The passage between universes is uneasy; it isn’t a violation of the laws of physics, but a perturbation of them, a loophole caused by a few rules that should contradict each other. There is an intermedial area between universes, not of one or the other, and that area is what our heroes traversed. It’s a place outside of time, not hospitable to physical beings like humans. Without the passage of time, their minds can’t encode what happens there.

Jack doesn’t know any of this. But he is, of course, not human. He’s tethered to one body, but able to exist outside of it if the need arises. When the angel Castiel passes through the rift, he steps out and in without seeing Jack—but Jack sees him go by. Jack is outside of his concrete body. He can’t seem to make himself move to follow. He sees the other three pass through, golden souls gleaming. It takes effort for Jack to rejoin his body; briefly he thinks it’s gone, that the spell destroyed it. But then he finds it, and he’s back inside it, and once he is, stepping into the other opening is as easy as falling.

They’re fighting when he stumbles out, voices rising like an agitated flock of birds, then his father says his name and he’s being supported by strong arms. The place they’ve landed is a mirror to the place they just left; maybe some higher power has a compulsion for symmetry. But instead of a standing building, it’s utterly destroyed, like a meteor hit it. Around them, the terrain is a dark black bruise, years old and not healing. Arms on either side half-carry Jack to dry ground, and set him down to sit on top of a metal surface. Then Dean is kneeling in front of him, while Castiel holds him upright by the shoulder. “Jack? Buddy?” Jack sways forward. His awareness is expanding inwards and outwards—one minute trapped in his weak little body, the next minute oozing out around them. A sparrow flies over the twisted beam above them, and it immediately feels sick. It lands on the metal, dizzy. Like Jack. Impulse to seek sustenance, to flee danger. It turns back and flies away, back towards the forest.

“I told you,” Castiel is saying. “I told you the spell wouldn’t help.”

“Jack,” Sam says, and Jack tunes into his voice, toneless and steady. “Hey. Where did you go? We lost you for a few minutes there.”

Jack answers, but nobody responds to it. He only thought the answer, he realizes belatedly. Something is missing here.

“He’s in no state to be taking on an archangel,” Castiel says.

“Cas is right,” Sam says. “He needs to go somewhere he can rest, maybe get treatment.”

“What kind of treatment?”

“I don’t know. How do angels restore their grace?”

“Through our connection to the Host,” Castiel answers. “Which neither Jack nor I have in this world.”

The meaning of his words finally reaches Jack—he tugs at Cas’s sleeve. “Cas. Castiel,” he says, out loud this time. “I can’t hear you.” That’s why. No angel radio.

Castiel’s grip on his shoulder tightens. Jack feels bereft, shrunken and unstable in this state, like the borders of his being are melting and he’s going to spill out. He wants Castiel to reassure him, hold him in. Squeezing his eyes shut tighter, he leans against Castiel’s side. He doesn’t want to cry in front of Dean.

“I have a place we can go,” Mary says. “If we’re still in Colorado, it wouldn’t be too far.”

“The rebels?” Dean asks.

“They’ll help me,” she says. “They might have information, too.”

Jack keeps his face pressed into Castiel’s heavy coat as his awareness floods outward again, uncontrolled and disorienting. He hears four unsynchronized heartbeats, a spring trickling underground, a stray ping from a mostly-dead cell tower miles away, Dean asking Sam what he thinks they should do. Sam answers. Dean doesn’t understand his reply. He stands up from the mud.

“Someone has to,” Sam says.

“Sam’s right,” Mary says.

“No, no. No way. We’re doing this together. We don’t split up.”

“Dean, if something else gets through that rift—Michael probably detected it as soon as we opened it up. We need somebody here to guard it.”

The debate continues for a few minutes. Jack tries opening his eyes, when he feels up to it. Dean has realized he isn’t going to change Sam’s mind. They go off to talk alone, a few meters away. Jack can still hear every word.

“You’re not going to talk me out of it, Dean.” A pause. “I’ll be safer here, you know I will.”

“You’re safer where I can see you.”

Another pause. “I can take care of myself. You guys need to get moving.”

Jack waits to hear Dean’s answer to that, but instead he hears footsteps, coming back.

“Okay,” Sam says. “I’m going to stand guard here.”

“Dean’s okay with that?” Cas asks.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sam says. “Who has the radios?”

“I do,” Mary says. “Remember—” She unzips the bag. “Only emergencies. The angels can listen in.”

“Got it,” Sam says, taking it.

“Sam,” Jack says, patting an arm. It’s Castiel’s. He tries again. “Sam.” He finds and tugs Sam’s sleeve.

“Jack? Yeah? You okay?”

“You can’t stay here,” Jack says. “It’s dangerous.”

“Jack...” Cas starts to say.

“No. The air. It’s... it’s decaying. It’s hurting the animals. I can hear them. They don’t want to come here.”

“Radiation,” Mary says, realizing. “From the reactor.”

“Dammit,” Sam mutters.

They leave the blast site and walk through the woods until Jack tells them it’s safe; he can feel the difference, and so can Castiel, when he concentrates. They leave Sam on a ridge, half a mile away, with a view of the rift and the access road. He and Dean stand side by side tuning their radios to the same frequency, and Dean says, make sure you beep once every four hours. Sam says he will. They hug, and then Sam hugs each of the rest of them, Jack last of all. He holds on for a long moment, and Jack remembers, belatedly, that Sam thinks this could be the last time he sees him.

The journey to the rebel base takes a long while. Jack remembers it—time moves differently here. When Dean and Castiel speak to each other, it makes Jack feel caged and anxious. Castiel answers Dean briefly, like he’s fending him off or hiding from him; if Castiel speaks to Dean first, Dean snaps at him like it stings. They walk for miles and miles, meeting nobody.

Finally, they reach the first rebel outpost, where somebody sends a telegraph message for them. Jack feels the pulses under the ground but doesn't understand them. It feels like he never left this world; like the life back on Earth is the dream, and this is reality.

Some time later, a truck comes to pick them up and drive them to the Colorado base. Jack dozes in the truckbed between Castiel and Mary, reaching out in his half-conscious state to catch a signal from above. He hears nothing of angel radio. If he had, he would have heard an alert message blare out some time near sunset, on the classified frequency: The rift has been located. Guarded by one human man, alone. Alert the commander.

 

* 3 *

“Haglund, what the hell do you mean, we can’t stay?”

“I’m sorry, Mary. But you can’t.”

They’re in the rebels’ Colorado base, which is hidden in the underground section of an abandoned shopping mall. Haglund is the leader of this faction, and Mary’s friend. When they arrived, Haglund brought them into her war room, in the disused security office. It’s cramped, with a card table full of documents, and maps pinned on the walls. Light comes from hurricane lamps, warm burning kerosene, resting on top of the dead CCTV monitors.

Haglund is accompanied by her two lieutenants, a taller man named Bruce, and a beefy bearded guy who hasn’t said a word yet. Dean flanks Mary, watching the others with diplomatically un-narrowed eyes. Cas is outside with Jack.

“We need your help. We’re here to—to take on Michael, for God’s sake,” Mary says.

Haglund meets Mary’s eye, unhesitant but obviously unhappy. She’s a little younger than Mary is, with dirty blonde hair pulled loosely back in a bun and the grim, practical air of someone who makes the hard decisions because no one else will.

“We recognize that. But we also—” She breaks off, looking to her lieutenant for a moment. He meets her gaze. It’s a look of trust. I know you know the right thing to do, and I’ll back your play. Something mean and ugly twists inside Dean, watching their little exchange—isolation, envy.

Haglund sighs, and looks back at Mary.

“It’s the nephilim.”

“Jack?”

“Jack. He’s—he’s a weapon. One they want.”

Mary and Dean exchange a look. “He has protective sigils on his ribs,” Mary says. “The angels can’t find him without help.”

“Yes. Help. That’s exactly what they’re going to get.” Haglund gestures around. “Look at this place, Mary, you walked through it to get here. You see the shape we’re in? Remember when you were here a few months ago?”

“Well...”

“Our numbers have shrunk by over 75 percent. We’re down to our last 18 men. We’re desperate for new recruits, but we don’t know which ones we can trust. And the ones who’ve stayed, or survived—they’re in bad shape.” She shakes her head. “We don’t have the resources to protect you. It’s not safe for us if you stay here. And it’s not safe for you either.”

Mary opens her mouth to protest. She looks to Dean again. She can bluff like the best of them, but strategy was never her strong suit. Well, it’s not his either.

Finally Mary lets out a sigh. “Okay. We understand. Can you at least give us transportation? Some supplies? Information?”

Haglund is visibly relieved. “We can give you transport,” she says. “Braidwood will drive you to the checkpoint.” She indicates the silent, beefy guy, watching with his arms folded. “I’m afraid we can’t spare any supplies.”

“Y’all are going to Michael’s fortress?” Braidwood says, his voice deep and surprisingly smooth. “The old hydro plant?”

“That’s right,” Dean says, looking at him. He observes Dean from under thick brows, his frown or smile obscured by his beard. The beard obscures his age too—he could be any age from 30 to 60.

“Dangerous,” Braidwood comments.

Dean stares at him, waiting for elaboration. “So we’ve heard,” he finally says, sarcastically.

“There’s something else you should know,” lieutenant Bruce interjects. His voice, by contrast, is reedy. Dean decides that he strongly dislikes the man.

Haglund makes a little “Hm?” sound that only Bruce is supposed to hear.

“The—”

“Oh.” She turns and gives him a look.

“They should know.”

“We should know what?” Dean asks.

Haglund sighs, obviously conflicted. She looks back to Mary. “It’s only a rumor. We don’t have hard intel.”

“But they should know,” Bruce insists.

“Michael, he’s—rumor has it that he’s trying—” Haglund stops to rephrase. She chews her tongue. “He’s trying to open another rift. Back to your world.”

“Yes. We know,” Mary says.

“In order to do that, he’s trying... to create a nephilim.”

“He’s what?” Mary says, at the same time as Dean says, “Excuse me?”

Bruce looks at the floor, and Haglund winces, taking responsibility for the news.

Dean feels sick.

“How?” he demands.

“We don’t know,” Bruce says. “Not many women here since the wars began,” he says darkly.

Mary makes a face. “What?”

“If he does it, we’re all screwed,” commander Haglund says. “And we’re even more screwed if he gets his hands on the one that already exists.”

“Not gonna happen,” Dean says, voice flinty to cover his unease. The nephilim thing fills him with a revulsion that isn't going away.

“Is there anything else?” Mary asks Haglund. The commander shakes her head.

Braidwood stands abruptly. “Wheels up in an hour. I’ll find you in the garage.”

*

“What do you mean—”

“Cas, keep it down—”

Dean pulls him by the arm around a corner in the underground garage, away from the guerillas eyeing them suspiciously. Jack, sitting on a tire, eating a power bar, watches them go.

As soon as they’re around the corner, hidden by pipes, Cas shakes out of his grip. “What do you mean we can’t stay?” he hisses. “Jack needs to recover!”

“I mean, she won’t let us,” Dean replies in an undertone. “The rebel commander. We’re a—liability. And she doesn’t trust her new recruits. And—” He breaks off.

“And?”

Dean purses his lips. Cas’s eye contact is fiery. He obviously knows Dean’s holding back.

“And what, Dean?”

“It—Michael wants Jack. According to their intel. Well, he—it’s not that simple.”

“Then simplify it,” Cas says, in an angry undertone.

“Would you relax? Let me get a sentence out?” Dean snaps. “He wants to create a nephilim! I didn’t want to tell you, I’m sorry, I—it’s not important, he can’t, anyway, or at least, he hasn’t—” Dean has no idea why he’s talking so fast, or why he’s so distressed by the prospect of telling Cas this. His instincts were right—Cas looks horrified. “To open a rift,” Dean finishes, uselessly. “Sorry. I knew you’d be upset.”

“‘Upset’?” Cas says, taking offense.

Dean meant it sincerely, but Cas isn’t understanding him at all. “Come on, stop it, I didn’t mean like that—”

“Guys?” says Mary’s voice. “Dean? Castiel?”

Her head appears around the corner. “Wheels up. We’re heading out.”

“Okay,” Dean says. Cas turns to go—Dean reaches out for his arm again, “Cas, wait,” but he’s already gone.

Dean drops his hand. He closes his eyes and lets out an aggravated sigh.

At least Cas is still angry, he thinks, nonsensically. The only thing that could be worse would be Cas giving up, withdrawing from the conflict. Like the awful cold shoulder Sam gave him.

Sam. Dean checks his watch. Sam’s next check-in is in less than an hour.

In the shadow of the pipes, he rubs his eyes and drags a hand down his face. He hates it here, in this godforsaken universe, on this rubble planet, in this concrete guerilla garage. For months, the idea of this place has been in front of him like a shadow, darkening every threshold, always one step away. Now he’s finally here, he’s stepped into the darkness, and it’s every bit as miserable as he’d dreamed. He feels disconnected from home, disconnected from everybody; Sam is distant, Cas is furious, Jack is fading away. Mom’s the only one who will still look at him. And she's probably disappointed in him for falling off the wagon. A sense of bleak finality fills Dean, a sense that he’s walking down into someplace dark; and this isn’t it, yet, because he’s still walking.

With each step, Dean gets farther from them, and closer to him.

Dean’s hand drops from his face, and he looks down at it. It opens and closes.

“Dean!” a voice calls for him.

He opens and closes his hand again.

It wouldn’t feel like this, he reminds himself. You wouldn’t be able to see this.

It didn’t feel like this.

It didn’t feel like anything.

But that was Cas.

“Dean?” says Mary’s voice.

He clears his throat. “Yeah,” he calls back. “Coming.”

He needs to talk to Jack about something.

*

Braidwood drives them out in an old pickup truck. It’s night, pitch-black under the eternal cloud cover, but he still makes Jack and Cas hide in the lead-lined compartment in the back, and he makes Dean and Mary wear balaclavas to disguise their faces. The night is crisp and the wind through the cab is cold; Dean’s underdressed. There are no stars above the leafless trees. At one point, through the dark screen of trees, Dean catches a glimpse of lighted settlement—a huddle of houses, warm lights in the windows and a lantern burning out front. An inhabited settlement—the first one Dean’s seen in his handful of days in this world. He twists in his seat to see it as they pass. There’s a red mailbox at the end of the drive.

“How many people still live around here?” Dean asks Braidwood, who is squinting at the road, focusing on navigating sans headlights.

“’Round this area? Denver? Not more than a few hundred.”

“So close to Michael’s home base?” Mary says, surprised.

Braidwood shrugs. “Most people, they don’t really know what’s going on anymore. It’s easy to stay uninformed, when it’s nobody’s job to inform you. So they just keep on keepin’ on. Michael’s holy training camp could be in their backyard and they’d ignore it as long as he didn’t use any of their well water.”

Dean huffs a dark laugh. Mary shakes her head. As they drive on through the night, Dean keeps seeing the little red mailbox, appearing and then disappearing in the rearview.

Soon, the roads begin to weave and wind, and they pass a sign for a state park. The trees, mostly evergreens, get thicker and taller, and Braidwood slows down. He’s looking for something. A brown painted ticket booth appears in the dark, windows shattered, and he takes a hard left around the broken gate and then they’re bumping down a dirt road. They go a mile or two, and then hit a paved road, pitted with cracks and weeds older than the apocalypse.

Finally, they come to a stop at the base of a hill. Dean stands on the shoulder while Braidwood unloads everyone, and stares into the woods. A mountain ridge rises beyond the trees, discernible only as a smudge of gray snowy peak. It’s deadly quiet, without the sound of bugs or wind through leaves.

Braidwood gathers them at the trailhead, marked by a smooth quartz stone. “I’ll walk you down. It’s a mile ‘til you see it, another two miles across the valley to get to it.” He speaks quietly, but his voice is stark and startling in the silence.

“You’re coming with us?” Mary says, surprised.

“Wasn’t my orders,” Braidwood says, with a glance at Jack. “But I don’t want you gettin’ lost. This is an important operation. If I was in charge, you’d have the protection you deserve. As it is—I ain’t, and we got none to offer. Just me.”

Dean’s chest feels tight. “I don’t think Charon’s supposed to get out of the boat and go for a walk with you,” he says, gruffly. “But by all means. Lead on.”

Braidwood nods at him. “Keep quiet, now.”

They follow the stranger into the dark quiet wood. The trail twists and then dips down a steep slope, between tall, almost invisible trunks. They climb down using exposed roots for handholds, and every footstep is careful and painfully audible. At the bottom of the slope, canopy blocks out the sky entirely. It’s as dark as the bottom of the ocean. The trail is gritty and uneven below Dean’s feet, and he has to navigate almost solely on sound, listening to where Braidwood’s feet fall in front of him and following at the same intervals. Behind him, a pair of footsteps follow the same pattern like an echo. In the dark, guided only by sound, Dean sinks into a trance. He stops being a person and becomes the middle note in a three-note motif, following and being followed.

At one point he missteps, and the person behind him catches his arm. It’s Cas. “Are you okay?” Dean’s heart is racing, startled out of the trance. Cas’s voice is a murmur in the dark.

“Yeah,” Dean exhales. Cas steadies him. Foolishly, pathetically, Dean wishes Cas would hang on—lead him through the dark with his angel night vision, hold him like he wasn’t mad at him anymore. In the dark, all of it hardly seems to matter. But Cas lets go, and Dean walks on alone.

They hear the waterfall first. It’s a hiss in the distance like a freeway or an angry throat of wind. Dean remembers the noise from last time—thousands of gallons of water pouring from the wall of the dam. Michael’s fortress is a disused hydro power plant. They’re walking on flat ground now, over sticks and pine needles. The sound of the water grows louder, and the walls of the valley take a hazy shape. He can barely make out the fortress on the other side, its cement walls dotted with a few lights, the thread of white water descending to an unseen river. A scream cuts through the night, distant and brief.

Dean stops, reaching for his gun. It’s too far away to be a threat, but it gives him goosebumps. He hears another scream—identical, short, same distance away.

He taps the dark figure in front of him with the back of his hand. “Hey.” His whisper comes out hoarse. “What the hell is that?”

Braidwood stops, confused. “What’s what?” he whispers back, turning.

“The—who’s that yelling out there?”

Another cry. “Oh,” Braidwood whispers, understanding. “That’s a birdcall.”

“What the hell kind of bird sounds like that?” Mary whispers. Their voices feel loud, as if they’re shouting and waving their arms at the fortress windows.

“I dunno the name,” Braidwood said. “I don’t think you’ve got ‘em in your world.”

Dean and Cas exchange a look. Dean’s eyes move to Jack, trying to gauge how he’s doing, but he can’t make him out in the gloom.

“I think this is where I’ll leave you,” Braidwood says, his voice rising to a rumble. “Follow this trail, it’ll take you to a lumber bridge over the river. Cross it, take the right fork and follow the sound of the waterfall. You’ll find an access shaft on the left side of it. That’s your in.”

“Okay,” Mary says.

“And one other thing—that radio of yours,” Braidwood says, addressing Dean. “The one you beeped in the car. Don’t use it. Don’t even turn it on.”

“This is how we keep in touch with Sam,” Dean answers. “He’s supposed to check in.”

“I’m telling you,” Braidwood says. “They can hear with it. If it’s turned on, they can tune in, even if you're not transmitting or receiving.”

Mary thanks him again for his guidance, and with a final good luck to them, Braidwood leaves. Dean glares at his powered-off radio in the dark. According to the glowing hands of his watch, it’s another two hours 'til Sam’s due to call. He hates this.

“I hate this,” he mutters.

“Come on,” Cas says gruffly, taking the lead. Jack trails behind him, followed by Mary, and Dean takes up the rear, hand hovering near his holster.

They cross the roaring river; on the bridge, where no one else can hear, Dean finally lets out a long exhale he’s been holding. They follow the river upstream, towards the falls; the water is deafening now, but the light’s a little better, bouncing off the dirty white cement dam like the face of the moon. The wall is so huge that it seems close, but they walk for another ten minutes before they reach its base. Cas stops them at the last edge of the trees, looking across the muddy access road; the mist churned up by the falls swirls through the air in cold sheets of gray, dampening their faces and shimmering off the puddles and tree bark. No signs of recent activity—the mud has no tire tracks, no fresh footprints.

They dart across to the door, which is heavy and painted red. “AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY,” it warns in peeling black letters. The handle is rusted, and locked, but Cas closes his eyes and breaks the lock with a sharp crack, muffled by the roaring water. He pushes the door open and lets Dean in first.

The door's creak and his footsteps echo into a wide concrete space. When the door creaks shut again, the sound of the water vanishes, and an echoing silence falls. Then they hear it—quiet cooing. Distant, high above. Pigeons, Dean thinks, in wonder. The first living animals he’s seen in this world. Or rather, heard.

He takes out a flashlight and shines it around until he finds a sign on the wall—it points in the direction of the elevator, so he turns off the light and they follow the arrow, moving slowly. Dean navigates by running his hand along the wall. He maneuvers Mary in front of himself, so he can keep an eye on her, even though it’s too dark to really see.

Around a corner, a red rectangle of light greets them. It’s the only way forward. It opens into a little elevator vestibule. The light is coming from an exit sign, still working.

“Should I press?” he jokes in a whisper, pointing to the ‘up’ button. Mary nudges him, but she cracks a little smile.

“Sit down,” he hears Cas saying, and turns to see Cas helping Jack slide down to the floor. The kid’s eyes are closed, face bathed in red light. “We can take a break here.”

“What’s wrong?” Dean whispers. Cas ignores him.

Mary nudges him again. He turns back, and she’s indicating the elevator doors. Dean gets her drift. She digs her fingers into the doors from one side and he from the other, and gritting their teeth, they pry the doors apart—one, two, three feet wide. The cab waits inside, a little white emergency LED light shining over the number panel.

Dean climbs up onto the handrail to open the emergency hatch. The clasp unlocks, startlingly loud. He pushes the hatch open, then drops back down and lets Mary use his shoulders as a step.

“You good up there?” Dean asks in an undertone, once she’s through.

“Yep,” Mary’s voice replies, echoing in the shaft. “I see the ladder. I can hear more birds too.”

Back out in the vestibule, Cas is standing over Jack, who sits with his eyes closed. “Can I talk to him?” Dean whispers to Cas, jerking his head. Cas goes to the elevator, and Dean slides down to sit beside Jack on the floor.

“How you holdin’ up?” Dean says quietly, once he hears the sound of Cas hoisting himself up through the trapdoor.

“Okay,” Jack says, his face bathed in red light. “Just dizzy.”

“Long hike,” Dean comments.

“It’s my body, my—vessel,” Jack explains, talking past Dean. “It’s built to hold me, my natural amount of grace. The extra stuff, it’s—it’s wearing my body out.”

Dean looks at him. “It’s poisoning you.”

“Did you know that humans can die from drinking too much water?” Jack says, like he’s reading from a book of fun facts.

“Yeah?” Dean says.

“Yeah,” Jack says, tipping his head back against the wall. “All their cells explode. Basically they drown inside their own body.”

“Bleak,” Dean says. “Is that—how you feel?” he asks belatedly.

“I’m the water,” Jack says, as though that explains it.

Dean looks down at the floor, glowing red below their feet.

When Dean was a kid, he was angry all the time. Worst of all was from 10 to 14, when he was finally old enough to understand what was going on, but not old enough to change any of it. He’d talk back, John would punish him for it, he’d tell himself that was the last time, there was no point, to just hold it in next time—and then it would surge out again, the helpless wave of frustration. Throwing things onto the ground, punching the dashboard on the passenger side, shooting the monster more times than he had to, something, anything to leave a mark. It never changed a thing, and eventually, he saw that John was right, and there was no point fighting it. The only thing it got him was distracted or hurt. So he grew out of it again.

Dean studies Jack’s face in the dark, his round chin and his slightly furrowed brow, the loose lock of hair that always hangs in his eyes. Despite it all, the kid’s not angry. He still isn’t old enough to understand, Dean thinks. That’s why he’s not mad yet.

“I can do it,” Jack adds after a moment. “I can kill Michael. Like we talked about.”

Dean sets his jaw. He really wishes he didn’t have to trust a kid with this. “And if we—”

A low whistle interrupts them, coming from the elevator. Then a whisper, distant but sharp—“Dean?”

Dean helps Jack up, and they enter the elevator. Mary’s face is leaning over the open hatch. “What’s wrong?” Dean whispers.

She looks worried. “You’d better come up.”

She and Dean help Jack climb through, and Dean comes last, shutting the trapdoor behind him. The concrete shaft echoes with their breathing, and the warbling of the pigeons. “What’s wrong?” he murmurs.

“The birds,” Mary murmurs back. “Listen.”

He listens. They sound close, but he isn’t sure where they are. It’s pitch-black in the elevator shaft. The cooing sounds like mourning doves, at first. But the longer he listens, the stranger they sound. They’re strangled little noises, somewhere between a growl and a whine, almost like the gurgle of a drain emptying. They make the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“I’ll go first,” he whispers. He feels his way to the ladder and begins to climb. Three sets of footsteps follow on the metal rungs below. They climb after him up through the dark, navigating only on faith that there will be another rung to reach for. All the while, the warbling gets louder, closer. Dean instinctively goes quiet, regulating his breathing, stepping as lightly as he can. He doesn’t want to wake them—if they’re asleep—whatever they are. And they’re so loud now he swears the ceiling must be just overhead—but then another rung materializes, and he takes another step up.

Finally, his hand, reaching for the next rung, hits blank wall, and his head hits aluminum—it dents with a thunk, and he flinches back down, more startled than hurt. An air duct. The warbling dies out abruptly.

Mary stops below him. Dean looks back, into the empty space of the shaft, which is just as black as the wall in front of him. He reaches out into the space, feeling for elevator cables, but there’s nothing—they must have climbed past the top floor, they’ll have to backtrack to the last set of doors—and then he sees an electric blue pin of light flick on, just an arm’s length from his face.

It moves, and it’s two pin lights. A pair of tiny eyes.

His heart starts thumping.

“Back up, back up,” Dean hisses downward, and hears shuffling, then clanking, as the others start moving down awkwardly. It’s not fast enough—more pin lights flick on, like a gathering swarm of fireflies, as the flock of whatever-they-are wakes up. A low hiss comes from one set of eyes, near him. It builds to a sharp squawk—the most normal, bird-like sound so far—and then it lunges in a whoosh of air, and Dean throws a hand up with a yelp.

A feathery form hits his arm and a beak scratches at his jacket, but it falls off almost immediately, strangled squawking sounds disappearing down the shaft as it plunges away into the dark.

“Go, go, go!” Dean shouts, descending as fast as he can, afraid of stepping on Mary’s fingers. More wings rustle, more strangled squawks bounce off the vents. Dean feels feathers on his face and ducks as claws scrabble at his scalp, but each one slips off like the first one. He hears them flap, attempt to fly, but they fall too.

He quickens his descent, blinded, noise and feathers and claws overwhelming him, then hears “Dean!” and feels a hand close on his forearm.

Cas pulls him back up, Dean still shielding his face, and then he’s being tossed onto a cement floor next to Jack, and watching Mary and Cas shove the elevator doors closed again. Not quite fast enough—a couple birds flap through. One goes for Jack’s face and he swats it, sending it to the floor. The other one flaps awkwardly away down the corridor, disappearing into the pipes.

In the low, greenish light of the remaining fluorescents, they bend over the bird. It struggles on the floor like an upturned beetle. One of its wings is bent, with silvery-blue blood leaking from the wound. It has three wings in all, with mottled feathers, and at the end of its two spindly legs, far, far too many claws. The claws curl and twitch like spiders’ legs. Strangled coos escape from its beak, which looks wrong somehow too—Dean looks away, stomach turning, before he can figure out what’s off. Mary turns away too, covering her mouth.

“What’s wrong with it?” Jack whispers. “Is it a mutant?”

Dean hears Cas pin the bird in place on the floor, and after a second, it stops struggling.

“Grace poisoning,” Cas answers quietly.

“Did you kill it?” Jack whispers, and the crack in his voice makes Dean’s stomach lurch.

“It’s just asleep,” Cas murmurs. He stands up again. “Come on.” He helps Jack to his feet. Whether he was lying to Jack or not, Dean can’t tell.

“We must be close to the lab,” Mary says quietly, nodding to the bird.

“Lead the way,” Dean says. “Wait. This isn’t—” He breaks off, realizing what he’s about to ask.

“I saw the lab when I was here,” Mary confirms. “But this isn’t where he experimented on me.”

Dean nods.

Mary leads them down the hall along the pipes, passing closed doors. Around the corner, a pair of singing doors with yellow stripes warn: “DANGER, GOGGLES ON.” Mary looks back to Dean and Cas, who each nod. She pushes open the door. Suddenly Dean realizes he might see a failed attempt at a nephilim in here, and he freezes, not wanting to go forward. Cas goes on, and Jack hangs back, waiting for Dean.

“Are you okay?” Jack asks—asks him.

“Yeah,” Dean says, gruff. “You’re gonna stick with me in here, okay, Jack? I don’t want you looking around.”

“Okay.”

He takes Jack by the upper arm, tightly, like he’s in trouble. Blade in his other hand, he leads him through the doors.

“Yep,” Dean mutters. “This is as bad as I expected.”

Jack is looking around with a frown morphing into slack-jawed horror—“Hey,” Dean says, jerking his arm. “What did I say? Eyes on the floor.” Jack ducks down to look at the dirty cement floor, slanted at the center for drainage. Stomach turning, Dean pulls him forward after the others. Mary and Cas are a little ahead—Cas looking around with his arms at his side, stunned, and Mary with her chin tucked, not looking away, but not looking for long.

It’s a long room, lined with rows of glowing, 7’ tall compartments. Inside are corpses, upright and perfectly preserved. At first glance, it looks like the glass cases are lighted, but the glow is coming from the bodies themselves. They aren’t right. Like the bird. One man has over-stretched limbs. Another woman has what looks like feathers growing under her armpits. Next to her a man has what looks like three eye sockets, all of them burnt out. A strange, floral smell comes from them. It’s not decay; Michael is preserving them somehow, maybe with magic.

Dean makes himself stop looking, and focuses on getting to the other door, at the far end. He’s checking that Jack still has his head down, when he hears, up ahead, a sharp gasp. “No—”

Feet on the floor, a scuffle. Dean tenses, pushing Jack behind him as he holds out his blade, ready to fight—

But all he sees is Mary and Cas. She’s holding onto Cas, or he’s holding her, pushing her back. “Go,” Cas is saying, “stop—”

“What’s going on?” Dean hisses, pushing past a long metal table with an assortment of hideous tools, to reach them.

“No, Dean, don’t—” Mary says, voice strangled.

Cas looms up in front of him, and Dean realizes he’s trying to block him from seeing something. “What is it?” Dean says, instinctively craning his neck around Cas, to see the case behind him. “It’s not the—?”

“Dean, you shouldn’t—”

“What’s wrong?” says Jack behind him, his voice frightened.

Cas puts his hands on Dean’s shoulders, pushing him back—it’s too late. Dean sees the case.

“Oh—”

The body inside is perfectly preserved, softly lit, tilted back at an angle like a solar panel absorbing the sun. His skin is pale but smooth, intact. His eyes are glassy and open. His hands hang cupped at his sides, open around nothing. It’s him. Dean’s corpse. His clothes are neat and clean, and just an inch of the Y-incision on his chest is visible inside his collar. On the tray next to the case is a long syringe with a thick silver needle, scissors, gauze, and a handful of unused cheek swabs.

Cas is still pushing him backwards, and Dean finally lets himself be pushed. The four of them stumble out the second set of swinging doors, Mary breathing heavily but checking for angel patrols. They’re on some kind of catwalk—alone, for now. Jack is asking “What was it? What’s wrong?”—Cas blocked his view, at least, it seems.

Dean’s catching his breath, heart thumping out of his chest like he’s just jerked awake at the wheel, swerving away from oncoming traffic. His own face swims before him, waxy blue and unreal.

“That’s where Michael does his experiments on human vessels, Jack,” Cas says in an undertone.

Dean hunches over the railing, trying to get ahold of himself. The yellow lines dance in front of his eyes. He’s back in his lane and he’s awake and he didn’t hit anyone. He tries to flex his hands, and his hands comply. He taps his knuckles against each other and feels the gentle vibration in the bones of his hands.

Sharp footsteps pierce the wide space below, and the four freeze and look down. Beneath them, seen through the grated catwalk, is the disused generator room, the row of turbines as silent and motionless as a row of headstones. Two figures, tiny in the distance, are walking briskly along the far aisle. A hand pulls Dean back and they withdraw into the shadows, watching the angel patrol pass.

“Hael,” Cas murmurs.

“You know those angels?” Mary whispers. Cas nods.

They turn, and their footsteps fade in the distance.

Mary exhales with relief.

When it’s safe, Dean walks off along the catwalk, away from them. He hits some stairs, and sinks down on the top step, elbows on his knees. A moment later, footsteps shuffle across the metal, stopping behind him. Dean doesn’t turn.

“In there,” he says in a low voice. “That, it wasn’t...”

Cas understands what he’s asking, somehow. “No. It’s just a body. He’s dead.”

Dean nods and swallows bile, feeling paradoxically relieved that his body can recognize there’s something wrong with being confronted with a dead replica of itself, and react correctly.

“How’s Jack?” Dean croaks.

“He’s resting. He needs a break,” Cas says, as a distant door slams on the other side of the generator room. Stale air slowly turns a vent fan beneath them, suspended under the catwalk. Dean can feel Cas watching him. He still feels shaky. After a moment, he says, “Dean.”

“What?” Dean tries to keep his tone neutral.

Cas comes down a few steps, so he’s standing in front of Dean, head and shoulders above him. Dean studies the hems of his coat. He can see it’s not dry, still damp from the water outside, which seems odd to him.

“We should talk,” Cas says.

Dean lifts his head. “Right now?” he says darkly. “Are you serious?”

Cas’s eyebrows pinch angrily. “This could be our last chance to have a conversation,” he says, in an undertone.

“And so what—you wanna have a fight?” Dean says, sitting up.

“No—I don’t want that. I want to talk,” Cas says, fighting to sound calm. “I’ve been waiting for two months for you to come back, so we could—and now you won’t talk to me about it.”

Dean lifts his chin, pursing his lips. Anger thumps in his gut, adrenaline-fueled and nausea-tinged—maybe Cas doesn’t want to fight, but he does. “So go ahead, let’s hear it. You’re sorry.”

Cas raises his eyebrows incredulously. “I’m sorry?”

“For what you did. For breaking our—trust, or whatever.”

“I—” Cas blinks. “I’m sorry it upset you, Dean, but I’m not going to apologize for—for possessing you, consensually, to save both of our lives. If that’s what you’re waiting for me to say, you’ll have to keep waiting.”

Dean makes an incredulous noise. Cas holds his eye contact fiercely and Dean stares right back at him. He feels like they’re balancing on an edge by holding each other’s hands, and if one lets go or shifts, they’ll both go plunging off. He feels the bond so acutely he can almost feel Cas’s hands on him, pulling him.

“You’re as bad as him,” Dean says, his voice gravel. "Michael."

“Oh, get yourself screwed, Dean,” Cas snaps.

A laugh escapes Dean before he can stop it.

“Cas, that’s not—” He stifles himself, dropping his chin and rubbing his mouth. A bubble of bright affection inflates and bursts in his chest, leaving him with a painful sense of loss. An emptiness two months wide. Dean looks away from Cas, into the dark below the staircase.

He shakes his head.

“What’s wrong?” Cas says after a moment. “Just tell me.”

Dean wants to say something, but he’s cut off all his options. He knows he’s being a dick—he’s known it all along—but he can’t dig himself out. If he was a better man, a better friend, he’d be able to work it out, resolve their argument, go back to the way things were.

He keeps looking away.

“You realize we could die down here,” Cas says, his voice steeled, and Dean can hear that he’s lost his chance. The window’s closed.

“Yeah.”

“And you never want to fix this?” Cas says, the slightest waver in his voice. It makes Dean’s hands curl into fists.

He turns his head sideways, without making eye contact. “There’s nothing to fix,” he growls.

Cas says nothing. Dean can’t make himself look up. He doesn’t want to see it, that pathetic sadness around Cas’s eyes and mouth. The visible fragility Dean can’t help but stamp on.

“Dean, if we don’t make it out,” Cas begins, then stops when Dean turns to look at him.

“Whatever,” Dean says, and looks away again, into the dark turbine room below.

After a moment, Cas walks away.

*

Dean doesn’t know how long he sits there at the top of the stairs, curled onto himself with his head against the railing. He dozes off for a couple minutes. Someone’s hand is on his shoulder, shaking him back to awareness.

“Hm?” He blinks. “We ready to keep moving?”

“Dean,” Mary says.

He turns around. “What’s wrong, Mom?”

“It’s Castiel. He’s gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“I don’t know—I left him with Jack for a couple minutes, and when I got back, Jack was alone.”

Dean scrambles up and hurries back over to Jack, who is curled in the doorway, feet resting on the catwalk grate.

“Jack,” he says, kneeling down next to him again. “Buddy, where’d Cas go?”

“Cas?” Jack says, confused. “Cas left. He said to wait here.”

“How long ago?” Mary says from behind Dean.

“Um... I don’t know. ...10 minutes?” It's obvious he picked the number at random.

Dean curses himself silently for slacking off. He tries to keep his tone under control: “Okay. Did he say where he was going?”

“No,” Jack is starting to look worried. “Is he in trouble? I thought he was coming back.”

Dammit. “No—we’re not supposed to split up.”

“He didn’t say what he was doing?” Mary says.

“No,” says Jack. “But he—” Jack looks apprehensively from her, to Dean.

“What is it, Jack?” Dean says, warningly.

“He took the archangel sword,” Jack says.

 

* 4 *

Castiel, acting alone, must rely on stealth. At each corner inside Michael’s fortress, he listens for patrols. When they pass, he hides, and once or twice, when he can’t, he uses a costly trick—summoning his grace, he folds a corner of time around himself, so that what passes as three seconds for the enemy angels passes as five for him, and he can sneak past them undetected. The effort scrapes his waning grace—he may not have enough to fight his way back out. But he’s resigned to the fact that he may never get that chance—and it won’t matter, if he can cut Michael’s grace out first.

The path to Michael is simple. Cas remembers it well from the last time. He just has to go west.

The dam was built sometime in the 20th century across a mountain river with forests on its eastern shore, abutted by cliffs on the west. When the armies of Heaven took over this power plant for their base of operations on Earth, they made one addition of their own. Into those cliffs, they carved a cave: deep, cross-shaped, with squared corners, high windows, and a white marble altar at the far end. In the church, there is a massive stained glass window above the entrance, a tribute to their father, to His grand design, finally reaching its climactic ending. There are no pews.

Castiel reaches the sliding metal doors, embedded in the rock face of the mountain. They are guarded by one angel. The door is too heavy to open without detection—he has to fight. Castiel steels himself, summoning what energy he has left. He grips the archangel sword, reclaimed from Jack. If Castiel succeeds, Jack will never hold this again. Anger thrums, directionless and deep in his human gut.

He slips out, sword first, taking the guard by surprise. Her own blade slides out from the sleeve of her black fatigues, comically small in front of his full-sized sword. She catches his wrist with her blade before he can stab her, and he throws her back, into the metal doors with a bang. She grabs his other arm—he’s too slow, and she’s stronger than he is. She traps him in a steel grip—but then she stops.

She stares at him. “...Castiel?”

He freezes too.

“But why are you—?” She frowns, and squints, like she’s trying to read his mind. “You found it. The commander will want to see you.”

She’s confused about who he is. He only has seconds before she realizes her mistake.

Castiel drops the archangel sword from his trapped hand, and in her flinch of confusion, he catches it with his other. It’s heavy. She swings her angel blade upward to parry his—but there is no clang of meeting metal. The archangel sword slices right through it.

It sinks into her neck and upper chest, and with a cry and a blinding pulse of light, she is extinguished. The top of her severed blade clatters to the stone.

Arm shaking, Castiel pulls back. The sword is stuck in her vessel. He jerks it free, panting. Castiel leans against the door, trying to summon his strength before the final trial. The gash on her vessel is a deep, charred burn. The blade deals terrible damage, and in return, it saps the bearer’s energy.

When Castiel cracks the sliding door, the first thing he sees is that half of the window is missing, damaged by winters and storms and combat. The remaining glass clings to the metal spokes of the window, and cold wind and dead leaves gust in through the gaps. The white marble altar is spotted with lichen. In the apse before it, in a white marble chair flanked by six angels in black fatigues, Michael sits waiting.

He surveys Castiel down the long nave. The archangel thrums with power, ill-contained in this latest vessel. This body is fresh, a broad-shouldered man with a neatly trimmed beard. He wears the same long, dark coat as last time; last time they saw him, Michael’s vessel was a young, fit woman, and her coat doesn’t fit this vessel's body right. It’s too small, pinched around the upper arms and too tight to button up. Castiel can see that the vessel isn’t going to last long; he was a strong man by human standards, but his soul is draining even faster than the body is decaying.

“Castiel,” Michael says, calm. Not raising his voice. “Back again.”

“Michael,” Castiel says. He begins to approach. The only advantage he can possibly have is surprise, unpredictability. His footsteps echo loudly in the empty space.

“With an archangel sword,” Michael mildly observes. Castiel is less than ten meters away now, and the angels flanking Michael stir. Two of them draw their blades. “Since you are too weak to kill me with it, I can only assume you’ve come here to surrender it to me.”

Castiel takes another handful of steps, reaching the chancel. He tries to keep his voice steady: “That’s right. I want to make a deal.”

Without a change of expression, Michael raises a hand, a lazy flick of the wrist, and the guards stand still again. Castiel stops in his tracks.

He’s no more than five meters away, at the bottom of the steps.

Michael looks down at him. He beckons with one finger.

Castiel steps up to the apse, before Michael’s chair.

“Tell me,” Michael says. “What do you want in exchange?”

“A guarantee of safe passage,” Castiel says. He’s only a meter and a half away now. Just two steps closer. “Not for me. For my family.”

Michael raises his eyebrows with interest. “Your ‘family’? Why, Castiel. Are we not your family?”

Castiel wavers on his feet, impulse almost overriding his control—two more steps, two more steps. He grips the sword.

“Your terms interest me,” Michael says. “I could keep them alive, pump them for information. Would that be satisfactory?”

Castiel’s arm trembles with the effort to hold still.

“Yes,” he breathes out. “Just let them live.”

Michael gestures to the floor. “Set it down.”

Castiel takes a step.

He bends as if to kneel, holding out the sword.

Then he takes another shuffling step forward, lunging for Michael’s vessel’s throat. The guards dive forward instantly, and Michael leans back just slightly, and the tip of the sword misses him by a breath as they dive onto Castiel, wrestling him to the floor. The sword goes clattering down the stairs.

“I see,” Michael says, still emotionless. One guard angel strikes Castiel in the face while two others hold him up by the underarms. Castiel pants, scrambling to stay on his knees. A blade digs into the flesh under his chin. The guard on his right twists his arm mercilessly, crushing the little bones in his hand and wrist. He holds in a cry of pain.

Michael leans forward. “Again, Castiel? After last time?” he says, shaking his head. “It’s futile. It’s unbecoming. You’re like a tenacious ant. Give up!”

Castiel grimaces, blood hot in his human mouth. “Never,” he manages. Another blow to the face from one of the angels, then another—Michael leans back, and Castiel braces for a third, but a sound interrupts them.

The sliding doors open again, echoing down the stone nave.

“Hey!”

Dean.

Cas is on his knees facing Michael, and struggles to turn around, but his head is forced down. Four pairs of footsteps sprint up the aisle. He sees Michael’s hand flick, a signal, and then he’s being dragged sideways down the stairs and tossed onto the stone. He scrambles up to his feet, unable to believe his freedom—but no. They’ve thrown him into a circular sigil.

Halfway up the nave, Dean is grappling with an angel one-on-one. One is already dead on the floor. Two others are closing in on Mary, who is shielding Jack, training a gun on both of them. She swivels from one to the other.

“Jack!” Cas shouts hoarsely. “Dean, stop!”

He struggles, trying to step out of his circle, but the sigil pushes him back.

One of Mary’s attackers lunges, and she shoots the other. The angel blade bullet strikes it dead between the eyes, and it crumples as the attacking angel grabs for Jack. Jack cries out, slashing with a borrowed angel blade, but Mary comes in time, shooting it in the back.

Dean manages to drive his blade into his attacker’s throat, and there’s only one left. Michael, looking vaguely interested, watches from his chair as the two Winchesters circle the remaining angel.

“Cas, what the hell did I tell you?” Dean says loudly, not taking his eyes off the angel. Cas doesn’t deign to reply. He checks Jack, hanging back. His grace is hovering at an unstable medium, bolstered by the seal around his neck. He avoids Cas’s eyes. Instead, he looks for the sword.

It’s on the floor, at the foot of the chancel steps.

Look at me, Castiel thinks desperately at Jack. But they can’t hear each other here.

Dean feints, a move Cas recognizes, but the angel doesn’t—he falls for it, and Mary comes from the side, sinking her blade into borrowed ribs.

They throw him off, onto the floor, and turn to face Michael.

“Dean,” Michael says. “You have a way of making things easy for me.”

“Nice to see you too,” Dean grits out, still panting. “Some guards you have around this place.”

In place of a reply, Michael lifts a hand. He makes a little sweeping-under motion, like an orchestra conductor, and Mary lets out a yelp as her gun flies out of her hands. It twirls around in midair as if held by an invisible gunslinger, and shoots her.

She cries out, dropping to her knees, gripping her shoulder. The bullet lodged in the meat of her upper pectoral muscle. “Mom!” Dean shouts, dropping down next to her and grabbing her other arm. Mary gasps, like she’s trying to keep from drowning.

She pulls her hand away to look at the blood. “Fuck!”

Dean looks at her, startled. “Uh—”

“What?” she pants. “Is it bad? Is it—”

“No, it’s—I’ve just never heard you swear before,” Dean says.

Mary lets out a brief, near-hysterical laugh. “Ugh—God, oh, God,” Mary says, pressing her hand against her wound again. “I’m okay, I’m all right, it—”

In their distraction, Michael snaps his fingers, summoning four more angel soldiers. Two appear on either side of Dean, and two on either side of Jack. They grab Jack by the arms, and he collapses into them, almost like he’s grateful for the support.

While Dean thrashes, they drag him forward to the steps in front of Michael and throw him down. Castiel’s body stands frozen in the sigil, while his trueform roils in the confining space, clawing desperately at the enchanted circle, searching for any chink through which to pry himself loose. His plan failed, and now he’s trapped. He can’t help—all he can do is watch.

Michael stares down at him silently. The only sound is the wind through the ruined windows of the church, and on the other side of the room, Mary’s heavy breathing. Castiel hears Dean’s pulse thumping.

“It was such a foolish choice, it had to be a feint of some kind. A distraction. But it was sincere. Your caged angel brought one of the most powerful weapons in creation to me, and tried to slit my throat with it.” He flicks his eyes upward to meet Castiel’s. “He thought he could save you, again.” It would be derisive, if there was any real feeling to it. But to him, none of it matters.

Dean’s back tenses, and his face falls a little.

“But it’s you, Dean. You have to face me yourself,” Michael says, looking back down at him. This whole time, he’s hardly moved from his position, except to turn his head or lift one hand. It occurs to Cas, suddenly, that maybe he can’t. Perhaps his vessel is in even worse condition than it looks.

He tilts his chin to look past Dean, at Jack, barely standing between his captors.

“It’s good to finally meet you, Jack,” Michael says, with a little smile.

Jack, dazed and drenched in sweat, doesn’t seem to hear. His head lolls.

Michael looks back at Dean. “What have you been doing to my nephew?”

“He’s got nothing to do with you,” Dean says darkly.

“No, not yet,” Michael agrees. “But now, you’ve brought him back to me. Come up closer, Jack.” He beckons with one hand.

“Jack, don’t,” Cas says, not loudly. He can’t tell if Jack hears him.

“I’ve been looking and looking for someone like you.”

Jack swallows.

“But I was thinking—hoping—praying—that maybe Dean would bring you back with him, when he came back. And here you are. I know my Dean Winchesters.” He smiles, wide and genuine, for the first time.

The smile chills Castiel. It’s chilling because it’s not an act. He’s not like Lucifer; he doesn’t play with his food, as Dean would say. His confidence is cool and liquid like antifreeze—the confidence of someone who has taken on the world and won it. No reason for him to doubt he could do it again. No reason for him not to try.

The only little speedbump that stands in his way is Dean.

“You don’t know anything,” Dean says through gritted teeth.

“I knew you’d be back.”

“After we beat you once?”

“Beat me?” Michael raises his vessel’s eyebrows. “Castiel’s possession gambit the last time didn’t save you, or beat me—all it did was buy you a little extra time to walk back here.” He shakes his head. “Dean, you can’t beat me. All you can do is resist me for a while. You’re welcome to resist a little longer.”

Before Dean can offer a retort, a bird screams outside, over the cliffs, making Dean flinch.

Castiel’s heart flutters with panic. Michael is right. Dean can only resist for so long. And he’s too beaten down, too demoralized, to resist much longer.

“So Dean,” Michael says, as he waves his angels up. They drag Jack to the altar, setting him down. He slides to the floor, sprawled against the marble. His eyes are closed, and his face flecked with sweat. “I’ve got a new offer for you.”

“Go screw yourself,” Dean mutters. “Stay away from me.”

“Let me in,” Michael says, giving his list of demands without fuss. “Hand over the sword. And let me borrow your 'can opener.'”

“My what?” Dean says hoarsely, lifting his head.

Michael tilts his head towards Jack. “I’ve got places to go. Doors to unlock. Your little surrogate over there is my key.”

Dean breathes heavily.

“And the sword, of course, I’ll destroy,” Michael adds. “This world has nothing left for me. It’s yours I want now.”

Dean shakes his head. “No deal. Let us go.”

“I don’t think so.” Michael snaps his fingers, and Mary cries out in pain, doubling over. An identical gunshot wound appears on her other shoulder, blood blooming out onto her jacket. Dean twists around, and Castiel sees his face for the first time since they were captured.

“No tricks this time, Dean,” Michael says, watching his back. Dean’s eyes, wild with panic, meet Cas’s for the first time. “I put your friend Castiel over there in an anti-possession sigil. There’s no way out.”

Cas looks desperately back at him—for a wink, a signal, a prayer, any sign of hope—

Dean turns back around.

“You’re different from the one I knew,” Michael comments. “You’re harder. Maybe it’s age. He was younger, he had less to lose. So he was more afraid. That made it easier, you know. But it’s only a matter of degrees, really. You’re still the same person, Dean. You’ll never really change.”

Dean’s half-visible profile gazes up at Michael, chest heaving. Hope gutters like a candle in Castiel. He keeps on waiting for it, the resistance, the retort from Dean—for the first time, he is truly afraid it won’t come.

“Do you want to hear more about him?” Michael asks. “What made him finally say yes?”

“No,” Dean says.

“Did you see him, down there?”

“That’s not him,” Dean answers, voice hoarse. “It’s just an empty meatsuit.”

“He doesn’t matter anymore,” Michael says, with a little smile. “Now I’ve got you.”

* * *

A hundred miles away, Sam sits with his back against a tree, waiting for the sunrise. His eyes are down in the crater below him, half-focused on the bluish light visible between the trees. He’s waiting, unconsciously, for birdsong to announce the morning. A falling branch wakes him from a half-doze and he sits up straighter. There won’t be any birds, he remembers. Not in this world.

First light hasn’t broken yet, but there’s a suggestion of it. He looks at his watch; another hour until his next check-in. Stretching, he stands and starts walking down the slope, towards the rift. He hopes they’re okay, wherever they are; that the rebels are helping Jack, that maybe they gave them information to make the mission go more smoothly. It’s not safe to stay in the crater for very long, but he needs to check—just to be sure.

It’s quiet at the edge of the ruined nuclear plant; the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and his stomach bubbles. He has no idea if he’s reacting to the radiation or just the idea of it. The sky overhead is dark, mottled gray; the dead tree trunks on the other side are a ghostly white in the gloom.

Then he sees it. Movement.

Another shape peels out from the shadows. It’s not just one person—it’s a whole group, on the other side of the crater.

“Dammit,” Sam whispers. He tenses—they don’t seem to be heading towards the rift, yet, but they’re scoping it out. If they’re angels, he needs to be ready.

He ducks behind a soot-black girder, and takes out his radio slowly, fingers hovering over the “on” switch.

Then a branch snaps behind him.

Sam whirls around, just in time to parry a blow from an angel blade. The metal clangs together, ringing in the silent predawn air. With a grunt, Sam grabs his blade with both hands, dropping his radio, and wrenches sideways, unbalancing the angel. He grabs her arm, and just before he plunges the blade upwards in between her ribs, she opens her mouth—no sound comes out that Sam can hear, but his ears pop and the hairs on his arms stand on end. He stabs her with the blade, wincing against the light.

She’s hardly hit the ground before he’s searching the leaves, frantically, for the radio. He hears shouts on the other side—her final signal reached her comrades—but they’re still far, he has time, he has to—

“There!” He fumbles it on, and tunes away from Dean’s frequency, to Rowena’s.

The radio chirps to life.

“Rowena!”

Static.

“God dammit.” He presses again. “Rowena, pick up, this is Sam,” he barks. “You have to close the rift. Close it now!”

Sam pokes his head out around the twisted beam. The patrol is running towards the rift, three angels in army gear in a v-formation. They’re about 200 meters away from it.

He’s closer.

Sam takes off sprinting.

The mud slides below his boots, unbalancing him—he throws both arms out, blade in one hand, radio in the other, trying to keep his balance as he darts over patches of dirt and leaps over melted girders—shouts come from across the swamp, louder, and the radio in his hand fuzzes and beeps. “Samuel—?”

“Close it now, Rowena!” Sam roars into the radio. “They’re coming, close it now!”

He’s almost halfway there. They’re gaining speed. Sam is a distance runner, not a sprinter—his lungs burn and his muscles ache. He leaps over another snarl of rebar and then the rift flickers up ahead. Rowena, thank God, he thinks—but it’s not closing fast enough. He runs harder, almost the same distance away now as the leader of the pack—

The rift shrinks, faster now, blinking like its power is going out.

The leader’s face splits into a grin, and the last thing Sam sees is those white teeth before he tackles him, full-body into the mud.

Because of his angle, they take down the one behind him too, and the three go skidding. Sam struggles his way on top and plunges his blade down, into the angel’s chest. As it cries out and dies, the other one scrambles up, lunging for Sam—Sam turns to see the rift flickering, smaller and smaller, and the third angel, hesitating next to it, looking back at his compatriots—

“Come on!” Sam yells. He opens his arms. “I’m right here!” Don’t go through, don’t go through, Rowena can’t take you by herself—

The third angel grins at him, and jumps through the rift.

“No!” Sam scrambles up and runs forward, blade out. He plunges into the rift, the last angel following just a step behind—too slow. It blinks shut behind Sam.

* * *

Thunder rumbles above the church, and everyone inside looks up. No lightning follows.

“The rift,” Michael comments. “It’s closed.”

He listens for another moment. Angel radio. Inaudible to Castiel and Jack.

“My lieutenant tells me one of your people escaped to the other side before it closed. That’ll be Sam, won’t it?” he says to Dean.

Dean lets out a choked laugh, or something—Castiel isn’t sure. “Good,” he says, eyes closing. “Good luck getting back through without a door.”

Michael looks back down at him. “Why should I worry? I have the key right here.”

Mary lets out a hiss of pain, blood leaking between her fingers where she holds herself. Castiel struggles uselessly again. Jack is slumped against the marble altar.

“No tricks this time, Dean,” Michael says. “Take my deal, and we’ll go back to your world together.”

Castiel watches Dean slowly raise his head. He looks past Michael, at Jack. Jack’s eyes flutter, half open. He blinks awake. Makes eye contact with Dean.

“Take my deal, and I won’t hurt them,” Michael says, gesturing towards Castiel and Mary. “It will all be over. I know that’s what you want.”

Dean is still looking at Jack, and a change of expression comes over Jack’s face. Castiel struggles against his invisible bonds again, not knowing why yet.

Dean’s eyes slide back up to meet Michael’s. “You’ll let them go,” he says, asking.

Michael nods. “I’m a man of my word.”

“Dean, no,” Mary says, her voice ringing on the stone. Castiel stops struggling. Dean’s standing slowly, coiled—he’s making a play, Castiel hopes desperately. He doesn’t know what kind yet, but it’s a trick. It has to be.

He stands. Michael is still sitting, one step above Dean, so they’re eye to eye for the first time.

“So it’s a deal?” Michael says.

Behind Michael, Jack shakes his head. No.

Dean reaches out his hand. “Yes.”

Jack is still shaking his head. With his other hand, Dean pats the air, out of Michael’s eyeline. Wait.

“No,” Castiel says, realizing what he’s doing. He yells—“No! Dean, no!”

“Dean, don’t!” Mary yells.

Michael leans forward, the first real movement he’s made. His hand closes around Dean’s.

Dean lets out a breath and closes his eyes, as if with relief.

Michael hangs on, watching him with a growing smile.

“And I’ll take you, and then Jack will run me through with the sword? Is that the plan?”

Dean opens his eyes. Michael is still gripping his hand.

Michael smiles.

“You think you have the strength to hold me still for long enough? For even a second?” Michael stands, and his stance is rickety. His vessel isn’t strong enough for much more. But his hand is still crushing Dean’s—Dean is wincing, trying to shrink back. “Let me tell you something about your predecessor. He thought so too. He thought he could stop me from driving my sword right through his brother’s heart. When the time came? He couldn’t. He didn’t even try. We were one. You’re my perfect vessel. That’s what that means. You can’t fight me, Dean. As soon as you let me in, you become me.”

The wind is picking up in the room. Light beams from behind Michael’s vessel. Dean clenches his jaw, wincing against the pain and the light. Castiel’s hands shake. He can see Michael’s trueform unfurling to fill the church, clicking open like the cylinder of a revolver ready to be reloaded.

Dean bares his teeth, making eye contact as he gives in. “I hate your ass,” Dean growls. “So just remember—every little tick of self-hatred you’ll feel, that’s me.”

Michael’s smile widens. “Let’s find out.”

But Jack doesn’t wait. He stumbles forward, the archangel sword flying into his hand. He lunges at Michael’s exposed back.

Dean grips Michael’s hand, gasping, but he can’t hold the archangel still—Michael whirls around and catches the blade in his hand.

“Jack, no!” Dean roars.

“Jack!” Cas yells.

Jack grips the hilt with both hands, trembling.

“Nice try, kid,” Michael says, ignoring Dean, his voice loud over the wind. The blade is glowing where he grips it, and the light is getting brighter and brighter. Energy is building up between them. Jack grits his teeth, still hanging on. “But this—this is a liability. And we’re getting rid of it.”

“No—!” Jack manages, holding on tight. The energy buildup is red-hot, about to burst—

“Jack, let go!” Castiel yells. But it’s too late.

An explosion rips the world in half.

 

*

 

When Castiel comes to, wind is whistling where the northern wall of the church used to be. He landed in the back corner of the church, far from the sigil that had held him—cracked open now. Two angels stand over him, blades drawn.

“Where are they?” he says.

The church is empty but for them. The altar is deserted.

He looks back at the two angels. Hael and Eremiel. “Come with us,” says Eremiel. “The commander will have questions for you.”

“Where are they?” he says again. “Where are the Winchesters? Where is Jack?”

“The mother escaped,” Hael says. “Patrols are searching for her. The commander is taking Jack to reopen the rift.”

“That will kill him,” Castiel croaks. “He’s not strong enough.”

“Get up,” the other angel says.

Cas closes his eyes.

“Where’s Dean?” he says, breathing hard.

“The commander has possession of him,” Eremiel says. “Get up,” he repeats. “You’re pathetic.”

He nudges Castiel with his foot. Hael watches silently.

The angels lied to Castiel. In truth, the explosion cast Dean out before Michael could take possession of him. He ordered all available soldiers to search the falls and the surrounding area for Dean. And not one of them could find him, because he was dead.

* 5 *

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): Whoa, I... where am I?

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): ... Whoa. Okay.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): ...

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): Hello?

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): Hey. ’Scuse me, do you... Oh. It’s you.

DEATH: Me?

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): Uh... Wow. Okay. This is awkward.

DEATH: Exactly the word that comes to mind for me. You aren’t supposed to be here, Dean Winchester.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): Where I come from, you’re dead. So.

DEATH: Am I? How fascinating.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): Yeah. ... Um. But there’s a new Death. She’s doing a bang-up job. Uh. I think. I don’t know why I’m trying to reassure you about that. You’re Death. You know how the trains run.

DEATH: I thought I did. Yet here you are.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): ... Right. So you’ve met me before, I take it?

DEATH: No. Never.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): But I died, here. The other me.

DEATH: I’m not the ferryman, Dean. A reaper took you. Even the Sword of Michael is just another man.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): ...Took me where?

DEATH: I don’t think you’ll like the answer.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): ...

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): So. That where you’re going to send me now?

DEATH: Are you prepared to go back?

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): Not really.

DEATH: ...

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): Tell me, can he... can Michael bring him back?

DEATH: Who?

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): You know he’s trying to do it. Restore the other me’s old body. Will it work?

DEATH: No. Not without a soul.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): But he’ll keep trying.

DEATH: I imagine so. Unless he gets his hands on you. Much easier for him, don’t you think? You’re a liability, Dean Winchester. This world would be much safer if you were dead.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): ...So are you gonna do it?

DEATH: Don’t rush me, now. I’m thinking it over.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): ...

DEATH: I can’t read you at all.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): What do you mean?

DEATH: You’re opaque to me. I have no idea where you belong. I have no idea what you’ve done. I can’t even see where you come from. And Dean, I see everything. Everything in this universe, from the dawn of time to the end of the horizon. You are invisible to me. I had no idea of your existence until you started killing beings on my Earth. Imagine my surprise.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): I’ll try.

DEATH: What do you want?

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): What do you mean?

DEATH: I mean, do you want to die? Do you want this to be the end?

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): ...

DEATH: ...

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): Well it’s a trick question, isn’t it? Death isn’t the end. Death is just another place you go.

DEATH: ...

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): ...Wrong answer?

DEATH: Do you know what you want? Do you want another chance?

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): ...

DEATH: I see. You don't know. Some friendly advice? You would do well to figure that out. But I know what I want.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): And what’s that?

DEATH: I don’t want you in my realm. And I don’t want you in my afterlife. Get out. Wake up, and then get out of this universe.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): Uh.

DEATH: And forget that this ever happened.

DEAN WINCHESTER (2): Wait—but—

 

*

 

*

 

*

The first daylight is glimmering on the river when he washes ashore. The river is wider here, down in the foothills where the trees grow taller; once, hikers walked for hours to find it, when there was time for such things, but these days, it’s known only to small rodents and a few birds. The river itself, unaffected, keeps up the same job it’s done for thousands of years—cutting its path into the crust of the Earth, gouging deeper and deeper.

When Dean comes to, he’s lying on his back in the shallows, half washed-up on a pebbly shore. He’s alone. Gray, dead tree trunks stretch straight up above him. All he can hear is the water.

Where am I? He sits up a little on his elbows, looking around the riverbed. Half his body is soaked, but he isn’t cold. He isn’t even hurt. Something is wrong.

Stiffly, he sits up, rubbing his eyes, looking around. He’s at the bottom of a shallow gorge, where a rocky shore runs to a wall of packed dirt with tree roots knotted through it. In the spring, the river probably runs all the way up to the trees, but now it’s hardly a foot deep.

“Sam?” he calls.

No answer.

Sam escaped through the rift; he probably has no idea what’s happened to them.

“Mom? Cas? Jack?”

His heart has started thumping, and his hand, still planted in the shallow water, aches with cold. Sensation is coming back to him. Dean knows he shouldn’t be alive. He died in that explosion.

Something healed him and brought him back.

He stands, unsteadily.

“Cas!” he calls again.

His voice is all that echoes back to him.

Their plan failed. The sword is destroyed. He has no idea where he is, no reason to think anybody else survived. He’s alone.

“No...” Dean murmurs, walking a few steps over the stones. He steadies himself on a boulder with one hand. It’s shaking. He checks his pockets, and finds his angel blade, and his pocket knife, but not—wait. The radio. He forgot about the radios—

Dean pulls it out of his pocket and turns it on with a shaking hand. It’s dripping wet. The light doesn’t turn on.

“No, no...” He shakes it vigorously, and water droplets fly out. He tries turning it on again, but the light stays dead. “Dammit,” he whispers. “God dammit...”

He drops the radio onto the stones, and turns, planting both hands on the rock and bending over. His shaking escalates to a full-body tremor—he’s going into shock, or coming out of it. Breath wheezes out of him in a panicked racket. Stranded, lost, alone. Sam's safe, he tries to hold on to that, but he has no idea whether Mom’s okay, if Jack’s captured, or if Cas is—

If Cas is alive.

Dean bows his head, hands curling into fists. If Cas is dead, he’ll never be able to—

There’s no point in going down that road.

You’ll never be able to make it right.

He flattens his palms against the rock, steadying himself. He takes a few deep breaths.

There’s nothing else for it.

“Cas,” he says. His voice comes out hoarse and quiet. He clears his throat and closes his eyes. “Cas. If you’re out there... I hope you can hear me. And wherever you are... I hope it’s not too late.”

Dean pauses for a moment, breathing, gathering his thoughts.

“This kind of thing, it’s... it’s never been easy for me. I had a lot of time to think, while I was away, driving around by myself. So I...” He rubs the bridge of his nose, sighing. “I thought of all this stuff, this stuff I wanted to say to you. But then, when I saw you, I couldn’t do it. It all just came back to me, and I, I couldn’t even look at you. It...”

Dean’s breath catches, and he pushes himself off the rock. He walks a few steps, back to the water.

“My whole life, everybody’s always wanted something from me,” he says. “My dad wanted me to be a soldier. Sammy needed me to take care of him. Other people, they want to use me, they want me to be their Michael Sword, carry the Mark, whatever—I’m, I’m a bargaining chip, I’m a weapon, I’m a blunt instrument.”

He sighs, looking down at the edge of the river, where the water touches the shore.

“But not you. No. Not Cas. Cas doesn’t ask me for anything. Hell, he doesn’t even ask for my help when he should ask for it.”

Dean moves a little quartz stone with the toe of his boot.

“I mean, what would you want from me? I’m just a... guy—you’re an, you’re an angel.”

The stone rolls into the water.

“Or, that was what I thought. Until we...”

Dean stops.

He tries again:

“Cas, the way you...”

He stops again.

Dean closes his eyes. “I never should have let you in,” he says with quiet force. “It was stupid. I did it because I was scared. I didn’t think. I was just—I was scared, of Michael, of becoming that again, and I was scared of losing you. Losing everyone. It was stupid, it was a stupid mistake we made. I’m sorry.” His voice cracks. “I’m so sorry, Cas.”

The weight of it hits Dean, then. Cas might really be dead. He might not be hearing a word of this, and he might never hear it. Dean drops to one knee at the water’s edge, then both, squeezing his eyes shut and gripping his thighs. The rocks dig into his shins. “Cas—man.” A sob splits his words and he lets it out. There’s no one around for miles and miles. “I’m sorry I got so angry,” he says, in a wavering voice. “That’s what I do, when I—when I don’t know what else to do. When I feel helpless. I saw stuff in there, man—stuff I shouldn’t have seen. And I, I shouldn’t have had to find out that way. It was messed up.” He shakes his head, letting loose another tear. “But, but that wasn’t the worst part. That wasn’t why I was—No. The worst part was what you saw. I wasn’t...” He takes a gulping, unsteady breath, trying not to break down, trying to keep going. He clasps his hands in his lap— “What you saw. In there. Inside of me. I didn’t want you to see that. I don’t know why, I, I can’t explain it, I just, the idea of having somebody else in there, it...” Dean sniffs, eyes squeezed shut, and tips his head back, up to the sky. Tears roll down across his temples. He breathes out.

“So I got mad. Like I do,” he says, raggedly. His voice is almost a whisper. “I’m sorry. I never should have said that shit to you.” He breathes in and out, hands still clasped together on his knees. “I never should have run away.”

Dean kneels next to the silver river, hands clasped. Slowly, his breathing returns to normal. The weight on his chest is gone, or it feels different—like it’s something coming from inside, rather than pressing from the outside.

After a moment, he raises his clasped hands to his lips, breathing in. “It can’t end like this, Cas,” he says, muffled. “I don’t want it to end this way. Like there’s something to fix, but we never got the chance to try. I want to. Fix it.”

He presses his hands to his forehead.

“I don’t wanna die like this. And I don’t want you dying on me either, you son of a bitch,” he says, and if there’s a tremor in his voice, only one person can hear it. “Not again. So don’t give up.” Dean shakes his head, knuckles digging into his brow. “Don’t you dare. Wherever you are, if you can hear this, hold on. I’m coming back for you.”

Dean lets his breath out and then stands, all at once. He wipes his eyes and heads upriver, back in the direction he came from.

* * *

The interloper angel is not connected to the Heavenly Host, Hael observes. They know the real Castiel only a little; he is a formidable soldier, but time on Earth has made him erratic and dangerous. This Castiel is not dangerous. He is dull. Hael watches him from their post, in the holding cell of the Commander. He is behind bars, and chained, and it hardly seems necessary. The light of his true form is weak, his grace ebbed low and unable to be replenished without a connection to the Host. That, Hael finds, is what disturbs them the most. To be without connection, atomized, adrift. Leaking away to emptiness. They recall the capture—the interloper’s vessel had wept, real human tears from his human eyes. Hael can hardly judge him for it. They cannot imagine such loneliness.

Now, hours later, the prisoner sits in his cell, very quiet and still. The vessel’s hands are folded in his lap, the shoulders are rounded, the head is bowed. Hael can see the motion of breathing. They have no understanding of why an angel would do a thing like that—breathe. Hael imagines that if he was connected to the Host, his pain, at this close proximity, would be enough to destabilize them.

Then, something happens. The prisoner’s head tilts upward, as if he hears something. Hael listens too, at attention. They hear nothing. But the prisoner—the prisoner is listening to something.

Hael watches the change come over him, like the end of an eclipse. His true form begins to pulse, growing brighter. But the real change is in his countenance—his vessel’s countenance, that is. The widening of his eyes, the hesitance of his breathing, the slow uncurling of his spine. In the cuffs of the coat, his hands begin to shake—he clasps them together. His eyes close. His true form glows with warmth, then the warmth burns like a flame—and his grace surges, renewed from nowhere.

It’s impossible. It’s—

“How?” Hael vocalizes.

They start forward, blade materializing, and the fiery heat of the prisoner’s grace flares. He stands, and wrenches his hands apart. The shackles snap. The air crackles with electricity, and it coalesces in an instant—a bolt of lightning strikes the roof above.

Thunder rumbles. Light flashes. With a crack, the door to his cell flies open.

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

*

INT. NUCLEAR POWER PLANT. DAY.

In front of the flickering blue rift, Rowena and the ANGEL SOLDIER grapple. She has his wrists in both hands, preventing him from using the blade, but he's stronger--with a GRUNT he throws her off, and she tumbles to the floor.

ANGEL SOLDIER

I haven't seen one of your kind in years.

Rowena looks at the rift behind him, flickering.

He steps forward, brandishing his blade with a grin.

ROWENA

(frightened)

Don't you dare come any—

WHOOSH, Sam comes FLYING out of the rift and tackles the angel to the ground with a THUMP. They roll across the concrete, arms and legs flailing.

Rowena scrambles to her feet, and runs to her spell bowl. Sam and the angel GRUNT, grappling for the blade. Rowena finds what she's looking for--a hex bag.

She flings it at the angel.

It EXPLODES in a puff of yellow smoke, and the angel CRIES OUT.

Sam finally gets the upper hand, rolling the angel onto his back and holding the blade to its throat.

Rowena comes over to look down at him. He pants, looking from one to the other with his teeth bared. Blood trickles out of his mouth.

The angel starts to LAUGH.

ROWENA

What's so funny?

The angel just keeps LAUGHING. He COUGHS up blood, still laughing.

Sam and Rowena look at each other, confused, alarmed.

Tight on the angel:

ANGEL SOLDIER

(laughing, choking)

He's coming... He's coming...

BLACKOUT

CREDITS ROLL