Chapter Two: Catching Up

For a moment, all any of them could do was breathe. Sam blinked afterimages from his eyes, wincing at the transition. Then, from his right: "What in bloody hell...?"

He knew that voice. A second later, Dean's voice cracked out of the darkness. "Crowley?"

"Squirrel?" Crowley sounded surprised.

"Dean?" Another voice, and one Sam knew as well as well as he knew his own. A voice he'd never truly hoped to hear again.

"Bobby?" He considered moving, but he couldn't see. And he wasn't sure if the spell was still active.

"Sam? Dean?" Sam's heart stuttered in his chest.

He hadn't heard that voice in almost a decade. "Dad?"

"Sam?" His dad sounded as confused as he felt.

"Everyone please remain where you are. Give me a moment." That was Cas, remarkably calm.

The sounds of movement, then a click. Sam and Dean both blinked in the incandescent light from overhead.

"Ouch, kiddo. A little warning might be nice next time." The voice was sardonic, high-pitched, feminine. Sam swiveled his head to look.

There were four more people in the room. Crowley, scowling, hands stuffed in pockets. And standing beyond him, side by side, were John Winchester and Bobby, both wide-eyed and wary. Dean was staring at his two fathers, blood and adoptive, in disbelief. Then there was the space that Cas had been standing in. And next to that, on his right, was a woman.

She was small, slender, compactly built, but in a way that suggested athleticism rather than frailty. Her hair was nearly the same shade as Dean's, honey-toned, her eyes an amber-flecked hazel. She was wearing a loose white robe, in a style similar to what they'd seen once while infiltrating a health spa. She was no one he knew, but at the same time, there was something familiar about her.

Then Cas stepped past him, blue eyes flicking over the woman. His expression was shocked, pained, hopeful...too many things at once, especially for the normally stoic angel. "You..."

"Surprised to see me, Cassie?" A smirk graced the woman's features. "Betcha didn't see this coming." The woman glanced down, eyebrow quirking in surprise, then back at Cas. "Have to say, bucko, I wasn't exactly expecting it either."

"You're real." There was more than a hint of a question in that tone.

The woman cocked her head in another of those infuriatingly familiar gestures. "Real as the law of gravity. A little bit surprised by that, but what can I say?" She shrugged, hands flipping palm up in a 'what can you do' gesture.

Cas exhaled, a long sound of surprise and wonder and...relief. "Gabriel." He took two steps forward and enveloped the woman in a bone-crushing hug. "Gabriel. It is good to see you again."

Sam's eyes widened. "Gabriel?" Now that Cas had said the name, he could recognize the archangel in the tilt of the head, the expression in the eyes.

"Sam? Dean...you know this woman?" John Winchester moved forward. His stance hadn't relaxed at all. Bobby, on the other hand, looked mildly exasperated.

"Yeah. Dad." Dean stepped forward. "I guess some introductions are in order."

"And then some ruddy explanations, if you please." Crowley interjected the words from his corner.

"Right. Sure." Dean put a hand on his father's shoulder. "So, you know Bobby, obviously. And this..." He gestured to the black-clad demon. "That's Crowley, King of Hell..."

"Former king of hell. I've been deposed for the moment it seems."

"King of Hell? Dean..."

"Let him finish the introductions first." Sam moved forward, blocking his father when John would have moved toward the demon.

John hesitated, then nodded. Dean gestured at Cas, who had released his sibling. "That's Cas. He's an angel."

"Archangel." Dean blinked. Gabriel smirked at him. "Not that you'd notice, but I sure did. Looks like Dad promoted my little brother here to the top ranks." She clapped Cas on the shoulder. Cas looked stunned into silence.

"And you are?" John Winchesters voice was low and dangerous.

"That's Gabriel. As in, the archangel Gabriel. Or, I guess, considering that he is now a she..." Dean grinned, and Gabriel gave him a look that could draw blood. "I guess it's Gabrielle."

"Cute, Deano. Wanna repeat the Tuesday thing again?" Gabriel/Gabrielle raised her hand suggestively.

"Gabrielle." Cas took his siblings arm. "Enough. We have bigger concerns."

"Considering that last I checked, at least three of us were dead, I'd have to say you do." Bobby huffed. "And since we've all made each other's acquaintance, how about we pick a slightly more habitable location, and you idjits explain what the hell's going on here."

Sam looked at the assembled, then met Dean's eyes. Dean nodded. "Sure. Library room? You take 'em upstairs, I'll get the beers?"

"Deal." Sam gestured his father, Bobby, the demon and two angels out the door, then followed them.

***SitGN***

Thirty minutes later, they were all in the upper rooms of the Bunker, seated at the long low research table in the front library. Dean reappeared from the kitchen area with two six packs and passed them around. Gabrielle and Crowley both declined, snapping up their preferred drinks of Cola and Craig.

Bobby was staring around the Bunker. "Hell of a nice place you got here. You boys here legit?"

"Yeah." Sam settled into his seat and popped his beer cap off. "We actually...um, we actually inherited this, about a year and a half or so after you passed on."

"Inherited?" John frowned.

"Yeah. From Grandpa Henry Winchester, matter of fact. He gave us the key to this place."

John blinked. "My father?"

Sam nodded, caught Dean's subtle head tilt for him to explain. He sighed and sat forward. "Turns out, Grandpa didn't just...walk out on you. He was involved in this secret organization called the Men of Letters." Gabrielle made a sound, and Cas glared at her. "Anyway, the night he disappeared, he was at a meeting. They were attacked by a Knight of Hell named Abaddon. He was the last one standing, he panicked, and he cast a spell to jump him forward in time. I don't know how it worked, just that he fell out of a closet in one of our motel rooms with Abaddon right behind him. Turns out, one of the guys she killed gave him the key to this place. She killed him, but not before he trapped her and gave the key to us. We've been living here ever since. It's got it's own electric grid, so we don't get charged power, it's own water supply, pretty much everything we need. And it has..." He waved a hand at the shelves. "An absolutely insane amount of lore. There's books on just about every subject imaginable here. And files on everything else. There's even stuff written in Enochian here. The stuff we've discovered...about angels, about demons...it's insane. And we haven't even begun to scratch the surface."

John sat back heavily in his chair. He looked like he'd been hit with a two-by-four.

Bobby huffed. "It's impressive, I'll give you boys that. But right now we got more important things to talk about. Like what you boys did that got this little campfire together. And why you did it."

Sam swallowed. "How much do you know?" His gaze flickered to his Father, then to Gabrielle. "Any of you?"

Bobby scowled. "Last thing I remember is you and Cas engineering that Heaven's jail-bust and getting me in on it. And that one angel, Hannah I think, coming in to give me a talking to." He grimaced. "Hell of a talking to, I guess."

Crowley scowled. "Oblivion, after my mother set your angel friend on me."

Gabrielle shrugged. "Last I remember, I lost out to Lucifer. After that...waking up here like this is the next thing I know." He took a gulp of his Coke.

John Winchester frowned. "The last thing...I came out of a Devil's Gate. You boys...Yellow eyes...then everything just faded out."

"Great." Dean sighed. "That was about 10 years ago. A lot of shit's happened since then." He set his beer on the table. "Okay. I'll give you a quick recap. Rest of you...chime in if I miss anything seriously important, and we'll get to your points as we get to 'em."

"I'm all ears." John sat forward, his posture a mirror of Dean's own. "What happened?"

Dean sipped his beer. "Well, we ganked Yellow Eyes. Thing is, before we did, he got Sam involved in this...this psychic kids death-match. Sam lost out to some punk soldier boy. And me...I didn't wanna lose him, so I cut a deal. A crossroads deal. Sammy back above ground and one year."

John started up out of his chair. Bobby caught him. "Yeah, it was stupid, but you weren't any better, so keep your ass seated, Winchester." John settled back.

Dean swallowed. "So...during my year, we hear of this super powered demon named Lilith. Also found out late in the game that the bitch held my contract. We were hopin' to get me out of it, so we took her on. Only, didn't work, and she sicced her hell-hounds on me, dragged my ass to hell. Four months later, or 40 years if you're counting hell time, Cas managed to get to me, drag my ass back out of the pit." he shot the angel a strained smile. "Don't know if I ever really thanked you for that."

Cas smiled. "You did." He shrugged. "Of course, you also stabbed me in the chest with a demon blade."

"A demon blade?" John frowned.

"Knife that kills demons. Well, most of them. Can't get the worst of them. I'll show it to you later. For the record, it does absolute jack to angels."

"Keep talking boy." Bobby gestured. "You don't wanna take all year."

"Right. So, come to find out, my being in hell was part of some plan to start the apocalypse. Break 66 seals holding Lucifer locked in Hell, bring about the end of the world. Cas, he tried, but he didn't get to me in time to stop that part. By the time I got topside, first seal was broken, and Lilith was working on the others." Dean shifted. "We tried, we really did, but most of Hell was out to break Lucifer out, and we found out later that there were angels trying to start the apocalypse too. They tricked me and Sam into thinking we had to kill Lilith to stop the whole thing. Turns out the bitch's death popped the final lock."

"Yeah." Sam swallowed hard against the memories.

Cas looked at him. "Sam, it wasn't...it wasn't your fault. You were being manipulated by Heaven and Hell."

"So...you...this...whatever you did...it's to stop the apocalypse?" John blinked.

"Nope. After Lucifer busted free, Heaven gave us some more intel. Turns out, the Winchester family was slated to produce the vessels for Michael and Lucifer to have their little show-down. Me and Sam, we kept refusing, cause angels gotta have permission. Even Lucifer. Cas helped us out, then Gabe..." He ducked his head at the archangel. "Told us a way we could seal Lucifer back into his cage. Crowley helped us collect the keys, then Sam played Devil bait and we slammed that son of a bitch back into hell. Him and Michael both."

"Yeah. I sorta died before that point." Gabrielle grimaced. "So...how did you manage?"

Dean swallowed. "Lucifer took Sam. Michael took our half brother Adam." John jerked in his seat and went white. "Sam took control long enough to open the doorway and throw all of em through it."

Gabrielle blinked. "Then, correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't gigantor there be tangoing with my two elder brothers?"

"I raised him." Castiel spoke softly. "God...Lucifer destroyed me. God brought me back and empowered me. I raised Sam Winchester from the cage, with the help of the Horseman, Death."

"Huh." Gabrielle sat back. "So...if Mikey and Luci are locked in the hot-box...that'd make Raphael the one in charge." He made a face. "Dude's a little too uptight, if you ask me."

Castiel flinched. "Raphael is...he's dead." He looked away as Gabrielle pinned him with bright hazel eyes. "Raphael...he intended to restart the apocalypse. I refused to let him. We fought. In the end, I opened Purgatory, absorbed the souls there, and annihilated him. Raphael was destroyed, along with all his followers." The angel was looking at his hands. "Afterward, I discovered that the power of Purgatory was too great for me to contain. The souls were...too corrupting. Sam and Dean summoned Death to stop me, and with his help, we reversed the ritual." He broke off.

"And?" Gabrielle sat forward to look at her brother, the Coke forgotten on the table. "Come on kiddo, I know there's more to this."

"I...the Leviathan. They used my physical form as an anchor, then a gateway to release themselves into the world." Cas's voice was soft, broken with shame.

"Leviathan?" John frowned. "What is that?"

"Basically, the first monsters. They predate angels, demons, pretty much everything out there. Nasty bastards. Can be stopped with floor cleaner and beheading, but that only slows 'em down." Dean shrugged. "At least, it did until we figured out how to end them."

"How?" Gabrielle cocked an eyebrow.

"We found these tablets. Like Word of God tablets. One of them was all about the Leviathan."

Gabrielle whistled. "I remember when those things were first written and buried." She sat back. "You buckos got lucky finding those. But you'd have needed a prophet to translate."

"Yeah. We had one. Kid called Kevin Tran. He translated the Leviathan tablet, told us how to kill those bastards by killing their leader. So we did. Plus side, no more Leviathan. Down side, killing the boss got me and Cas a one way straight shot to Purgatory. Which was absolutely not cool." Dean grimaced and downed a large swallow of his beer.

"But you're here." John was staring at his eldest son.

"Yeah. Purgatory has a back-door exit for folks like me who aren't supposed to be there. Took me a year or so, and a little help, but I got out."

Gabrielle's eyes darkened. Cas caught her expression. "Gabrielle, Dean did not voluntarily leave me. I chose to stay."

"But you're here." Gabrielle looked at her sibling.

Cas's expression closed, shadows darkening the blue of his eyes. "I...an angel named Naomi pulled me from Purgatory a short while later. She..." He broke off.

"She took you. And from what I know of her, she probably wasn't gentle with you." Gabrielle reached out, touched Cas lightly with two fingers to his forehead. Cas flinched, but allowed it. Gabrielle grimaced. "Oh man, kiddo...you went through the wringer on that one."

"I...she wished to control me. She wanted me to help her find the other tablets, the angel and demon tablets, and the prophet. And she...she wanted me to...she made me kill Samandriel, and tried to make me kill Dean." Cas's eyes fell, locked on the table, hands twisting together in a white-knuckled grip.

John surged up out of his chair. Dean was up just as fast, catching his dad by the shoulders. "Dad, it's okay. Cas didn't listen to that bitch. He mighta punched me a couple times, but I've had worse fights with Sammy, and he fixed me up afterward." He met his dad's eyes. "I swear it on Mom's grave. Cas didn't follow through. He broke the brainwashing she put on him when she tried to make him kill me."

John settled back in his seat. "You mentioned...tablets? A demon and an angel one?"

"Yeah." Sam took up the thread. "We didn't get a chance to get much off the angel tablet. But Kevin translated most of the demon tablet. Taught us how to make these demon banishing grenades, which come in real handy. And, he gave us directions for a series of trials to close the gates of hell." he sipped his beer. "We actually started the trials, but..."

"But the trials are fatal to the person who completes them. Decided it wasn't worth it. I nearly lost Sam as it was." Dean kicked back the rest of his beer and took another. "On the flip side, we now know how to kill hell-hounds, free souls from hell, and we know how to straight up cure demons. Not exorcise, not kill, but honest to god cure."

Gabrielle whistled again. "Now that is some pretty impressive stuff."

Crowley scowled at the archangel. "You wouldn't think so if you'd been on the bloody receiving end of it. It's a miserable experience."

Gabrielle smirked. "Well, that tells me who the boys tried it out on."

"Shut up."

"So...what else happened?" Bobby spoke up. "That ain't enough for you boys to go around casting high level magic like that spell." he glanced from Sam to Dean to Cas. "This got something to do with the angels bein' cast down and Heaven's Gate being shut, or does it have something to do with the Mark of Cain again?"

John and Gabrielle both stiffened. "What?"

Gabrielle spoke first. "What do you mean, angels got cast down? That's..."

"The scribe, Metatron." Cas spoke softly. "We...happened across him during our attempts to recover all the tablets and complete the trials. He...approached me with a spell that he said would force all the angels to Heaven." Cas paused. "After Raphael...it was chaos in Heaven. Numerous factions, all fighting for control. Metatron said the spell would force them to come together, to iron out their differences. I...believed him. But the truth was the spell was meant to cast out the Heavenly Host and lock them out of Heaven. I didn't know until the last moment. And then...I was powerless." His gaze flicked to Gabrielle, then away. "Metatron trapped me, then took my Grace as the last spell component and sent me to Earth as human."

"Son of a..." Gabrielle sat back, eyes full of shock. "So the entire family is running around Earth?" Her brow furrowed. "But...you aren't powerless."

"I...took another angel's Grace in self-defense. And a few months ago we forced Metatron to restore my true Grace to me."

"You know, instead of this little discussion, perhaps we could get a cliff notes version, and maybe get on to the reason we're all here sometime this decade?" Crowley raised a pointed eyebrow. "Because I'd really like to know what in hell is going on."

"Yeah. So...Metatron cast out the host. Sammy nearly died from the trials. Took some angelic assistance to come back from that. Cas got turned temporarily human. And we still had Abaddon, Knight of Hell, running around the damn place." Dean sighed. "Short version is, Cas was working on the angel angle. Then Metatron got his claws into the angel helping Sammy, got him to kill Kevin. After that, Sam and Cas went after Metatron, while I went after Abaddon. Couldn't take her by myself, so Crowley suggested I pick up the First Blade."

John frowned. "I heard of it. But I was never able to locate it. Nor was my partner for that hunt."

"Yeah, well, King of Hell has some extra resources. We tracked the Blade. Only, turns out, the First Blade isn't anything more than an old jawbone of an ass, unless you pick up the Mark of Cain. Then it turns into this cycle, the two feeding each other. Juices you up. Also drives you bat-shit demonic crazy." Dean grimaced. "So...I ganked Abaddon. Cas managed to engineer a take-over, depose Metatron, get the angels back to heaven through a back door."

Sam sighed. "Right now, the back-door is the only way into or out of Heaven. And angels who come to Earth...they can't fly. Their abilities are seriously impaired."

"No surprise there. Angels are powered by heavenly energy. Can't get to it, the mojo can run thin awful fast." Gabrielle nodded to Dean. "So...you got Mark of Cain, huh?"

"I wish. Actually, I don't have the Mark." Dean pulled up his sleeves.

Crowley sat forward to study Dean's arm, then leaned back with an expression of satisfaction. "Well...wonders never cease. Bloody spell actually worked."

"Yeah, but there's a problem." Sam finished his beer, set the bottle on the table with a clunk. "Turns out, the Mark of Cain was originally the key God used to seal the Darkness, the source of all chaos and evil, away from the world."

Gabrielle went wide-eyed. "Hold on a sec. You're saying my brother transferred the key to the most powerful force of evil imaginable, so bad even Dad couldn't destroy it, to a human dude and let him walk off with it?" She sat back, exasperation on her face. "I always said he was a bag of dicks."

"Yeah. Thing is, we destroyed the Mark. And when we did..."

"You let the Darkness out of it's box." Bobby finished.

"Yeah. That's the size of it."

"Oh, now that is just fantastic." Gabrielle grimaced. "Really genius move there, boys."

"Shut up. Point is, it's done. And now every monster in existence is supercharged. Demons are running wild, and they can't be hurt the way they used to be hurt." Dean's gaze flicked to Crowley. "Rowena set herself up as Queen of Hell. Don't ask me how, but somehow she and that damned spell-book have some sort of freaky tie between them. She's...man, she's nasty. The stuff she's doing makes Abaddon look practically tame."

"That's Mother for you." Crowley grimaced.

"Plus, Metatron has the demon tablet. And it's done something to him as well. We didn't get close enough to look, really, but we know he's used it to marshal the forces of Hell and lay siege to Heaven. They're holding out, but it's close, and it means that none of the angels there can do anything about what's happening here."

Gabrielle looked to Cas. The angel nodded. "I tried to get to Heaven. It was...impossible. Hannah is running Heaven, and she's a good soldier, but she cannot break the siege. The last two attempts resulted in casualties and no progress."

Sam set his second beer down. "And that's why we did the spell. We were looking for a way to try and...stop this, turn the tide, something. Even re-create the Mark of Cain or something. Most of the options we found were kind of...kamikaze missions, more or less. It might help, but it'd probably kill whoever used the spell. And then...we found this one." He reached down, picked up the book he'd brought up and set it on the table, open to a specific page. "Theoretically, it summons and empowers a group of chosen champions or something. Supposedly, those champions receive instructions on what to do to...fix things I guess."

"So you cast that spell, and it...brought us here?" John studied the book. "You're sure?"

"Yeah. I just don't know what to do." Sam leaned against the table.

Bobby stood up slowly. His brow was furrowed. "I think I know." He reached into a vest pocket and pulled out a slim volume, and threw it on the table. "We follow this."

Author's Note: So...what do people think of the champions?

Yeah, there was a lot of rehashing in this chapter, but I felt like everyone needed to be brought up to speed. Otherwise there are too many landmines waiting for these guys. There's enough left as it is.

Yes, Gabriel came back as a woman and is now Gabrielle. Don't ask me why. That's just how the archangel wanted it to be. And...archangel vs writer? Not gonna argue. I might get angel induced writers block...

Yes, I know Crowley is a demon. There's a reason he's there.

Next up...instruction book.