January 1st, 2005.
Adam Milligan woke with one thought burning behind his eyes.
It starts this year.
The year John Winchester vanishes. The year Jessica Moore burns. The year Sam start hunting again with Dean. The year the yellow-eyed demon, Azazel, begins the final moves of his decades-long plan.
And at the end of it, a demon-possessed driver crashes into the Impala—injuring Dean so badly John makes the deal to saved him. The deal that damns his soul, lost the colt and pushes the brothers deeper into the war.
Adam's job? Stop it. Quietly. Without getting caught.
Because if Azazel ever found out he knew—if Chuck even noticed—then everything unravels.
So this year, Adam wasn't just hunting.
He was playing the enemy.
He slipped out of bed, careful not to make noise despite the early hour. His mom was still asleep down the hall after working a New Year's Eve shift at the hospital. The house was quiet, the neighborhood blanketed in that particular Minnesota winter silence that seemed to swallow all sound.
Adam moved to his closet, sliding back the false panel he'd built into the wall. Behind it was the truth—the real work. Maps, timelines, notes written in a cipher only he understood. Careful planning for the year that would change everything.
This wasn't about strength anymore, or even skill. This was about strategy. Deception. Making the enemy think they were winning while he changed the game entirely.
________________________________________
Winter–Spring 2005 — Planning Phase
Adam marked the timeline across the back wall of his closet—taped notes, red string, highway maps. His calendar only had three real priorities:
Don't draw attention.
Save the Winchesters.
Make Azazel afraid of something else.
"Something more powerful than him," Adam muttered, pinning another note to the wall. "Something he can't control."
Heaven. Angels. The forces that Azazel was trying to avoid until his plan was complete.
Adam had watched enough of the show in his past life to know that angels weren't active yet. They wouldn't interfere until after Dean went to Hell. But Azazel didn't know that Adam knew that.
His idea was risky. Bold. But it just might work:
Exorcise the demon possessing the truck driver before the crash. Make it loud. Leave sigils. Leave angelic residue. Make Azazel think Heaven interfered.
He couldn't stop John from going missing—that had to happen to kickstart Sam and Dean's journey.
But if he could make the crash look like angelic intervention? Maybe Azazel would change tactics. Delay the deal. Retreat.
Maybe—just maybe—it would give them more time.
Adam began compiling notes on angelic lore—what was known in hunter circles versus what he remembered from his past memories. The key was to be convincing without being too accurate. To leave evidence that would scare a demon without attracting real heavenly attention.
"A lie that's partly true," Adam said to himself, sketching out a modified Enochian symbol. "Just enough to make him doubt."
________________________________________
Summer 2005 — South Dakota Mission
"Two days," Roy said, eyeing Adam suspiciously. "That's all you get. Then you call me."
Adam nodded, shouldering his backpack. "I'll be fine. It's just reconnaissance."
"With a hunter I've never heard of."
"Bobby Singer's respected. Just not social." Adam kept his expression neutral. "And he specializes in demonic lore. That's what we need right now."
Roy sighed. "This obsession with demons—"
"It's not an obsession. It's preparation." Adam met Roy's gaze evenly. "There's something big coming. I can feel it."
There was a long silence. Then Roy handed him a small bundle wrapped in cloth. "Silver knife. New one. Better balance."
Adam took it, surprised by the gesture. "Thanks."
"Don't get killed with it. I'd be pissed."
It was as close to sentiment as Roy ever got. Adam nodded, tucking the knife into his bag.
Adam lied to Roy—again. Claimed he needed to "reconnect with a hunter" near Sioux Falls. Roy grumbled but let him go, too busy handling a suspected djinn near Des Moines.
Adam rode a bus for hours, got off three towns away, and hitchhiked the rest. Careful. Silent. Always off the grid.
His target was Singer Salvage Yard. Bobby Singer.
The salvage yard was exactly as he remembered from his past memories—a labyrinth of rusted car husks arranged in uneven rows. Adam observed from a distance, tracking Bobby's movements, committing the layout to memory.
But he never approached. Not yet. Bobby wasn't part of this phase of the plan.
Adam didn't want Bobby involved yet. But he needed to scout the location—know the terrain for when the crash would happen. He mapped nearby highways. Found the spot where the Impala would be hit.
It was an unremarkable stretch of road—a curve, a straightaway, a perfect spot for a truck to come barreling through a stop sign. No witnesses nearby. Minimal traffic.
Deliberately chosen.
Adam surveyed the area with methodical precision. He noted distances, visibility, potential escape routes. The spot where the Impala would be hit. Where the truck would come from. Where emergency services would arrive.
Then he marked trees with Enochian symbols.
"Let them find this and think angel."
He carved them into the underside of branches, into the bark facing away from the road. Hidden, but findable by someone looking closely. By demons investigating afterward.
He buried a small charm beneath the roadside gravel—salt, iron, and a feather scorched with a sigil he remembered from the show. A forgery, designed to confuse demons sniffing around afterward.
The crash wasn't for months. But he had to be ready.
As Adam worked, he felt a strange calm settling over him. This was no longer about playing defense—about simply surviving until the ghouls came for him in 2006. This was about changing the entire story.
About saving his family before they even knew they needed saving.
________________________________________
Research Phase — Professor Reed
"Angels," Professor Reed repeated, looking up from the ancient text Adam had placed on her desk. "You want me to research angels."
"Not actual angels," Adam clarified. "Angel lore. Specifically, how hunters and demons would recognize angelic intervention."
Reed leaned back in her chair, studying him with that penetrating gaze that had seen through most of his partial truths over the years. "Why?"
Back home, he recruited Professor Reed for research—without giving her the full truth. "I'm trying to fake an angelic presence," he told her. "Symbolic deception. Strategic misdirection."
Reed, now fully in the loop on the supernatural world, raised an eyebrow. "You're trying to trick demons into thinking an angel interfered?"
Adam nodded. "More specifically, one demon."
"Isn't that dangerous?"
"Extremely."
She didn't argue. She just pulled out a stack of texts and said, "Then let's make it convincing."
Together, they developed a blend of ancient religious iconography, Enochian mimicry, and residue-based exorcism techniques to simulate divine interference.
"The key is the light," Reed said one evening, sketching a modified exorcism ritual. "Biblical accounts consistently mention blinding light when angels appear. We need to replicate that."
Adam nodded, thinking of the flash bombs he'd been experimenting with—salt, holy oil, and a few other ingredients that created a brilliant flare when ignited.
"And the sound," Reed continued. "High-pitched, almost painful."
"Like radio static crossed with a scream," Adam murmured, remembering Castiel's true voice from his displaced memories.
Reed gave him an odd look. "Yes, exactly. How did you know?"
Adam shrugged. "Just... intuition."
Reed didn't press, but her expression remained curious. "Well, your intuition is remarkably specific. We should incorporate that element too."
By August, they had designed what Adam called an "angelic forgery kit"—a combination of symbols, sounds, light effects, and exorcism variations designed to mimic heavenly intervention.
"This is either brilliant or insane," Reed said as they reviewed the final version. "Possibly both."
"That's kind of my specialty," Adam replied with a thin smile.
________________________________________
September 2005 — Test Run
The possessed man was aggressive but sloppy—a low-level demon using a local drunk to terrorize a small North Dakota town. Adam tracked it for three days before making his move.
He trapped it in an abandoned barn, devil's trap painted on the ceiling.
"Hunter," the demon hissed, recognizing something in Adam despite never having met him. "You're too young to hunt alone."
"Who says I'm alone?" Adam replied, calm despite the hammering of his heart.
The demon's eyes darted around the empty barn. "Playing games, boy? Your parents are not here to save you."
"I don't need saving." Adam began the modified exorcism, words flowing smoothly as he lit the specially prepared flash bomb.
The light was blinding, pure white and searing. The sound—a combination of high-frequency tones emitted by a device Reed had jury-rigged—filled the barn with an unearthly wail.
The demon screamed, black smoke pouring from the host's mouth as the exorcism took effect.
Adam tested his exorcism variation on a minor possession in North Dakota. He cleansed the host with a flash bomb of angelic sigils and forced the demon out mid-possession while whispering Latin.
Witnesses reported "a blinding light" and "wings."
The rumor mill started.
Good.
Adam helped the confused host to the nearest hospital, disappearing before authorities arrived. By the next day, stories were already circulating through nearby hunter networks.
Something new in the game. Something that exorcised demons with white light and the sound of distant wings.
Adam monitored the chatter through Reed's contacts in the folklore community. The whispers were spreading, exactly as planned.
Let Azazel hear.
________________________________________
Late October — Preparing the Trap
The trees were ablaze with autumn colors when Adam returned to South Dakota. The air was crisp, carrying the scent of woodsmoke and fallen leaves. Perfect cover for what he needed to do.
He scouted the road where the crash would happen. He planted the Enochian marks in trees, carved false warding sigils into rocks. Buried another forged "angelic" talisman under a storm drain near the ambush point.
He triple-checked his modified exorcism—designed to hurt but not kill the demon. It needed to run. To report. To panic.
Adam found the vantage point where he would wait—a rise overlooking the intersection, concealed by trees but with clear sightlines to both roads. From here, he could see the ambush coming and intervene at the perfect moment.
Not to stop the crash entirely—that might change too much. But to stop it from being fatal. To remove the demon before impact. To leave evidence of angelic interference that would ripple through demonic intelligence networks.
He wrote two words in red ink at the top of his journal page:
"Blame Heaven."
As dusk fell, Adam took one last look at the crossroads. In a few months, this unremarkable spot would become the fulcrum on which his family's fate balanced. The place where he would begin to rewrite the story.
He felt the weight of it all pressing down on him—the responsibility, the risk, the razor-thin margin for error. But he also felt something else, something that had been growing stronger over the past few years of hunting.
Purpose.
This wasn't just about surviving anymore. It was about saving the people who never knew they needed to be saved. About stopping a chain of events that would ultimately lead to apocalypse.
About being a Winchester, even if his brothers didn't know he existed.
________________________________________
Winter settled over Windom, snow blanketing the town in pristine white. Adam moved through his days with quiet focus—school, training, research, planning. To the outside world, he was just another teenager. To the hunting community, just another young recruit learning the ropes.
No one—not Roy, not Reed, not his mother—knew the full scope of what he was preparing for.
He counted the days. Memorized the timeline.
He pinned a date on his wall: May 2nd — Sam's Birthday. The Turn Begins.
And below it, one final line:
Make Azazel scared of the wrong enemy.
Adam closed his journal, a strange calm settling over him. The pieces were in place. The trap was set. Now all he had to do was wait for the game to begin.
And when it did, he would be ready to change the rules.