Broiling blue and purple clouds rolled across the sky, deepening the already dark night until it seemed as though even the artificial blaze of street lights might not be able to penetrate it. The Windy City was certainly living up to its moniker tonight; a busy breeze whirred through the streets, whipping up litter from the sidewalks, rustling through trees, rattling windows. It was a night when sensible folk stayed indoors; some ancient, primal sense of self-preservation kept them from investigating sounds or sights which might otherwise have invited their curiosity. On nights like this, the supernatural was only too close to home.

In Uptown Chicago, nestled between the brightly lit bars and lounges, sat Morgan's Landing, a squat, dark building out of place among the neon lights that flickered in reflection on the wet road. It was a quiet night in this saloon bar, for it was the sort of night when their regular customers had work to be doing. Indeed, it was so quiet that Brian Morgan had decided to close up early, sending his barmaid down into the cellar to turn off the taps and floes as he dragged the garbage toward the back door. A quick trip to the dumpsters out back, and he could lock up for the night.

It was the kind of night when storms were brewing, boiling up from out of nowhere, storms that those who knew and understood the world of the supernatural would recognize as unnatural. Dark clouds blackened the night sky, blotting out the silver light of the moon and the flickering light of distant stars and unknown worlds. Thunder rolled in the distance, warning of the coming storm, as if the very Gods in the heavens above were warring with each other. It was a swiftly moving storm, coming up as if from out of nowhere. But strangely, there was no rain.

The proprietor of the Landing kicked open his own back door, peering out into the unlit alleyway warily. He'd been uneasy of going out here alone for more than two years now, ever since a little woman had all but fallen into his lap, bleeding everywhere. But it had to be done. Hefting the garbage bags in his hands, he stepped out, offering a glance and a curse to the thunderous skies above the city.

Brian Morgan was well within reason to be wary of that alley, which had been used once before to dump a poor, lost soul into his care, and was about to be used again. Whoever was playing with his life took no pity on the man, choosing this time and this place once again to dump yet another lost soul in his care, for whatever reasons that had not yet become clear. The sky crackled with energy, as if if might at any moment split open up and break the world asunder, as if the world was coming to an abrupt and violent end. And then, there was a deafening roar of thunder and a brilliant flash of lightning bright enough to light up the night. One could almost feel that energy as it rent the night, cracking and flashing like a canon in the midst of a battle.

"Mary, Mother of -!" Brian roared in a gutteral voice as the thunder crashed and lightning flickered, blinding and deafening him in one swift action. He stumbled back against the dumpster, letting out another yell as the lid slammed down, catching him a healthy thump on the back of the head.

Blinking through the brilliant purple and white splotches that now marred his vision in the darkness, he heard Nim's voice calling from inside. "Brian' You okay?"

Panic flared for a moment; no matter how capable she seemed, he didn't want her back in this alleyway, not on a night like this. Daring the danger that could well have just come to his back door in the wake of that terrible crack from the sky, he raised his voice to call back to her. "Stay in there, don't come out! I'm comin'!"

The crack of unnatural lightning lit up the sky and the alley behind Morgan's Landing, blindingly brilliant, tearing open the sky for just a split second, rending a rip in the very fabric of space and time, and then it was over, as quickly and abruptly as it had started, leaving an almost deafening silence in its wake and the prone body of a man lying face down in the shadows of the alley, amidst the dumpsters and the scattered bits of litter and refuse that were swirling in the wake of that unnatural storm.

"Brian?"

Nim sounded worried, but still Brian didn't want her out here. Rubbing his eyes to clear away that second blinding flash from his retinas, he yelled back for her to stay put and shut up, only a little surprised when she did just that. Pushing forward from where he was leant against the dumpster, he managed one full step before his foot caught beneath something heavy, sending him pitching forward into the whirl of litter.

"What the hell ...?"

Rolling onto his side, he peered through the darkness, reaching out to poke at whatever it was that had tripped him. His hand found a cheek, an ear, a shoulder; all apparently attached in the appropriate manner. Memories of a similar night two years past rose in his mind, and he groaned, rolling his eyes.

"Better not be bleeding, boy," he muttered, heaving himself to his feet. There was nothing for it now. "Nim! Get out here and give me a hand!"

It was too dark in the alley to get a good look at the man's face, his features obscured by the shadows. He was wearing non-descript clothing - blue jeans, work boots, a black t-shirt and green button-down layered beneath a tan leather jacket. Inside the jacket and jeans were items that would give more clues as to his identity, but at first glance, he was no one special, and despite the fact that he was unconscious, he didn't appear to be bleeding or injured in any way.

"Stay there, come out, make your mind up," Nim was complaining as she opened the back door to the Landing, venturing out into the alley with a flashlight in one hand. The beam swept over the debris scattered about by the storm now passed, guiding her over to where Brian was heaving their unconscious visitor over onto his back.

"Grab his legs, missy-girl," he ordered, tucking his hands under the man's shoulders with a low grunt.

Switching off the flashlight, Nim tucked it into the back of her jeans, bending to take half the man's weight. "This isn't how I showed up," she pointed out a little superfluously as they staggered back into the warm light of the Landing.

It would take a few minutes before the unconscious man started to come to, ripped from his own place and time, his soul torn in two for the third time, and thrown into a world that was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Dean groaned as he started to come around. The last thing his groggy mind remembered was finishing off the leader of the Leviathan, a monster he had particularly relished killing, if not for the black goo that forced him from his own world.

His journey into the warmth and safety of the bar wasn't the most gentle, either. Nim hadn't propped the door open, and the resulting wriggling to get all three of them inside included a few sharp jabs from the edge of the door into the unconscious man's ribs.

"He's not bleedin', he's not dead," Brian was grumbling as the door thumped shut behind him. "Big improvement on you."

Nim snorted, groaning as she adjusted her grip on the legs in her grasp. "Where are we going with him?" she asked in a pained voice. Brian nodded to the nearest booth.

"Table," he grunted, and in two swings, the newest addition to the Landing's quiet night landed with a rough thump on the table in the booth.

"Jo," Dean repeated, his voice betraying the shock and conflicted emotions he was struggling to contain. Fingers tightened their grip on the table's edge until his knuckles turned white. The room was swaying again, and the edges of his vision were fraying, going black. The last time he'd seen her, she'd been a ghost. She'd touched his cheek, her fingers burning like cold fire against his flesh. How often had he awoken in the middle of the night, haunted by the memory of her touch'

"God..." he muttered, feeling suddenly faint.

Brian's gaze turned to Nim, a question in his eyes that he didn't need to vocalize. She met her friend's enquiring gaze with distress prominant in the darkness of her own eyes. The name ....it meant nothing to her. It sparked nothing in the blankness of her mind. But the emotion in the man who spoke it, that shook her deeply. "I ....I don't recognize it," she ventured to Brian, shifting awkwardly on her feet as the rifle lowered from her shoulder.

Brian frowned at her. "Be sure, Nim, he's -" Whatever he'd been about to say was cut off by his own exclamation, belatedly seeing the faintness in the younger man. The knife disappeared back onto his belt as he reached to steady Dean with a firm hand. "Get him a drink," he told the young woman, and shaken, she nodded, releasing the hammer on the rifle as she moved hurriedly behind the bar.

Dean felt suddenly light-headed, Brian's grip the only thing stopping him from passing out cold. How was this happening" Jo was dead. He'd seen her die. He'd met her ghost. This couldn't be real. Unless....His heart froze in his chest. Unless he was dead, too. What had the man said" That he'd died three years ago' But that didn't make sense either. They couldn't be in heaven. The man had said they were in Chicago. "I don't..." He looked between them, on the verge of fainting. "I don't understand."

"Easy now, kid." Brian ignored the sudden uncertainty, the confusion, the possibility that the younger man was not who he said he was, in favor of getting Dean down off the table and onto the bench of the booth before he pitched away and cracked his head open. "Set yourself down there."

Footsteps announced the return of the young woman Dean had called Jo, slender fingers clutched about a tumbler containing a more than generous measure of whisky. She nudged her way down onto the bench beside Dean, taking his hand to wrap his fingers about the glass. "Drink this," she told him quietly, glancing in concern to Brian once again. Whatever was going on here, it was not straightforward at all.

Dean turned a haunted hazel-green gaze to the girl he knew as Jo but who the man was calling Nim. Was she Jo or just someone who bore a striking and uncanny resemblance" Haunted by her death, tainted with the weight of guilt heavy on his shoulders, her touch, as innocent as it was, burned like fire against his hand. He studied her silently for a moment, blinking back the tears that were blurring his vision, feeling as though someone had just torn open his chest and ripped out his heart. "You were dead," he told her quietly, voice strained with barely-repressed grief.

Brian's sigh only just reached her ears, her dark gaze focused on the man at her side. There was something about him, something intangibly familiar in the way he held himself, in the way he looked at her, even through the grief that so clearly wracked him. "I almost was," she answered him in a soft voice, remembering clearly those first moments of her conscious memory's archive - the pain and panic, the blood that poured from her side. "I would be dead now if Brian hadn't found me in time."

"Hell hounds..." he explained brokenly, his eyes never leaving her face, the whiskey untouched beneath his trembling hand. "It should have been me." They'd had this discussion once before, or so he'd thought, when she'd been a ghost. She hadn't blamed him then. She'd forgiven him even, but he could never forgive himself. Osiris had weighed and judged Dean's heart and found him guilty, not because Dean was, but because Dean felt he was.

"It was Meg....and hell hounds..." He glanced to Brian, looking confused, searching for answers, explanations, or just some reassurance that he wasn't losing his mind. "I don't understand what?s happening. Am I dead?"

There was a low hiss from Brian where he stood nearby, sudden restlessness urging the older man to turn and begin pacing back and forth in front of them. "Hell hounds," he repeated in a disgusted voice, shaking his head. "Hell hounds, of course."

Nim looked up at her friend in confusion. She'd not encountered hellhounds in her hunts yet, nor had anyone mentioned them, and yet this seemed to make sense for Brian in some way. Her eyes returned to Dean's face, holding his gaze in quiet concern as Brian spoke up.

"You're not dead," the older man said in frustration, coming to a halt. "But the Dean Winchester I know is. Died with his brother - don't know the details, but they died heroes. I don't know what you are, boy, but somehow you know who she is when even she don't. And that worries me some."

"Wait, what?" Nim looked up sharply, her brow furrowing. The intensity of Dean's stare was beginning to discomfort her in a way she wasn't used to; she'd had interest, of course, but nothing so fierce. "You think I'm this Jo person now, Brian?"

The mention of Sam shocked Dean into sudden sobriety, eyes widening, face turning that sickly shade of pale again. "Sam's dead?" How could Sam be dead" He'd just been with Sam not more than what seemed like an hour ago. He glanced at the glass of whiskey beneath his trembling hand.

He remembered it all very clearly in his head. He had been in Seattle with Sam and Cas, and they - despite the fact that Dean had delivered the killing blow, he considered it a team effort - had just killed Dick Roman, a knowing smirk on the monster's face as he died, exploding in a shower of black goo. And that was all Dean remembered.

Jo's voice - or the voice of who he perceived to be Jo - drew his attention again. "I know you are," he stated simply and matter-of-factly.

Nim's gaze snapped back to Dean, her hand tightening around his fingers on the glass. She loved Brian, but for a man who seemed to know what he was looking at in the younger man in his bar, he had obviously blundered into shocking territory. "Nice move, old man," she scolded her friend, turning her attention fully onto Dean as Brian muttered something about a phone call and stamped away, disappearing into the back rooms behind the bar. The affirmation of this Dean's knowledge of who she'd once been made her shake her head, not wanting to confront this, not now. "Drink the whisky," she told him firmly, not prepared to take no for an answer.

"Your name is Joanna Beth Harvelle. Your father was a hunter. His name was Bill. He died while..." Dean broke off momentarily at the thought of Jo's past that was so inextricably linked to his own. "He died on a hunt with my father. They were friends." His gaze darted to the departing Brian, but only momentarily, before moving back to the blond beside him. Was she or wasn't she, and he wasn't wondering about her hair color.

He decided the best thing to do in the face of this situation was follow her advice, and he picked up the glass with a shaky hand and tossed it back in its entirety without so much as a wince. Hunter's Courage, he and Bobby had always called it. The whiskey might as well have been Kool-Aid for all the effect it had on him.

She watched, feeling her own heart swell and ache at the open sign of his pain, the guilt and grief he bore that was so strong it almost kept him from speaking at all. Yet she couldn't help suspecting something even as he spoke, daring her courage to ask for one intimate detail that had not occurred to her until this moment. "You loved her, didn't you?"

He turned to her when she asked that question - the question no one had ever asked before. A question not even Dean dared ask himself. He'd told Bobby he'd never been in love, never loved anyone, but he knew it had been a lie. The truth was he'd loved them all, every last one of them, and he'd lost them all, one by one. Faced with such a blunt and unexpected question, he could only tell her the truth. He nodded his head, letting the tears flow freely in front of her, the first time he'd allow himself to cry in months, his voice a whisper of tormented confirmation. "Yes."

As the tears flowed, Nim found herself horrified to have pushed him so far. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, shocked by the sudden break down, feeling guilt touch her for not being the woman he wanted her to be, for not remembering him at all. "I almost wish I had died. I never thought not remembering would hurt more than just me."

She bit her lip, looking up, her eyes searching for Brian, for someone who could do a better job of comforting Dean than her. But he was nowhere to be seen, and she wouldn't leave a man to grieve alone. Resting her shoulder against Dean's, she bowed her head to touch her temple against his, folding one of his hands between her palms.

He smiled weakly despite the anguish he was feeling as she tried to comfort him. "It's okay." He dared to touch her, brushing her golden hair away from her face. "You're alive. That's all that matters." He meant what he said. He wasn't sure how she was still alive or even why, nor did it matter. The only thing that mattered was that somehow, somewhere, some way, inside this girl who called herself Nim, Jo Harvelle still lived.

"I almost wasn't." It was her turn for a confession of sorts; he deserved to know as much as she did of why she was alive, though she doubted it could help his pain any. The brush of his fingers through her hair brought her dark eyes to his, solemn and sincere as she spoke. "The first memory I have is of being in that alley out there and bleeding all over Brian while he brought me inside. I don't really remember much of the two weeks afterward; I was in the hospital, they sedated me. If it wasn't for Brian, for whatever or whoever it was that brought me here, I would be dead. Because of this."

She swallowed, releasing his hand from between her own as she stood up. A tension rippled through her, stiffening her spine for a moment as her fingers took hold of the hem of her shirt. Her eyes met his, oddly frightened of how he might react to what she was about to show him. Up came the concealing shirt to reveal four vicious scars, laid out in ragged parallel lines from the ribs on her left side to her navel, clear marks of claws that had dug deep into her flesh. The scars were raised, gnarled, still a violent red against her white skin. Nim closed her eyes, turning her face away. She didn't want to see the disgust at the sight of something she had not dared to show anyone in the years since she had come to this place.

He followed her with his eyes, listening while she tried to explain what she knew and remembered of her own life. Stifling a shudder as she revealed the scars that were proof his story was true, scars that might have once matched his own if not for the healing touch of an angel. She'd suffered the same pain that he had, and it seemed to him then that their lives were somehow inexplicably tangled together, though he didn't know how or why.

"Christ," he muttered, daring to reach out and trace the nearest scar with a gentle fingertip. No disgust on his face, only pity and understanding mingled with a hint of wonder. They had both walked through the lion's den and somehow survived. Maybe someday, if he was lucky, she'd understand. "I'm so sorry," he whispered, once again feeling the prickling sensation of unshed tears, head aching with confusion and weariness, unsure whether he should feel guilty or relieved.

She shivered at the feeling of his fingertip over the delicate tissue, her stomach flinching back not from pain but from an entirely inappropriate flare of desire. She dropped her shirt quickly, opening her eyes to find him on the cusp of tears again. "Please don't cry," Nim said softly, perching now on the edge of the table, leaning down to cup his face in both hands, urging him to meet her eyes once more. Her gaze flickered over his face, picking up the tiny details that put together the bigger picture. "You're exhausted. You should get some sleep. We're still going to be here in the morning."

His gaze, too, moved over her face, looking for any nuance or difference, and finding none. She was Jo - she had to be - a few years older, but so was he. At her suggestion, he tried to remember the last time he'd slept and failed. How long had it been" Days" Weeks" "I don't sleep well," he admitted, not without something to knock him out, unless he drove himself to exhaustion, collapsing in bed, unable to go on. He felt on the brink of that kind of exhaustion, physically, emotionally, mentally worn out. A night's sleep would do him good, if he could sleep.

At the mention of this, Nim swallowed, forcing herself not to compare his nightmares with her own. They were walking too much of a parallel line as it was at this moment without risking further confusion. She could only hope that he was exhausted enough to sleep through the screams that would bring her awake in the small hours once again.

"You can at least try," she told him, rising to her feet again. She scooped up her knife, sliding it into its sheath, and stepped away, offering a hand to Dean. "C'mon. There's always empty rooms here."

And he only hoped he didn't wake the entire house with his own screams. He hadn't woken screaming in some time, but seeing her again was poking at memories he had repressed for too long and thought he'd put to rest. He wiped a hand across his face to dry the remnants of his tears, his gaze moving from her face to the hand outstretched to him in a gesture of trust. He hesitated a moment, wondering briefly if this was all just a dream, and reached for her hand, moving to his feet, feeling weary and worn, but no longer dizzy.

Nim waited until his fingers were wrapped in and around her own before moving toward the bar, flicking off the lights as they went. Brian's voice was silent now, but he was nowhere to be seen, no doubt making arrangements and contacting old friends. It was what he always did when there was a mystery to solve.

Nim drew Dean from the dark bar and up the stairs to the upper level, where rooms opened off an angular hallway. Not really knowing why, she led him to the far end, to the room nearest those used by herself and Brian, not particularly wanting this grieving stranger to feel alone.

He followed her up the stairs, with nothing but the clothes on his back and the few meager possessions he carried in his pockets, trusting her implicitly. If this was some trick, some illusion, some dream, he'd worry about it later. For now, he just wanted to lose himself in blissful sleep. He'd worry about solving the rest of this mystery in the morning....or whenever he awoke.

She came to a halt by the chosen door, pushing it open and flicking on the light inside. It was a simple room; what was there was made for comfort, to provide rest to the hunters who passed through the city. Nim turned, offering Dean a smile that was almost the sunny expression Brian's customers were familiar with, standing against the doorframe. "Uh, I'm next door, Brian's across the hall," she told him, surprising herself with an unexpected flash of embarrassment as she offered up this information. "In case you wan- need us, during the night."

He nodded his head gratefully, clearly exhausted, and feeling a mixture of conflicting feelings he didn't have the strength or desire to sort out right now. He peered into the room, finding it simple but with all the comforts he was accustomed to. A bed to rest his weary head and a bathroom were all the creature comforts he really needed or desired. Hell, he'd spent plenty of nights sleeping in the Impala, freshening up in the morning at some roadside gas station. To Dean, a bed and bath was as good as the Ritz, and if he had trouble sleeping, there was a fully stocked bar just down the stairs to help knock himself out.

He took a lean in the doorway, feeling suddenly awkward. What was he supposed to say to her" She was Jo and yet not Jo. "Good-night," he said after a moment. "I'll....uh....see you in the morning."

She nodded, pushing slowly from her own lean opposite him. If he was at a loss for words, then so was she. She had learned more about who she had once been in the space of one evening than two years of instinct had taught her, and it was entirely down to him. "Yeah," she agreed with a slow sigh. There was a moment of hesitation, and that same instinct urged her up onto her toes to touch a kiss to his cheek. "Good night, Dean."

That single kiss touched him in ways he didn't understand and couldn't explain. Was it sisterly or something more" He wasn't sure, but one thing was certain - she was alive and for that, he was grateful. He smiled faintly back at her and then he closed the door to put an end to this night and see what the morning would bring.

((So begins the AU Dean's story on an AU Earth. And huge thanks to Dean's player for the scene!))