A/N: Shoutout to 29Pieces for beta reading this verse, and for the marvelous art she decided to do for every episode! Four parts to this one this time. :D

THEN

Gabriel stormed into Heaven's throne room, a place only a select few were permitted to even lay eyes on. There had once been a time when he and the other archangels could come and go as they pleased to see their father, but over the past few centuries, God had withdrawn deeper and deeper into solitude. Well, Gabriel wasn't going to stand for it anymore.

Morale was suffering; every angel under Heaven was feeling the pall of disheartenment as times grew darker. They could really use a pep talk from dear old Dad right about now.

Gabriel strode past the pearly pillars to give God a piece of his mind.

And found Michael sitting on the throne instead.

"He's gone, Gabriel."

…

"How long?"

"Long enough." Michael lolled his head to the side, his posture stiff yet somehow defeated.

"All the orders," Gabriel started, "are from you."

Michael shrugged. "Someone had to take up the mantle."

"Of what? You've called off relief missions, cancelled guardian postings. Just what are you trying to run here?"

"Heaven. And soon a new one. God left his final instructions. The world will perish in fire and be laid bare, and I will rebuild from its ashes something better."

Gabriel narrowed his gaze. "Dad was just toying with that idea, Michael; he wasn't serious!"

"Well, I am."

Gabriel shook his head in dismay. "You're no better than Lucifer."

Michael's eyes flashed and he surged from the throne. "Lucifer has his part to play. As we all do."

"No. The others won't go along with this once they find out—"

Michael's grace exploded with a strident screech that slammed into Gabriel without warning. Golden fire coursed over him, lightning forking down to the core of his grace. Gabriel screamed as it seared him.

Yet he managed to shoot out a bolt of plasma that hit Michael in the knee, buckling his leg and disrupting his concentration.

Gabriel sucked in a shuddering breath and leaped into the ether.

…

The currents battered him back and forth. Gabriel tried to navigate the slipstream, but he was too wounded to do much other than be buoyed about and hope he didn't end up smashed into the side of a mountain.

When the ether finally spat him out, it was in a glade. Gabriel lay among the grass and mulch, unable to move, barely able to breathe. He could still feel the phantom licks of silver fire across his skin. His grace curled into a tight ball and spritzed with dying spurts.

He had no idea how long he lay there in agony before a vision of beauty appeared standing over him. Rich ebony hair cascaded down bare, bronze colored shoulders. Her lips were as red as blood. Gabriel thought if this was Death, he might go happily.

…

Gabriel knocked back a swig of vodka, grimacing at the burn as it went down his throat. Ah, the good stuff.

A slim arm slipped around his waist from behind, followed by a nibble on his earlobe. Gabriel—or Loki, now—set his liquor aside and turned into Kali's arms. She was as good a distraction as the bottle, and an even better one most of the time. In her embrace, Gabriel could forget about Michael and Heaven and all the things he couldn't fix.

…

The shockwave of the Devil's Gate opening reverberated throughout the Pantheon. Alarm went up, the pagan deities incensed that the Judeo-Christian figureheads would dare instigate the End. They discussed what action to take in response. Gabriel knew any confrontation with Heaven's legions would be fatal.

Kali would not be swayed, though.

So he left before he would have to watch them all die.

He roamed aimlessly as demons spilled forth across the earth. For many nights afterward, the air was full of endless screams before they finally settled.

It was chance, coming upon Anna standing on that rise. Gabriel hesitated under the shadows of the trees; he knew all of Heaven's angels would have been ordered to battle, that this was all secretly pre-ordained. He almost left, until he heard a quiet hitch of breath.

Anna turned toward the sunrise, a single tear glistening down her cheek. She took out her angel blade and pressed the tip over her heart.

…

Gabriel wrapped his fingers firmly around the hilt and pried it from her grasp. She gazed at him in shock.

"Gabriel?" The brokenness in her tone tore at his heart.

"Anna, what are you doing?"

She ducked her gaze in shame. "I failed. There was something wrong in Heaven, and I didn't speak up soon enough. I acted too late. And I- I can't find Castiel. He followed me, Gabriel, and I lost him."

He frowned. Anna and Castiel had disobeyed? They'd tried to stop the Devil's Gate from opening?

Gabriel was suddenly struck with the question of what if there were others? Others who saw how corrupt Heaven had become, and wanted to choose a different path? But, like Anna, they were probably lost, scattered.

He knew what he had to do.

Gabriel had let Michael drive him from his home, had let his own grief and wounded pride keep him away. He'd tried to make a new family among the pagans, but what he failed to realize was how much his angel siblings needed him. Especially now.

It was time for Gabriel to take up his own mantle. And take a stand.

…

NOW

Castiel stood outside a small house in Enid, Oklahoma, listening to the utter stillness pervading the area, as though not a single living creature from bird to insect was in the vicinity. Perhaps the demon had been lying about one of Azazel's special children being here.

Castiel had gone back to Lucifer's crypt, the one he and Sam had located earlier, in the hopes of finding anything that might shed light on Azazel's plans. He'd found a lower class demon who'd come looking for Lilith after she'd stopped sending out orders. The demon found her, of course—dead on the crypt floor. And then he'd found Castiel.

Interrogating the demon didn't take long, but the mongrel insisted he didn't know why the special children were important, only that he'd been assigned to keep an eye on one of them. Castiel had gotten a name and location out of the demon before terminating it.

But now that he was here, he didn't sense any signs of life. He made a circuit around the house. The back porch steps had a thick coating of dust that was smeared, which meant someone had, in fact, been here recently. But where were they now?

He turned in a slow circle, eyes peeled against the surrounding foliage, then stopped. There was a copper tang on the air.

Castiel strode into the wooded area extending from the backyard. Only a few yards in, he pulled up short at the sight of a body draped face up over a tree stump. Blood trickled down between lax fingers to drip on a bed of dry leaves. Castiel approached cautiously, though there didn't seem to be any demons in the area. And the victim hadn't been mauled.

No, he'd been blood-letted. Castiel crouched beside the body. A pair of dog tags dangled from the young man's neck. Jake Talley. The one that demon was supposed to be watching. Had it killed its charge? Or had something else moved in once the demon had left to find Lilith?

Too many questions and not enough answers. Castiel clenched a fist in frustration. He focused his senses on the small amounts of blood, and could detect a slight whiff of demonic essence woven into it. Which meant at the very least that this was one of the special children, like Sam.

But why was he dead? It almost looked like a ritualistic killing, too. Castiel did not like the implications for what that meant for Sam. And now yet another lead turned out to be a dead end.

He straightened abruptly and took to the ether, riding the slipstream back to the garrison's base. Castiel needed counsel, and so he made his way through the compound to Gabriel's office/quarters. It was one of the few places where the archangel's history masquerading as a Trickster made itself known—the decor was lavish and had an odd mix of Norse and Hindu elements, from an elaborate tapestry of Ragnarok as an area rug to a statue of the goddess Kali on the desk. But there was also a pencil holder filled with lollipops and a shelf of Casa Erotica DVDs, whatever that was. Perhaps a television show Dean would like.

Castiel drew to a stop at the door when he heard voices within, Inias and Hael giving Gabriel a report on their recent mission. Castiel waited on the threshold.

"The hospital we've been getting supplies from is now gone," Hael said.

"Gone?" Gabriel repeated. "What, it vanished?"

"No, it looks like a Hulk smashed through it," Inias replied.

"The Hulk," Gabriel said.

Inias frowned. "What?"

"It's 'the Hulk,' not 'a Hulk.' And anyway, that's not important." Gabriel waved off-handedly. "So, we need to use a different hospital."

"We visited the next town over," Hael said. "But that hospital was burned down."

"We were probably close to depleting the stock there, anyway," Inias added. "We could go north."

"The witch coven in Montana is gaining a stronghold," Gabriel said. "But it wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on their doings. Set up reconnaissance for the area, and if the hospital is easy to access, then go for it."

They nodded and turned to leave, giving Castiel small smiles and nods as they passed. Castiel slipped into the room.

"I found one of Azazel's 'special children,'" he reported. "Killed recently in what looked like a ritualistic manner."

Gabriel frowned. "Any sign of what did it?"

"No, just that it probably wasn't a beast."

The archangel crossed his arms. "So it could have been an angel. If Heaven got wind of the demons plotting something, they might intervene."

"Then Sam Winchester is in danger from both Heaven and Hell," Castiel said, chest constricting at the thought.

Gabriel gave him a sympathetic look. "The Winchesters and Camp Chitaqua are warded against everything imaginable, and that's all we can do."

Yes, but it was the unimaginable that worried Castiel.

"I can keep looking for answers," he said.

Gabriel sighed, dropping his arms to his sides. "I don't like you going off on your own for this. You were lucky with Lilith, you know that?"

Castiel ducked his gaze. He knew that, but it didn't deter him. "Hell is planning something and we need to be ready."

"Hell is always planning something. We've got clusters of demons banding together more and more lately. Frankly, we need to be focusing our efforts there."

Castiel furrowed his brow. "Are you ordering me to stop?"

"No." Gabriel softened his expression. "Cas, look, I know this is important to you, but you've been at it for weeks without any leads."

"I just came from one."

"That was a dead end."

Castiel's jaw clenched. Maybe Gabriel was right and this was a waste of time when they had very real battles to fight on the front lines. But he couldn't dismiss a niggling feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. Nor did he want to miss something of import that would lead to Sam or Dean being hurt.

Gabriel shook his head. "Just, don't run yourself into the ground, alright? Here, have a lollipop." He picked up the pencil holder and held it out, waggling his eyebrows.

Castiel huffed. "No thanks."

Gabriel heaved a dramatic sigh as he set the container back on the desk. "I honestly don't know how I'm related to any of you. Only Balthazar seems to have a taste for human delicacies."

"I see that family resemblance just fine," Castiel said dryly.

Gabriel shot him a good-natured scowl. "Get out."

Castiel obliged. He appreciated Gabriel's concerns, and he wasn't blind to their struggle in this war, but he just felt as though he was missing something important.

He almost bumped into Anna in the hallway. Her mouth was pressed into a thin line, her eyes dark and thoughtful.

"I'll help you look for answers," she said, catching Castiel off guard.

"I thought you would have considered other things more important," he admitted, not that he blamed her.

Anna lifted her chin, and there was no reluctance or hesitation in her gaze. "You followed me once, Castiel. All the way to the doorstep of Hell. I think I should return the favor."

He opened his mouth to say that of course he followed her; she was his captain and friend. But their friendship was precisely why she was choosing to stand by him now.

Castiel nodded in gratitude. "Let's get to work, then."

Dean stood in Bobby's cabin, arms tucked tightly about himself and a fist pressed against his chin as he watched Ellen mop the older hunter's fevered brow with a wet cloth. Five days and Bobby wasn't getting better. None of the people who'd fallen sick were.

The door creaked open, and Dean turned as Sam walked in. He automatically tensed at his little brother's pinched expression.

"Three more people have gotten sick," Sam said grimly.

"Great," Dean muttered. That made half their camp.

"It was bound to happen eventually," Sam replied. "With the close quarters and problems with water sanitation."

"Not seeing anything we can do about that," he said gruffly.

Sam just gave him a sympathetic look. "I wasn't blaming you, Dean. We've got a good setup here, but we just don't have the resources we're used to. There's no First World anymore, and we have to adjust."

Dean ran a hand over his hair. "Yeah, I know."

Ellen set the damp cloth aside and stood up. "We're almost out of Tylenol. Any idea when we can expect another shipment of meds from the angels?"

Dean's lips thinned. "I've been on the radio with them, but they've had trouble finding stuff lately."

"At this point," Sam put in, "we need more than what the angels can easily transport, anyway."

Dean nodded. "We'll have to make a supply run ourselves. Grab Jo, Keith, and Risa. Tell them we leave in half an hour."

"Try hospitals instead of drug stores," Ellen said. "In addition to fever reducers, we need lots of saline fluids. Dehydration is gonna be our biggest threat. And if you can find Tamiflu, we can at least give that to the people who haven't caught it yet, hopefully stave it off, or at least reduce the duration once it hits."

"Should probably pick up some convalescence care stuff, like catheters," Sam added.

Dean grimaced. Those weren't gonna be fun.

He cast one last look at Bobby, pale and barely stirring in the depths of his febrile state. "We'll try to be quick," he told Ellen.

She nodded, and reached out to squeeze his arm. "I've got things here. Be careful."

Dean nodded, and headed out with Sam to get ready for this little excursion. Given the state of things, supply runs weren't like driving down to the nearest hospital and placing an order at the counter. Cities were dangerous and crawling with demons, not to mention that after a year, a lot of places had been picked clean. There was no telling how long this trip would take them.

After packing a bunch of weapons and some rations, they piled into a pickup truck, Dean, Sam, and Jo wedged into the front seat with Keith and Risa riding in the truck bed. The closest hospital was deep within demon territory, so they turned west and drove for half an hour before coming across a town that didn't seem to have perpetual fires burning. First good sign.

Dean followed the directions for the hospital—those blue sign posts were a godsend now that they no longer had Google Maps—but when he turned the fourth corner, he slowly pressed the brake and guided the truck to a stop. His heart sank as he took in the crumbled ruins of what had once been the hospital. It looked as though the entire building had just…caved in on itself. Like a house of cards.

Which was what Dean's optimism and hope was on the verge of feeling like right about now. He preferred fighting monsters that could be ganked, not invisible pathogens too microscopic to narrow in on and kill.

Risa tapped the back window. "What now?"

Dean gritted his teeth, and put the truck in reverse. "We keep going."

"Guys," Jo spoke up. She pointed across the dash toward the opposite side of the intersection where a group of three people had emerged, an older man and two women. They froze at the sight of the truck, looking like deer caught in headlights.

Dean put the vehicle in park and slowly opened his door. "Hey there," he called out, keeping his hands up and away from his weapons.

The strangers exchanged nervous looks.

"We just came here looking for medicine, that's all," Dean assured them. They didn't appear threatening, and were probably more scared of the Winchesters' group, but if they were part of a larger settlement, armed backup could arrive at any second.

The older man frowned. "That's what we came here for," he said, then flicked a dispirited look at the ruined hospital. His gaze hardened suspiciously when he turned back to Dean. "You from this town?"

"No," Dean replied. "It was just the first one that didn't look demon infested. We have a settlement east of here, but a lot of people have gotten sick recently, and we need more meds."

"Sickness broke out in our group, too," the man said, and Dean could see him becoming tenser.

"Since neither of us got what we needed," Dean said, "we could travel together to find another hospital. You have a vehicle?"

The man continued to gaze at him guardedly. Dean knew the guy was probably expecting them to want to keep any resources they found to themselves. That's what a lot of survivor groups would do. But Dean didn't operate that way. Hospitals were big places; surely there'd be enough for their small parties to share.

The older man glanced over his shoulder at his women companions as though communicating silently for a moment, then turned back and cleared his throat. "Yeah, that's really kind of you. We have a car; it's around the corner."

"No problem," Dean said.

One of the women jogged off, presumably to retrieve their vehicle, and the other two started to cautiously cross the street. Dean heard the truck's passenger side door open as Sam and Jo got out.

"I'm Dean Winchester. This is my brother Sam. That's Jo, Keith, and Risa." He pointed them out.

"I'm Paul Robles. This is Kathy, and that was Meredith who went for the car," the older man replied. His shoulders slumped and he suddenly looked ten years older. "We had a hospital in the town we've set up refuge in, but a week ago there was a storm and it was struck by all this lightning. I've never seen such a thing." He snorted. "But then, I'd never seen demons before last year. Anyway, we were forced to look elsewhere for medicine."

Dean's mouth turned down. Could demons be targeting the hospitals? Why? Just to make life even more miserable for any surviving humans in the area?

A blue sedan slowly rolled around the corner then.

"You know of another town safe to check?" Dean asked Paul.

The older man nodded. "Yeah, I do. North of here."

"I'll follow you, then." Dean climbed back into the truck along with Sam and Jo. Hopefully their next step would prove more fruitful.