Love Never Fails

01. Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire

Season Eleven

Dean was surrounded by the Darkness cloud that was hurtling towards the car. He looked around wildly until a woman appeared in front of him. "Hey! The hell's going on?!"

Sam and Alana were unconscious in the Impala and the horn was blaring.

He groaned as he touched his face where Dean had hit him. "Ah!" He looked around and the scene of the Darkness coming out of the ground and rushing towards the car replayed.

"Hold on!" Dean yelled.

Dean disappeared from the car and Sam and Alana called, "Dean?! Dean?!"

Sam and Alana came out of their reverie and the former looked around. "Dean?"

They exited the car and looked for Dean. They found him lying on the ground in a field of flowers.

"Hey! Hey!" Sam and Alana said. Dean woke, groaned, and stood. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Where's the car?" Dean asked.

Sam jerked his thumb behind him. "It's about a mile that way."

"What?"

"Seriously? The -- the Darkness hit. You disappeared. You remember none of this?"

Dean thought back to the Darkness hitting.

"Hold on!" Dean yelled, seeing the woman from the Darkness outside the car, then he was standing in front of her, outside in the cloud.

"She saved me," Dean told Sam and Alana.

"What? Who?" Sam and Alana asked.

"The Darkness."

Sam frowned. "Hang on a second. What do you mean, she saved you?"

"You two were there," Dean said. "When the storm hit, everything went dark."

"Yeah, but you disappeared from the car."

"I don't even remember that."

"Well, Alana and I don't remember some woman pulling you out."

Dean looked at him. "Well, what do you want me to say, okay? I was in the car, and then I wasn't in the car. I was in the field, and she was there."

"And she told you two she was the Darkness."

"No. She was wearing a name tag. What do you think? She thanked me."

"For what?" Sam and Alana asked.

"Setting her free."

Sam frowned. "You didn't see her free. I set her free."

"Does it matter? I mean, yeah, you said the spell, but I had the Mark, so lock and key."

Alana's hand found Dean's shoulder. "So you had a part in it. We all did. So, what, now she feels indebted to you or something?"

"I don't know. She's a darkness. Does she feel anything?"

"And that's all she said? Thanks?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. She was weird. But she had this energy about her, this -- this focus. But, yeah, not a talker."

"So we know jack."

"Well, we know what she looks like, and we know that she's evil. The question is, what does she know? I mean, she's been locked away since the beginning of time. Does she even know what a cheeseburger is? All I know is that we set her free, and we're gonna put her back in, no matter what it takes." Dean got in the car, which was still stuck in the pothole. "What the... Just gonna let me get it in the car?"