Author's Note: I started this fic while I was also working on Ramble On, and so this takes place in the same universe as that fic, though reading that first isn't truly necessary. This will be mostly canon-compliant through 12x23, taking into account the info provided in Ramble On, then veering off into my own fix-it version of Season 13. (While there may be some similarities with S13, I don't anticipate them being too common or too similar, so this shouldn't really be spoilery for new episodes. I'll warn you if that changes.)

This fic is a WIP. I am aiming to update at least once a week. The next couple of chapters are undergoing revisions at present, and the majority of the fic has been outlined, but it is not yet complete. So please bare that in mind.

Searching for Smoke

The - let's call it 'funny' - thing about being an omnipotent omniscient being is that you can chose to turn off that omniscience when the need (or want) arises.

It's how Chuck's managed to keep his (relative) sanity for so many eons.

And so, upon vacating to the in-betweens of reality with his sister (whom - he can admit now - he has missed so very much) he turned off most of the all-knowing parts of himself, allowing a few select programs to flow through on the most important channels.

The Winchesters are, to no one's surprise, on that short 'must watch' list.

But, allowing himself to know what is going on throughout creation does not mean that he will intervene.

That's one lesson he's learned time and time again: children never learn to stand on their own, if you don't let go of their hands.

And so, he has not been deaf to the prayers of Sam and Dean Winchester. He has heard them each and every time, ringing loud. Clarion calls for his intervention. For Castiel. For Mary. Even for Crowley.

That last one was a bit of a surprise, if he's honest. Not so much that Dean had included Crowley in his prayers (a problem with being tuned to a particular channel at all times is that you sometimes catch a show you'd not planned on watching) but that Sam had done so as well had caught Chuck a bit off guard. True, Sam's request was borne more out of a sense of obligation than from genuine want for Crowley's return. But the fact remains that he prayed for him all the same. That's interesting enough for Chuck to take note.

So he takes note.

But that is all he does.

Despite what many would claim, he is not indifferent to their pleas. He wishes he was. Instead he feels their anguish - fresh, raw despair - like it was his own.

But he will do nothing, all the same.

They need to stand on their own, if they are ever going to learn to walk.

Explaining that to his sister, however, is easier said than done.

"Pain. Dean - Dean's in pain."

She gasps (as much as a purely metaphysical being can gasp of course), her entire presence vibrating with an out of sync energy that Chuck has long since come to associate with distress.

"Yes. He is."

"I can hear - I can feel him. Calling out to me... Reaching- We need to help him-"

Chuck tucks his essence around his sister, doing what he can to smooth her rough and frightened edges with gentle waves of calm. "We can't."

His sister growls, her essence swirling heavy and dark, pushing back at him. "We CAN."

"Well, of course, we can, but that doesn't mean we should."

"Why?"

In response, Chuck sends her thoughts - memories - pulled from an eternity of prayers made and answered. Of disastrous outcome after disastrous outcome. He shows her creation, and the burden of billions of souls clamoring for your time, your attention, your help.

Her anger subsides, the swirling patterns of her growing lighter with curiosity.

"Is this...is this what it's like for you? All the time? When humans pray? This...desperation? This need?"

"Multiplied by a few billion. Yeah, this is sorta what it's like."

Her whole being blinks, grays and muted violets blending in the dark of her. "No one has ever...prayed to me, before." She sounds lost. Uncertain. And maybe a little bit awed.

She is wrong, of course. Chucks knows. For there have been entire religions that rose under her name and sought her blessing. Realms that would have brought the world to its knees and served it to her upon a scorched platter, if she would but answer their call.

Only, she was locked away where she couldn't hear.

Chuck thinks that's a tale best saved for a few millennia down the road. When she's a little less...volatile.

"I wish to help him."

Chuck sighs. "Amara-"

"No! No you may ignore them all. The millions upon millions of tiny gnats that buzz at you and call you father, begging for you from the depths of their pitiful souls for their petty lives. But I have only this one. And I will help him!"

Her presence grows and grows, looming ever larger until she is all there is. The beginning and the end of everything.

"Okay!" Chuck does not shrink from her, but he does retreat. "Okay. Okay. So we'll help him." He flares out in a peaceful pattern, and hopes she can tell that for all he may disagree, that he is also on her side. "We will. But you see what it is he is praying for?"

"Castiel."

Chuck nods. "And you see that he has already been saved?"

"But Dean does not know!"

"But he will. He will. You can see that."

Amara pauses and looks. Looks down the timelines, the maybes and the perhaps. And she sees. "Yes. He will."

"And you see that Mary - whom you have already given back to Dean once, graciously, I might add - is also alive and well. So, really, there is no need for us to do-"

Amara's energy fluxes and bends, agitation bleeding through. "But her outcome is not so certain. Titled one way, and she is reunited with Dean, another and she dies. Again and again and again."

Chuck knows this, of course. Knows that Mary's fate is far from set in stone. Those are always the timelines - the lives - that he finds the most interesting to watch. As it is within that fuzzy space that free will can truly take hold. That alone would win her a spot on the DVR, even if she wasn't also a Winchester. "Yeah. There's a lot of variables surrounding her."

To say that his sister beams is inadequate. There are no words to describe the way that she glows, this beautiful being of unfathomable dark. "Then we remove them."

He watches as Amara tugs on a tendril of time, and shows him her thoughts. He sees the way that Mary's possible futures coalesce down, until her fate is more of a flexible gel, rather than thin as air.

As far as plot twists go, it has its merits.

"You wanna bring him back?"

But that doesn't mean it couldn't stand for a few improvements. Every story needs a good editor after all.

"Dean wishes it." Her pattern swirls and shrinks. Certainty in her action calming her in a way that Chuck alone never could. "And...he was kind to me. In his own way."

Chuck has opinions on that, but he figures they aren't important right now. "If I may make a suggestion?"

Amara gestures for him to proceed, and Chuck pulls back on the timelines. Shows her a history she never before had cause (nor interest) to see. Her essence flickers with surprise as she leans forward for a closer view. Encouraged, he takes her down the curves and narrow passageways of his idea, showing her the differences one little tweak could make.

Could being key. It's almost intoxicating how many ways the whole thing could pan out. Chuck finds he is vibrating with giddy excitement at the possibilities.

He hopes his sister agrees.

"Well? What do you think? Shall we?"

"Yes."

And as simple as that, it is done.

Chuck, and Amara to his unending surprise, settle in for the show.

~~~\/~~~

They bury Cas at the foot of a tree, in a forest behind the little house where he lost his life.

There's no hunter's funeral, because neither Sam nor Dean are willing to believe...not yet at least.

Or maybe ever, if the look on Dean's face since they placed Castiel in the ground is any indication.

It's a long, silent drive back home to the bunker. Dean's white-knuckled grip on the wheel an ever-present echo of the turmoil they are both drowning in.

Sam wishes, for not the first time, that this wasn't their lot in life. That they weren't just road tripping their way from one lost loved one to the next, punctuated by moments of apocalypse and the occasional resurrection.

Halfway home, they spend a mournful night in Wyoming.

Sam stays in their rented room, thinking on all that has come to pass in the last 72 hours. He thinks of Lucifer, and how all of the pain in their life always seems to lead back to him. He wishes he could be grateful that he's gone, but all he can focus on is his mother being gripped by the archangel as they fell through the portal together; and how at this very moment, she is lost in that hellscape world.

He thinks of Crowley, killing himself to close the portal and lock away Lucifer once and for all, maybe even saving the world in the process. The demon committing suicide in what, to Sam at least, appears to have been the result of a sudden influx of responsibility and guilt.

Sam's not sure if that is really why Crowley did what he did, but he also feels it may be too soon to think anything less charitable.

He thinks about Castiel, and the look of broken surprise on his face when the angel blade plunged through his chest. Sam thinks about how the pierce of the blade seemed to stab straight through Cas and into Sam's own soul; all warmth sucked away by that cold emptiness you feel when your family shrinks by one.

It's a feeling he wishes he wasn't so damn familiar with.

And he thinks of Jack. The nephilim that's barely been born, and is already the cause of so much pain. He thinks of how the teenage (what? how?!) boy winked out of the nursery before Sam could get within five steps. The sound of flapping wings echoes in his memory, and he wonders where the boy could have gone, and what chance do they have at finding him?

And what kind of damage he may cause if they don't.

Sam thinks of all these things. And he prays. Futile though he knows it is, he prays. Holding onto the tiniest shred of hope that God is listening, or more importantly, that he will answer.

Dean, by contrast, makes haste to some bar nearby without ever setting foot in the hotel room. His face when he returns is pale and drawn. For all his hands shake as he drops his keys on the table, and turns the lock on the door, he's still steady on his feet.

Sam doesn't ask about the scrapes on his knuckles, or the bloody cut on his lip.

They head out the next morning as quiet as they arrived. And when Dean pulls the Impala into the garage, it is without his usual finesse. He slams the door on his way out with enough force that all the windows shake.

Sam follows at a more sedate pace, the bag on his shoulder dragging down his whole frame as exhaustion curls around his ankles like anchors. His trudging path comes to an end when he reaches the main room and spots Dean staring down at their usual research table, his duffle dropped by his feet.

There's a bottle of amber liquid sitting on the table - one Sam knows wasn't there when they rushed out on the trail of Castiel what seems like a lifetime ago. A familiar knife, dried blood caked along its edge, is resting beside it.

Dean reaches out and grasps the bottle by the neck, angling it upward. He holds it still long enough for Sam to catch a glimpse of the label; the name twinges something in his memory, but doesn't quite catch.

Dean's tense stance screams recognition though. His head hung low as he stares down at the bottle in his hand. Or at least, that's what Sam thinks until he takes a step closer, and sees a slip of paper clutched in his brother's other fist.

He squints, but can't make out anything in the neat lines scrawled on its surface. He might not be able to read it from this distance, but the handwriting itself is the last clue he needs for the picture to resolve.

But knowing who wrote it is only half the mystery. And he can't help but be curious as to what message Crowley left behind along with the demon-killing knife Dean had stabbed him with, and a bottle of very fine scotch. He opens his mouth to ask just that, when Dean's frozen frame abruptly thaws. He shoves the note into his front pocket and turns away from the table, bottle in hand. He stalks in the direction of their rooms, only to stop short of the doorway, make an about face turn to grab a single tumbler off a nearby shelf, and turn back towards the hallway once more.

Sam knows if he lets him go now, that he won't see him until long after his hangover has begun to fade and he comes crawling out for a burger and bacon.

"Dean-"

"Later, Sam. I've got a date with a bottle." Dean's face is stubborn, his jaw set, as he looks at Sam like Sam can't possibly understand what he's feeling. Like Dean and Dean alone is the only one who's lost anything here.

Sam's concern boils over into frustration, hands curling into fists against his thighs. "I see that, but we need-"

"I know, Sam. I know. We've got a shitton of work to do." Dean shakes his head, his voice low, gruff. "Satan's hellspawn is off who knows where, doing who knows what - but whatever it is, it ain't good. Mom's trapped in an apocalyptic nightmare where we were never BORN. With Lucifer."

His brother stomps a step closer to Sam. The corners of his eyes pinched tight and his arm sweeping out in an angry arc that sloshes the liquid in the bottle about violently. "Crowley SACRIFICED himself to save the freakin' world. And Cas...Cas is… Dead… He's DEAD, Sam, and I…" Dean blinks twice, in rapid succession, and looks away, rubbing his free hand across his mouth.

"There's a load of shit we need to unpack if we're gonna have a shot at fixing any of those fuckin' things, but for now? For now I'm gonna drink this bottle 'til it's dry. Maybe then the world will stop fucking spinning long enough for me to get a foothold on where to even start."

There's a twitch at Dean's shoulders. Sam sees it in the way it makes the bottle in his grip tremble. And Sam knows that Dean is hurting. That he's let the grief build up and up until it's right at the surface, and that the tiniest droplet more could send it all spilling over the sides.

But Sam's hurting too. And Dean, blinded as he is by his own pain, simply can't see it.

And so Sam allows the tension to bleed out of him, relaxing the bunched up fists by his sides until his fingers are spread out in an open gesture. "Dean…" He wouldn't be able stop his voice from wobbling even if he did try. "I lost them too."

Sam watches as the words reach Dean, his brother's head drooping with the subtle bowing forward of his spine. A moment more passes before he nods his head, and moves back to the table, pulling out the chair at the head of it, and dropping down with a heavy exhale. He opens the bottle and fills his glass, lifting it towards his mouth. His hand pauses for a beat, and Sam watches as his brother's eyes close and his lips form words that Sam has no hope of hearing. He takes a slow, lingering sip, staring into the depths of the glass for a long second when he's done, then tosses back the rest.

After, he lifts his eyes back to Sam and gives him a half-glare that is a mix of weary exasperation and poorly disguised misery. "You gonna stand there all night, or you gonna grab a glass and help me find the bottom of this bottle?"

Sam doesn't have to be asked twice.

~~~\/~~~

It's not a delicate fall, Mary and Lucifer's tumble through the portal.

The archangel loses his grip on her after the first step, and Mary finds herself in an uncontrolled stumble. She catches herself before she hits the ground, and manages to turn in time to see the portal vanish from view. Behind her, Lucifer's rage-filled scream reverberates, amplified by the barren wasteland.

At the realization that the portal is gone, creating distance between her and Lucifer seems like the best of ideas, so she pushes herself into a haphazard run over the uneven ground, with no destination in mind other than away.

She dodges around rocks and debris, aiming for a hill beyond a towering row of metal spikes sticking out of the ground. Unfortunately, any hope she has for keeping her feet under her is dashed when one of those feet catches beneath something heavy and immobile, causing her to go sprawling down. The only break she seems to catch is that the object she lands on is a corpse, and not something sharp.

It takes her a few precious seconds to realize that the corpse is someone she recognizes. Crowley? Precious seconds that give Lucifer a chance to catch up.

His hand wraps around her bicep, and he yanks her up and off the dead demon in a motion that leaves her head spinning.

"Mary Mary Mary. Where you off to in such a hurry?" His other hand lifts to grip her at her other arm, the pressure hard enough that she can feel blood rushing to the surface for what is sure to be a lasting bruise.

She struggles against his hold as he pulls her closer, arching her head away from his proximity. "Let go."

"Hmm, let me think about that. How about...no." His grip tightens keeping her hands locked against her side and limiting her mobility further. "But that does beg the question, what am I going to do with you?"

Mary rolls her eyes, not caring how ill-advised it may be. She's been dead before, it doesn't scare her as much as it might have once. "If you're gonna kill me, then kill me."

A slick, disconcerting smile spreads across his face. She wishes she had a hand free so she could punch it right off.

"Kill you? How unimaginative. Still, it has promise. Let's table that option for later, shall we? Once you've served your purpose."

"My purpose?" Mary says, confusion mixing with a swell of apprehension. She doesn't want to imagine what use the devil could have for her that requires her remaining alive.

In response, Lucifer's eyes glow a bright red, and she sees the shadow of wings sweep out from his back. "Mmm-hmm. You my dear, Mary, are going to-"

Whatever he was going to say is cut off in a shockwave of blinding light that knocks her back to the ground again. This time with no corpse to soften the impact.

Mary's ears are ringing when the light fades. She levers her body up on her elbows to better take stock of the situation and sees that Lucifer is gone.

What?

She stares after where he'd stood moments before, her confusion making friends with relief.

"Mary? Mary Campbell?"

At the sound of her name, Mary turns and locks eyes on an unfamiliar man standing a dozen paces away. He wraps a bloody fist in a dirty rag. Droplets leaking out to fall on the sigil she can see painted in the dirt by his feet. She squints, and pushes herself to stand. Ignoring the woozy feeling the action causes as best she can. "Do I know you?"

The man laughs, the barking sound cut short by the wind. "Guess not. I knew you. A version of ya at least. Long ago. You come through that portal like your boys did earlier?"

Mary nods.

"Figured. Name's Bobby. Bobby Singer. Hate to tell ya, but you picked a shitty place to visit."

Mary opens her mouth to respond, but a sound like a desperate gasp for air followed by a fit of coughing grabs their attention. She spins on her heal towards the noise and sees what she knows was a corpse just a few minutes ago roll over; the not-so-dead man grasping at his abdomen as he sits up. His coughing intensifies, and Mary watches as he hacks up a mouthful of congealed blood onto the ground; a long trail of bloody spittle follows it down.

"Friend of yours?" The man - Bobby - asks with a frown.

Mary gives a half-shrug. "Not exactly, but…"

Hacking fit done, he wipes the back of his hand against his mouth, the sight of the blood coating it seeming to catch him in a trance for a minute; red-stained fingers flexing out and in as he stares at the appendages.

With a shake of his head he lifts bloodshot eyes - eyes that Mary recalls were a dead gray not five minutes ago - towards Mary, a look of genuine shock on his face.

Mary recalls that feeling.

His mouth opens and closes a few times before words manage to find their way out.

"Bloody hell."

And with that eloquent summary, Crowley's eyes roll up towards his eyebrows, and he passes out.

~TBC