, wondering if it was a good idea to ask the question.

Sam looked at me expectantly.  "Do I what?"

"Do you still...have nightmares?"

"Occasionally," he replied, not as affected by what I said as I had imagined him to be.  "Not as many as I used to.  The memories only haunt you if you let them."

-

"We should start a band," Dean said.

"What?" Sam looked at Dean with surprise.  It was one of Dean's random, only half-serious comments to make humorous conversation.

"I'll play the guitar.  Electric.  Nicole will play acoustic.  Cas gets the keyboard."

Sam rolled his eyes.

"And you"--Dean pointed at Sam--"get the drums.  Bam bam bam..."  He slung his arms around like he was playing the drums.  He threw his hands to the side.  "What do you think?"

"How long did it take you to come up with that?" Sam asked.

Dean grinned.

I entered the room, sitting at the table with the two of them.  "Cas is watching Breaking Bad, so he may or may not come out of his room today."

"And Adam?" Dean asked.

"Still asleep."

"Right."

There was silence for a moment, and I brought up the one thing that we had all been thinking about.

"We still have one more trial left," I said.

"What the hell does it even mean?" Dean asked.  He began to read from the paper God had given me, "'Receive help from people in the past and present simultaneously while keeping their history intact.'  Is that some kind of riddle?"  He threw the note onto the table.

"No," Sam said.  "We do exactly as it says.  Nicole has to take someone from now back into the past and have both versions of the same person work together."

"Oh," Dean said.  "That doesn't sound complicated at all.  How is that even possible?  Changing events in the past really screws up the future, just ask Balthazar that."

We were all silent, with no ideas.

"It says their history right, not anyone else's?  Whatever you receive help to do, that has to change history, but you just have to make sure that the people you are working with are unaffected," Sam said.

"Yeah, but how the hell do you do that?" said Dean.

"We could avoid being seen," said Sam.

"How much can you help someone if you have to worry about hiding from them too?  There's a limit on what you can get away with.  And what if we get caught?"

"Then what else could we do?"

"Erase their memories after?" I suggested.

They both looked at me, eyebrows raised.  Sam shrugged.

"If they don't remember it, then technically nothing else happened," Sam added.

"Except the huge gap in their memory," Dean pointed out.

"Things can be added to the mind as easily as they can be taken away," I said.  "Sure, we can hide a little, from some people, but others we will have to show ourselves to in order to be effective.  Say we work together to do something that the people originally did on their own, and, after the fact, we alter their memories so that they think those things are instead what only they did?"  Dean stared at me confused.  I probably could have explained that much better.  He tipped his head down, and his lips were moving as he was quietly repeating what I'd said, trying to understand it.

"That's great!" Sam exclaimed.  "That just might work."

"So how far back are we going to go?  And who are we taking with us?" Dean asked, finally looking up.

"Why don't we team up with ourselves?  That way we don't have to worry about persuading someone to time travel with us," Sam said.

"That's a good idea," I said.

"All right, Sammy."  Dean rubbed his hands together.  "Which version of yourself do you want to work with?"

"Why not the people we were yesterday?" Sam said.  "That is the past.  And we are more understanding of the situation."

Dean frowned, disappointed.  He opened his mouth to pitch in his opinion on the matter, but Sam spoke before he could get in a word.

"Dean.  We are not going back far."

"But that's what makes it fun."

"Really?  We are trying to be practical here in a way that the trial could still work out, and you want to do something so much harder than it has to be because it would be fun."

"Come on, Sammy.  Live a little.  How many chances do you get to go back in time to see your younger self?"

Sam crossed his arms.  "Yeah, and how spooked would our younger selves be if they saw themselves pop in and want to work a job together?"

"I know, you're such a scary-looking guy."

Sam rolled his eyes.  "Dean.  Seriously."

"What?"

"How far back were you wanting to go?"

"Back where it all started, according to what Nicole said about the show-thingy."

"You mean, 2005?"

Dean nodded.

"Dude, you do realize that we had a lot on our plate, even back then."

I continued to watch them argue as they tried to decide on a case.

"Are you kidding?  The racist truck?"

"Those Ghostfacer dudes only got in the way.  I can't stand them."

"We weren't exactly together on that case."

"The Woman in White was our first case after we began hunting together, Dean.  I was more worried about law school and...Jessica..."

"God, no.  Not the bugs."

"Dean, why are you so set on going back this far?"

Let's just say it wasn't easy.  I finally interrupted.

"Why don't we just pick somewhere and figure it all out when we get there, okay?"  They stopped talking, looking at me with surprise, having forgotten that I was still standing there.  "Since you two obviously cannot decide on anything."  They looked at each other, agreeing on the fact that they would never come to a decision.  "I don't even know where we are going.  I'll just aim for season one, which could be anywhere from late 2005 to early 2006."

"Okay," Sam said.  I looked at Dean.

"Fine."

-

After explaining the situation to Cas, who promised to watch over Adam, we began to head out.  We left the bunker, standing outside.

"But you know," I explained, "people who are supposed to die...you're going to have to let them die.  And spoiling the endings for yourselves is pointless, because anything that you say will have to be erased.  Though, your younger selves will probably ask questions, such as who I am, where your father is, and about Azazel.  I can imagine that they will demand answers, so you could give them a few answers, enough to settle them down, but not so much that you jeopardize more than what I can fix.  If at all possible, we want your younger selves to take all of the same steps as before.  And, in order to receive help from them, instead of us being the ones providing help, we have to make them think that something in the past went wrong, something that we need help changing."

"Got it," Dean said.

"So, do you even know where we're going?" Sam asked.

"Nope," I told him.  "Completely randomized.  It's kind of like shuffling cards in my mind and drawing one from the deck.  I did remove a few cards, like the Woman in White, because your priorities were not the same.  I also removed any cases that included your father, because that's yet another person that we would have to explain it all to.  And I'm not sure that this is the best time for a reunion."

After Sam and Dean were ready, I placed my hands on their shoulders and closed my eyes, shuffling the deck of cards.

I felt the three of us trapped in sort of a spiral of time.  I quickly drew a card in my mind and took us to that moment.

We were standing on a sidewalk, several feet behind a crowd of people.  It was nighttime. There were a couple of emergency vehicles parked at a house, and someone was being zipped into a bodybag.  Then, we saw the Impala drive up and park nearby.  A younger Sam and Dean practically jumped out, running up to the crowd.

"Son of a bitch," Dean said with awe as he spotted their younger selves.  Sure, he'd seen his future self once, thanks to that dickhead Zachariah, but this was different.  They actually remembered this happening.  What they were thinking, even.

"Oh my god..." Sam's mouth hung open.  Unlike Dean, he hadn't had experience whatsoever with seeing himself in another time.

"Okay, man.  We gotta act confident and badass for ourselves, all right?"

Sam said nothing; he only nodded.

"We have to make them believe that they are helping us," I said.

"Yeah, got it," said Dean.  "When are we anyway?"

"Max Miller," I said.  "He was our lucky winner."

Dean looked at Sam.  "Dude.  This is sick."

"What happened?" I could see Young Dean ask a woman.  He was clean-shaven, had a smoother voice, and was younger (obviously).

"Suicide.  Can't believe it," the woman replied.

"Did you know them?" Young Sam asked.  His voice was softer and had a comforting tone.  He was shorter than his older self, as Young Sam and Dean were practically the same height.  I smirked, finding it humorous.

"Saw him in every Sunday at St. Augustine's.  He always seems...seemed, so normal.  I guess you never know what's going on behind closed doors," said the woman.

We watched them talk for awhile, hesitating to make any moves.  Perhaps we were waiting for the perfect moment, or maybe we were just enjoying the show.

Eventually, Young Sam and Dean finished their conversation with the woman and headed back to the Impala, leaning against it.  The three of us stepped a bit closer so that they were still within earshot.

"Sam, we got here as fast we we could," Young Dean said.

"Not fast enough.  It doesn't make any sense, man.  Why would I even have these premonitions if there wasn't a chance I could stop them from happening?"

"I dunno."

Young Sam shook his head with a sigh.  "So what do you think killed him?"

"Maybe the guy just killed himself?  Maybe there's nothing supernatural going on at all."

Young Sam shook his head again.  "I'm telling you, I watched it happen.  He was murdered by something, Dean.  I watched it trap him in the garage."

"What was it, a spirit, poltergeist, what?"

Young Sam grew irritated.  "I don't know what it was.  I don't know why I'm having these dreams; I don't know what the hell is happening, Dean."

Young Dean stared at Young Sam for a long moment.

"What?" Young Sam finally said, agitated.

Young Dean shrugged.  "Nothing.  I'm just, I'm worried about you man."

"Well, don't look at me like that!"

Young Dean looked away.  "I'm not looking at you like anything."  He glanced back at his brother. "Though I gotta say, you do look like crap."

"Nice.  Thanks."

"Now," I said.  We all headed in their direction.

Sam and Dean both headed for their selves, walking at different angles.  I, however, walked straight forward, directly toward Young Sam and Dean.  They spotted me quickly.

"Hey," Young Sam said.  "Who are--"

A hand grabbed his shoulder, as did Young Dean's.  They both turned at the same time, facing themselves.