A/N: Quick announcement in case you missed it, but the S12 finale AU fic that 29Pieces and I wrote together will start posting this Wednesday under her account. It's called "Into the Breach." Hope to see you there!


Chapter 7

"Hey, Cas, you know all human languages, right?"

Castiel looked up from the book he was reading and turned toward Sam. "Yes. Do you need help with a translation?"

"Oh, no." The younger Winchester's mouth quirked almost shyly. "I was wondering if you could teach me sign language."

Castiel cocked his head in curiosity. "Of course. But why do you want to learn?" It didn't seem like something they'd use very often on cases.

"Because Sammy's got a girlfriend," Dean chimed in.

"She's not my girlfriend," Sam huffed.

Castiel glanced between the brothers. "Who's not?"

Sam heaved a sigh. "Remember the legacy we told you we met on that banshee case a few weeks ago? Eileen?"

"Yes. You said she's also a hunter. And deaf."

Sam nodded. "Well, we've been emailing, exchanging Men of Letters resources. And I figured that if we happened to run into each other on a case in the future…it'd, uh, be nice if I could communicate with her, in her language."

"Be sure to teach him how to say 'you're hot' and 'let's get a room,'" Dean said.

"Dude, what is wrong with you?" Sam scowled.

Ryn, who was lounging with a book in the plush chair in the corner, picked up an accent pillow off the floor and chucked it at Dean's head without looking. The pillow smacked him in the face, then fell into his lap. He didn't react for a beat, except to work his jaw as though he'd gotten cotton fibers in his mouth.

"Thank you," Sam directed to Ryn before turning back to Castiel. "I did take a class in college, but that was so long ago, I really only remember a few words."

"We can review the alphabet first," Castiel said.

Yet before he could begin, his vision abruptly blurred and a horrible screeching filled his head. Castiel shot his hands up to his temples, biting back a cry as it suddenly felt like his skull was on the verge of splitting.

"Castiel," an amplified chorus of voices resounded over angel radio. "For the crimes you have committed against Heaven in conceiving an abomination with the phoenix creature, you are to submit to divine judgement. You both will surrender outside the Winchesters' bunker, or we are prepared to obliterate you in it, along with the entire state of Kansas."

"Cas! Cas!"

Castiel sucked in a harsh gasp as the transmission cut off, leaving his head still ringing. He blinked furiously to clear his vision, and found Sam kneeling on the floor directly in front of him, hands on his forearms to keep him from falling out of his chair. Another blink, and he noticed Dean was on his right, gripping his shoulder. Ryn stood behind them, eyes wide and worried.

"Cas, hey," Sam's voice broke through his haze, and the younger Winchester gave him a small shake to snap him out of his stupor. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"Angels," he gasped out, surging from his chair and almost throwing Sam flat on his ass. The hunter managed to catch himself on the edge of the table in time and haul himself to his feet. "Angels are right outside. They- they know about Ryn and the baby."

Dean's eyes widened. "What? How the hell did they even find out?"

Castiel shook his head. "I don't know."

But he should have known the angels would discover it eventually. Either now or sometime after the baby was born. And of course they would view the child as an intolerable abomination that needed to be destroyed, just as Castiel had at first.

"Okay, well, the bunker's warded," Dean said, donning his take-charge tone that was gearing up for a fight. "None of them are getting in here."

"They are prepared to deliver a mass smiting like they did against the Darkness," Castiel informed them, turning to meet Ryn's eyes with nothing but terror in his heart. "And destroy Kansas if we don't surrender."

Sam sputtered. "What? They can't do that!"

"They will," Castiel said grimly. And he couldn't allow it to happen.

"Well, we can talk to them," Sam urged. "Convince them the baby isn't a threat to anyone."

Castiel shook his head. "They won't listen, and there's no time. Dean, Sam, get Ryn out of here. I'll hold the angels off long enough for you to escape."

Dean blanched. "Cas, no."

"Yes." He turned and gripped Dean's arm hard. "Keep them safe," he pleaded.

"No," Ryn snapped, shoving her way forward to take his face in her hands. "I am not leaving you."

The bunker began to shake, and alarms started blaring as the map table in the war room suddenly lit up with flashing red lights.

Castiel's heart constricted, and he spared a split second to drink in Ryn's fiery passion and steadfast courage one last time. "You have to."

He pushed her into Dean's arms.

"Cas," Sam stammered. "We'll never make it if they're going to smite the entire state."

"They won't," he said. "Get in the car and give me five minutes. Then run."

"Cas, what are you gonna do?" Dean pressed, fear evident in his voice.

"What I said, hold them off." He turned toward the corridor, only to stop and pivot back around to press his mouth to Ryn's. "I will try to find you," he promised. If he was able.

Castiel tore himself away and broke into a run down the hallway toward the archive rooms. Back when he had been avoiding his problems by spending a week in there, he'd discovered an object that had been tucked into a box of miscellaneous items the Men of Letters had suspected as being important, but didn't know how—a Hand of God.

He couldn't fault the supernatural scholars for overlooking such a powerful object, as all they would have seen were the ancient remains of a male's hip bone. Their notes even indicated their skepticism that it held any value, but they'd saved it because local stories from where they'd acquired it insisted the item was deadly and sacred.

And it was. Castiel only had to brush past it to sense the power signature within. One night in the wilderness, Jacob had wrestled with God, and God had touched his hip to dislocate it. Somehow that bone had found its way into the Men of Letters bunker. But since the Darkness had already been dealt with and such immense power no longer needed, Castiel had filed it away.

Now, it would help him save his family.

He snatched it off the shelf, keeping it wrapped in its canvas cover as he made his way back through the bunker and up the stairs to the front door. He burst outside into a squall, wind thrashing violently through the trees and whipping his coat about his legs. Castiel veered around the bunker's opening and began to ascend the mound, having to claw his fingers into the soil to keep from being blown back down.

He staggered onto the rise as the clouds directly above churned into a gathering vortex. Letting the protective cloth get ripped away in the gales, Castiel clutched his hand around the hip bone, activating its power. The Hand of God began to glow, and burning energy poured down into Castiel's hand and up his arm like molten lava. It zinged through his grace and swelled to ten times his normal capacity.

The heavens began to glow with the same measure of summoned power, prepared to unleash its divine wrath. Castiel thrust the Hand of God high in the air, and shot a beam of light into the cyclone. The sky cracked and thundered, golden hues rippling out through the storm clouds as power collided in Heaven. Castiel poured every ounce of that power into neutralizing the angel smiting.

After several long moments, the Hand of God fizzed out, and the last of its power erupted from Castiel's hand with a whoosh. He staggered, and twisted his head up to see if he had succeeded. The vortex was gone, clouds petering out in fading wisps. The wind died down.

He nearly sagged in relief.

The familiar rumble of the Impala's engine echoed up to his ears, and Castiel looked out over the road to watch it speed away in the distance, safe.

His respite was short-lived, for a handful of angels bearing angel blades climbed up the mound and surrounded him. Castiel dropped his blade into his hand, prepared to fight even though the odds were against him.

"Brothers, please…" he tried, but they attacked. Castiel parried one blow and ducked under another. He did not want to kill his brethren, and tried to slash out at nonfatal areas to disable them instead.

But he was outnumbered. He thrust his blade up to block, celestial alloy grating as the hilts locked. Another angel moved in to grab his other arm and wrench it behind his back. A third solider put their blade to his throat, and Castiel froze. He had lost.

His blade was pried from his grip, and then that arm was torqued painfully behind him and someone else grabbed a fistful of his hair, yanking his head back to expose his throat even more to the blade pressed against it. He was then yanked around to face another angel in a male vessel who was walking calmly up the hill.

"Hannah," Castiel gritted out through clenched teeth. "I can explain."

She just shook her head as she roved her gaze over him in loathing and disgust. "There is nothing to say, Castiel. Except where the Winchesters have taken the abomination."

Castiel could barely move, but he managed to lift his chin a fraction in defiance. He would never give them up.

Hannah's eyes flashed with fury. "Fine. Bring him."

The fist in his hair released him, but a black hood was thrown over his head a second later and the cold bite of steel clamped around his wrists. Castiel's grace instantly dimmed under the power of the Enochian sigils, and as he was roughly manhandled down the side of the hill, his heart fractured at the knowledge that he wouldn't be able to keep the last promise he had made to his family.


Sam kept ducking his head to look through the sideview mirror at the distant sky behind them, watching as the last of the storm clouds gradually dissipated. Whatever Cas had done, he'd managed to stop the imminent mass smiting, save the town, county, and state. That didn't ease the feeling of dread gripping Sam's heart, though.

"Turn the car around," Ryn demanded.

"Can't do that," Dean responded gruffly, keeping the speedometer revving at ninety miles per hour as they careened down the highway.

"Dammit, Dean, I am not an invalid. I can still fight!"

Sam flicked a nervous look over his shoulder into the backseat, catching a gleam of reflected light stirring in Ryn's pupils. He didn't even want to think about what bursting into flames would do to the baby.

"Those are angels back there," he said, unable to keep the bite of hatred out of his tone. "They will kill you on sight, you understand that? And they have weapons that can do it, too. Think about the baby."

Ryn shook her head, eyes glistening. "They will kill him."

Sam looked at his brother as Dean's jaw jerked with barely contained rage and helpless fury. Cas had bought them the time they'd needed to escape, knowingly sacrificing himself in the process. Unless he'd somehow managed to get away, evade the angels that'd probably be on the ground outside the bunker. Sam reached for his phone and pulled up his GPS tracking app. His pulse stuttered.

"Cas's phone is moving."

"What?" Dean whipped his head to the side. "You think he got away?"

Sam's mouth tightened as he watched the red blip traveling much too quickly to be someone on foot, and in the opposite direction they themselves were headed. "I- I don't know. I don't think so."

Ryn leaned forward against the bench seat. "We have to go back."

"No," Dean adamantly maintained. "I promised Cas I'd keep you safe."

"Safe's kinda out the window, don't you think?" she rejoined.

Sam shot his brother a strained look; she kinda had a point there. The bunker was the most secure place on the planet—or so they'd thought. They obviously couldn't go back there now, so where the hell were they supposed to go?

Sam returned his attention to his phone, watching until the red dot finally came to a stop in an area where he knew there was nothing but old abandoned buildings. Heart sinking in resignation, Sam tilted his phone for Dean to see. His brother's throat bobbed, and Sam knew what he was thinking: either Cas had somehow gotten his hands on a vehicle and was now taking cover somewhere isolated…or he'd been brought out to a location where no one would hear any screams.

"Okay," Dean said, wringing his hands around the steering wheel. "We need to stash Ryn somewhere safe and then go back for Cas."

"I can go with you," she persisted.

"No, no," Dean shot down. "Cas gave himself up so you could get away. You are not getting anywhere near another angel."

Sam fisted his hands in his lap. "Crowley," he ground out.

Dean flashed him a bewildered look. "What?"

Sam didn't like it, not at all, but they didn't have many options at the moment. "The only place pretty much guaranteed not to have any angels is with the King of Hell."

Dean looked stunned at the idea, or maybe because it was Sam suggesting it. "Yeah, you're right."

He immediately pulled the Impala over on the side of the highway and got out. Sam and Ryn followed, Sam scanning the area to make sure they didn't have any mooks on their trail. They were lucky the angels never got their wings back; otherwise they'd have been done for.

Dean had Crowley on speed dial, which still irked Sam a bit. But the demon had come through for them with the Darkness. Actually, it seemed as though he came through for them a lot more often than their 'good allies.' And right now they needed that kind of reliability.

"Crowley," Dean said. "Highway 281, mile marker 193. It's urgent."

Crowley appeared a split second later, no arguments, no fuss, phone still pressed to his ear. Maybe he wanted to deliver a snarky retort in person, but the instant his eyes landed on Ryn, whatever he'd been about to say floundered soundlessly on gaping lips.

"You boys are worth more than a soap opera," he finally managed. "Which one of you cheating swine knocked up your best friend's girl?"

"It's Cas's, alright?" Dean snapped, gesturing protectively at Ryn.

Crowley's brows rose sharply. "Is it now? Well, that's even more delightful. Where is Feathers?"

"The angels found out and now all of Heaven is after us," Sam explained.

Crowley paused for a beat. "I see," he mused.

"Sam and I need to go get him," Dean said. "But we need to stash Ryn somewhere safe."

Sam didn't think it was possible for the King of Hell to look more flabbergasted.

"And you naturally thought of me. I'm touched. Does this make me Uncle Crowley now?"

"What? No!" Dean scowled.

"Will you help us or not?" Sam demanded.

Crowley angled a considering look at Ryn. "Alright. My lair is warded against everything imaginable. Not even the angels will find you there."

Sam blinked dubiously. That was…unexpected. They hadn't even had to talk him into it with threats or bribes.

Ryn crossed her arms and glared at him. "And what do you want in return?"

A muscle in Sam's cheek ticked; he hadn't been letting himself ask that question…because they were pretty much desperate enough to do anything Crowley wanted. And the longer they delayed here, the greater chance that Cas could be caught and killed, if he hadn't been already.

"Nothing," the demon said blithely, eliciting a suspicious look from Sam.

"Nothing?" he repeated.

"Nothing as of this moment," Crowley clarified. "But I scratch your back, you scratch mine. It's what allies do, isn't it?"

Sam gritted his teeth. It wasn't a binding contract, which was probably the best they were going to get.

"Yeah," Dean said, then gestured for Ryn to go with the demon.

Ryn's mouth was pressed into a thin line of displeasure, but she forced herself to walk forward and move to stand next to Crowley, meeting the Winchesters' eyes earnestly. "Bring him back."

Sam nodded. "We will," he promised.

Crowley typed something out on his phone, and a second later Dean's own pinged. "There's the address. Try not to bring the dogs on your heels." With that, he placed a hand on Ryn's arm and disappeared with her.

Sam really hoped they'd just done the right thing. But as Ryn had said, she wasn't a weakling to be taken advantage of. Sam figured that if Crowley did decide to try anything, she'd barbecue him faster than a chicken wing.

Sam looked over his brother's shoulder at the text Crowley had sent. The 'lair' was in Massachusetts. Damn, that was gonna take them a while to get to, even if they tracked Cas down within the next hour. But, at least it meant Ryn and the baby were far away from the angels' reach.

Sam met Dean's gaze, and they exchanged a staunch nod. Time to get Cas back.