AN: I feel like I should do a "The Road so far" section. If anyone has any questions, let me know and I will address them.

Disclaimer: The characters other than Rose belong to Kripke. I just own her and she's the least interesting.

A couple of days later, the Winchesters found themselves in Mackinaw, Michigan, hiding from the cops on their way to a local tourist trap that was supposedly haunted. The stories ranged wildly, but the scary man in the green fedora remained consistent. So were the strong EMF readings taken earlier in the day.

It was a big house; built in the Queen Anne Victorian style with two floors, a large attic, and no obvious clues.

"Just once," Rose grumbled as she pulled a flashlight out of her coat pocket. "Just once I wish there'd be a sign saying 'Identity of Ghost Here'."

"Where would the fun be in that?" Dean teased, handing her a sawed-off. She just rolled her eyes and took the gun, cramming some spare shells in yet another pocket. She had bought her sheepskin-lined denim jacket for a few reasons; it did not tear easily, allowed for flexible movement yet did not snag, and was very warm. Also, it had a lot of pockets.

"Okay," Dean said, while Sam diffused the alarm and Rose picked the lock. "I call dibs on the main floor."

Rose pulled a quarter from her pants' pocket. "Flip you for the second floor."

"Tails."

Which is how it landed. "Darn it," she complained, slapping Sam's arm when he sniggered. "Two out of three?"

"No way. You get the attic."

"I hate the attic," she mumbled, mostly to herself. "They're cobwebby and full of crap and spiders." She shivered. "I hate spiders."

It took her three tries to wrench open the door and then five minutes to stop coughing at the dust. "I. Hate. Attics."

The first things she noticed were five old steamer trunks. That was as good a place as any to start looking for clues to the identity of a ghost. She pulled out several old tintype photographs of multiple subjects, all of whom had their eyes closed.

A couple of hundred years ago, it was a common practice to take portraits of people before their death. Rose realized that she was looking at just such a collection of photographs. "Ew."

She heard footsteps on the stairs. She would know either Dean or Sam anywhere. Knew Sam's sort of shuffle he did unless he was actually fighting, knew the sound of Dean's sure movements, knew the time it took for each foot to fall. "Coming to check on me already?"

This was not either of them.

She tightened her grip on her gun and spun around, flashlight trained to the door.

A middle-aged, plump, bald, white guy with a very smug expression came through it. "That gun won't do you any good."

She shot anyway. All it did was ruffle the man's suit.

"I told you."

"But now my brothers know I need help."

"Oh, good." The stranger was pulling a dusty chair out of the corner, suddenly clean, and sat down. "Let's wait for them, then."

"What are you?"

"My name is Zachariah."

Rose recognized the name, and anger flared hot in her stomach. "You killed Cas."

"Technically, that was Raphael."

Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Sam, with Dean hot on his heels, burst through the door, guns leveled. "Rose?" They spotted the angel.

"Who the hell are you?" Dean asked, stepping in front of Sam, trying to edge his way toward Rose.

"Zachariah." The angel smiled at the men's expressions. "Yes, yes, I helped kill Castiel. No point in getting your panties in a twist over it now."

"Then, how about the fact that you let the devil out of the box?" Dean wanted to shoot so badly that his trigger finger started to ache. "Are we supposed to just get over that too? All the people who are going to die?"

Zachariah shrugged. "Yeah, well, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs." He laughed at his own joke. "Or, in this case, truckloads of eggs."

"Sorry if we don't share your flippant,-" Rose and Dean shared an ill-timed, amused look at Sam's vocabulary "-attitude toward human life."

"Actually, we don't care about you anymore." Zachariah waved his hand towards the door. "You can go, at least for now. You've played your part." He gave Rose a smug, condescending look. "And, honestly, I don't know why we bothered you or why you were even born. Doesn't matter either way I suppose." He clapped his hands together and turned all of his attention to Dean. "No, you're the one we need."

"What're you talking about?"

Zachariah snapped his fingers and a large painting appeared in his hands, complete with gilded framing. It depicted a long haired man in shining armor with a scale and a sword stabbing a red devil-like creature with horns and a pitchfork.

"The real thing will be much bloodier of course," he commented, giving the frame a fond pat. "But you get the gist." The painting disappeared. "To win this war, to stop Lucifer, Michael needs his sword." He pointed at the oldest Winchester.

"Me?" Dean took a step back. "I'm a…vessel?"

"No, you're THE vessel," Zachariah contested. "You're the only one Michael can use to fight."

"Why me?"

The angel shrugged. "There are a number of reasons why it could have been you. But then, you broke the first seal, Dean. Alastair wasn't lying. You started this whole thing."

Dean made a choking sound. Rose stepped closer to him and laid her hand on his shoulder while Sam tightened his grip on his gun and considered shooting the angel.

Zachariah closed his eyes. "It is written, As the righteous man breaks the first seal, so shall he end it." He opened his eyes and gave Dean a bright smile, showing a few too many teeth, like someone who had once seen a picture of a grin and was trying to mimic it from memory. "It's your destiny to stop Lucifer."

"Maybe it is," Dean said, swallowing hard around the lump in throat. "I don't know. But you can take your plan, your war, and shove it up your lily-white ass." He kept a straight face at Zachariah's disbelieving expression.

"What, exactly, is so worth saving?" The angel asked. "I look at this world and I see pain, suffering, cruelty, and despair. When we win, and we will win because you and your tiny miserable life won't be able to stop us, everything will be peaceful."

"I guess I should take my 'tiny, miserable life' and do whatever the hell I want." Dean did not expect to get the last word in an argument with an angel. But he was also not expecting Castiel to come and yank him into hyperdrive.

He arrived/teleported/landed next to Sam and Rose in what looked like a park with a playground and benches.

Dean looked around at the normalcy of his surroundings and groaned. "I need a drink."