0. Prologue, Last Piece of Earth

Stars fell like rain. There were so many – they left burning, bright trails across the deep blue canvas like desperate strokes of an artist. They fell, blinked, burst, and faded away to the other end of the universe – to a cemetery of fallen stars, maybe. Neil had no idea where falling stars fell. If they died, if that was what they were, spectacular deaths of stars. In fact, he didn't know anything about stars. He'd never even seen a meteor shower until today.

They had been on the road, middle of nowhere, had no idea where the road ended and darkness began. No lights save for the two flimsy yellow ones from his headlight. They had been arguing. No, Jessie had been blabbing relentlessly, in her pissed-off voice, and Neil had been trying his best to tune that out – like white noise – and gripping his steering wheel tight. He kept looking for a road sign, but it was too dark to see. Until the sky lit up. So suddenly and silently that he first thought atomic bomb, for some reason.

Stop the car, Jessie had said, and Neil did. They were in the middle of the road but it didn't really matter because they hadn't seen another car for at least three hours. They stumbled out to the empty road, the night air still cool but it wasn't dark anymore. Too many stars. They lit up the road and the trees watching silently by the side. They also revealed the tacky blue signpost that Neil hadn't seen before. The letters on the aluminum were scratched away in some places, but he could still make out the words. And then he had turned his eyes upward to where Jessie was already staring. Stars.

He didn't know much about them, really. He liked to think of himself as a down-to-earth kind of guy, never having speculated much about what he couldn't hold down physically. Stars only mattered when they set the mood (as Jessie liked to call it) above the backyard of his house as he proposed to Jessie, sparkling furiously that summer night. They could have been pieces of jewels stitched in a drape above their heads, for all he knew. Tonight, though, the stitches were coming off and the gems were dropping. So many of them, too. It was unnatural and it terrified him, for some reason.

Jessie had a different take, though. "They're beautiful," she said, almost out of breath. Neil made himself look down, and found Jessie's face a good distraction. He watched her profile, lit up in a soft blue light, eyes twinkling with wonder and lips hanging open, as he murmured an answer. "Yeah, beautiful." He wondered why he felt like the world was coming to an end. Like it was burning away all around them, except for this stretch of road that seemed to extend forever into the dark, except for this piece of sky lit up with a thousand falling stars. No one left except for him and Jessie…

Jessie was still transfixed to the sky, so it was Neil who saw him first. For a moment he just stared, not knowing what to think. The stars had thrown reality into a shaky perspective. Everything felt surreal now, and too real, and the stars was raining while the world was a stretch of empty road, so a man in a trenchcoat suddenly standing there in the yellow headlight didn't seem so weird. The man had a glazed and pained look about him, like it was pieces of him that was falling apart and down from the sky. For a while Neil stared at the man and the man stared back, until Jessie noticed his stillness and finally tore her eyes from the sky, did a double take and retreated a step behind the half-open car door. Neil shook himself out of his reverie then, or whatever it was – hypnosis – wishing for a beer.

"Strange sight, huh." Neil indicated the firework show above them, speaking conversationally. The man didn't comment nor react, except to blink slowly and painfully like Neil had poked him with a white-hot iron rod. Neil flinched at the rawness in his eyes. The eyes were so blue they almost looked out-of-world.

There was a moment to draw a breath, and then the man had composed his face again. He nodded at Neil like Neil had no idea how strange it was. Strange, try apocalyptic.

"Neil." Jessie hissed, like he could do something about a freakish trench-coat man in the middle of the road, which – as far as he knew – still could be the last piece of earth. He cleared his throat, though, and opened his mouth to say something. Only he had no idea what, so he was glad that the man had chosen that moment to speak. His voice was kind of surreal too, a little too low, a little too flat. Neil expected him to say something like the day has come, human. Prepare to be judged. Oh, god, maybe it really was the end of the world.

Instead, the man said, "I need to use your phone," and took a step forward.

Neil let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. Jessie looked nervously over at him, but Neil shrugged. He didn't see danger here, unless the stranger pulled a knife on him as he handed the phone over, and somehow Neil doubted that would happen. There was an air about the man. Desolate, was that the word? Kind of like how the sky would feel if all its stars were torn away from it. So he handed his phone over. He even helped the man when he seemed to be looking for buttons that weren't there. It was a touch-phone, after all.

Whoever it was on the other line, answered only after one or two rings. The first word uttered was a name, but spoken like no other Neil had heard before. "Dean," the man said, and it was a plea and apology and prayer at the same time. Neil heard Jessie draw in a soft breath. He drummed his fingers against the car door set up between him and the man like a shield, listening – watching.

"Yes." The man said. His face broke then. The rawness slipped through again. Then he said, "heaven is falling," and Neil looked up at the sky at that. He felt Jessie do the same.

Sky was falling, or maybe heaven was falling, and it was terrifying, ancient sorrow, in the man's voice.

"I'm at…" The man looked around for a sign, found it, and read it slowly to the phone. "Yes. I'll wait." He said. After a pause, he said it again. "I will, Dean. I will wait."

Not like I have anywhere else to go, Neil imagined the man saying, but he didn't. He hung up and looked for an off-button before giving up and just handing it back to Neil. "Thank you." He added, almost as an afterthought. Neil nodded.

The man assured them that he was fine to stand and wait, alone – for Dean. Jessie offered to stay and wait with him, and the man looked surprised like he'd noticed her for the first time. Then he shook his head, with a quiet "thank you," and that was that. As they drove away, the man was standing at the side of the road by the signpost. His shoulder was hunched forward a little, like he was too tired to stand up straight. He wasn't fidgeting any, though, and Neil got the feeling that the man was an expert at waiting; as if he'd been doing it for a thousand years.

"Who do you think… he is?" Jessie asked quietly, like she was afraid the man might overhear them. Neil shook his head. "Got no idea."

"Well…" Jessie shifted in her seat to peer back to the man, fading fast into a smudge in the darkness. "I hope Dean reaches him soon, though."

"Yeah." Neil answered. I hope Dean can save him. It was a strange thing to be thinking about a stranger, but then, everything tonight had been strange.

And if the heaven was falling, the man in a trench-coat wouldn't be the only one who needed saving.