Epilogue

April 10, 2009. Norfolk, Nebraska.

Dean leaned back against the Impala, arms crossed over his chest as he tried to keep his body heat against a chill, damp wind that blew maliciously through the open parking lot. He could've waited in the car, he thought, hunching deeper into his coat, but he couldn't sit still.

The path you're on is truly in your blood. You're a hunter. Not because your dad made you, not because God called you back from Hell, but because it is what you are. And you love it. You'll find your way to it in the dark every single time and you're miserable without it. Dean, let's be real here. You're good at this. You'll be successful. You will stop it.

He shivered at the memory of the angel's words. Pulled from the hospital, healed to leave no trace of the beating he'd gotten at Alastair's hands, his memories filed under Unfound and for what? Some fucking dick with wings getting his jollies trying to make him understand that he had a job to do, as if he'd ever managed to forget that goddamned fact for even five minutes in his life.

His fists curled tighter under his arms and he looked around at the sound of the engine, watching a white pickup turn into the driveway and roll slowly across the asphalt lot toward him.

"Well, I'm here." Ellie got out, the wind whipping her hair around her face, its fiery colour vibrant against the drab day. "You want to go inside–?"

"No," he said shortly, straightening against the car as he looked at her. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"Goddamn it, Ellie, you know what!" he said, his voice rising. "Why didn't you tell me I broke the first Seal?!"

"I tried to," she said, leaning back against the door of her pickup. "You wouldn't listen, you didn't want to talk about it."

He turned away, brows drawn together. "You didn't think that was something I needed to know? Something that I would've heard better from you than from a demon?"

"Yeah, Dean, I did think it was something you needed to know," Ellie said, her voice sharp. "I just couldn't think of a way to get you to listen without–"

She stopped abruptly and looked around the cold lot. "Where's Sam?"

"At Bobby's," he said, ducking his head as he leaned against the car.

"What happened?" she asked.

He shook his head, mouth compressing tightly. "Nothing, forget it," he said, turning to the door and pulling it open.

"Don't do this, Dean," Ellie said, striding across the space between the truck and car and grabbing the door as he got in.

"Let go," he said, staring through the windshield.

"No," she told him, curling her fingers around the edge. "You want to slam it, you'll take my hand with it."

He shrugged and slid across the seat the driver's side, keeping his gaze fixed ahead as she got in after him and pulled the door closed.

"What happened?"

She wasn't going to give up, he thought, as angry with himself as he was with her. She'd been in Minnesota when he'd left the message on her phone to meet him here.

"Cas told me they needed help."

"With what?"

"Someone was killing angels," he said, looking at the wheel in frustration as he realised he was going to have to tell her more than he wanted to. A lot more. "They thought it was demons."

"And? What did they want you to do?" she asked.

He turned and looked at her then, his expression drawn. "What they thought I was good at."

"Oh, god, Dean–"

"Turned out that I wasn't, not good enough," he cut her off, looking back through the windshield, the immediate understanding in her voice slicing through him.

"It was Alastair, he was – he, uh, was the one that …" he trailed off, finding that he couldn't say it, not out loud. Not to her.

"The demon who trained you in Hell," Ellie finished, her voice expressionless.

His pulse had accelerated, compressing his chest as he nodded. "You knew about that?"

"Yeah, I knew about it," she said. "The angels wanted you to torture him? For information?"

"Yeah." He sat there, looking down at his hands, wondering why he'd thought he was going to be able those things a secret from her.

A part of him had wanted it, he knew. Had wanted to tear the demon into pieces (carve him into a new animal). Had wanted it so badly he'd been shaking when he'd picked up the flask of holy and the knife. The part that scared him. But Alastair had taken everything he could do and laughed at it, and with a few words, the demon had cut him into him so deeply he'd been unable to do anything, shattered him so far beyond repair that if Zachariah hadn't done his thing, he'd still be in the hospital, he thought, lying there, wanting to die and unable to.

"I told you the angels were behind most of this," she said, her voice thicker, deeper. He shrugged.

"Why didn't you make me listen?" Anything would've been better than having Alastair drive that knife in. "You knew all of it, didn't you? That the prophecy was about me, that without me they couldn't even break the first seal?"

Ellie was silent, and he finally turned to look at her, seeing her turn her head away.

"You didn't want to believe it," she said, her back to him. "Sam knew it. He didn't want to believe it either. Didn't want to know that he'd been the bait for you."

"I'm not a righteous man," he said, his voice so low it was hardly audible.

"You were – you are," she said, ducking her head. "You aren't law-abiding, but you always knew what was right. And that's what it's about, you know?"

She was right about that, he thought, unable to figure out how she knew that about him when he hadn't been able to see it for himself. He knew what was right. Where the line was. Dragging in a deep breath, he tipped his head back onto the seat.

"I broke."

The admission came out hard, scraping over him. He'd learned that everything he'd feared, growing up, trying so hard to ignore, had been true. He was weak.

"No, you didn't," she said, turning halfway back, staring through the windshield. "If you had, you'd still be down there."

Shaking his head, he looked at her profile. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"You were the only they could use, Dean," she said softly. "They tried – Azazel tried – to use your father, but they couldn't. And they couldn't use Sam. And the angels left you in Hell long enough to get what they wanted."

Pulled out all the stops, but John, he was, well, made of something unique. The stuff of heroes. And then came Dean. Dean Winchester. I thought I was up against it again. But daddy's little girl, he broke. He broke in thirty. Oh, just not the man your daddy wanted you to be, huh, Dean?

Closing his eyes, he twisted away from the memory. Alastair had used the comparison deliberately, he'd known that. Used his own doubt against him. The demon had known where to press, where it hurt the most. He leaned against the car door, his throat tight and full. If he'd known … if he'd thought he was the one, would he have gotten off? He didn't know. He didn't know and that too was breaking him, over and over.

"Dean, I wanted to tell you, in Ohio," Ellie said hesitantly.

He could feel her eyes on him, feel her uncertainty and pity and the feeling made him cringe, inside. Rubbing his hand over his face, he forced memory and emotion back, drove it down.

"You didn't try hard enough," he said, his voice bitter.

"No, I didn't," she admitted readily. "I thought I'd have another chance."

"Yeah, well, Alastair beat you to it."

"I'm sorry."

He turned his head toward her, then looked away. He was sorry too. He didn't think he could've done it any other way, didn't think he could've stood to tell her the truth in Ohio and it didn't matter now.

"They keep telling me I'm the one who's gonna stop this," he said, scowling as he heard his voice rise a little higher.

"That's the prophecy," she agreed cautiously.

"It's impossible," he said. "I'm not – I'm not the right man for this, I'm not strong enough for this. I'm – fuck, I can't find all the pieces that used to be here."

He shifted uncomfortably on the seat, not wanting to talk about it anymore, but having to anyway. "Sam's trying to find Lilith, he says he's gonna be strong enough to kill her – how?"

Ellie didn't respond and he risked a sideways look at her, seeing her profile as she looked straight ahead at the spatter of raindrops hitting the lot.

"Can you stop him?" she asked, her expression distant.

"I don't know, I – I don't know how, I don't even know if I should," he said, staring at her. "Why?"

"Something Uriel said – when he –" She shook her head. "I can't remember exactly, but it was something about killing Lilith, something about no one killing her until …"

"Until what?"

"I don't know," she said, her voice edged in frustration. "Can Sam do it?"

"Maybe," he said, not sure of that himself. Cas had told him that his brother had vaporised Alastair, slammed the demon against the wall and burned him from the inside out. "He killed Alastair."

She caught her lower lip between her teeth. "With his abilities? His mind?"

He nodded. "He was strong again, after we dropped you back at Richmond, he just got stronger."

"Doing what?"

He shrugged. "I didn't see him doing anything."

"No one is killing Lilith until the time is right," Ellie said suddenly, her eyes opening wide.

"What?"

"That's what Uriel said, in the – the wherever he took me," she said. "No one is killing Lilith until the time is right."

"Right for who?"

"Right for them," she said, certainty filling her voice. "And Sam might be the only one now who could do it."

"Because Ruby helped him," Dean said, his voice flat as his brows drew together tightly. The phone calls. The secret visits. "Because Ruby showed him how."

"What did Sam say about how he was getting stronger?"

Dean shook his head. "I – I didn't ask."

He couldn't ask, he knew. Sam hadn't seen Ruby for weeks, not that he'd known of, at least, he thought, and he'd been out of action for weeks. He didn't want to ask his little brother and find out that Sam was doing something that would put him squarely into the monster camp. If I didn't know you, I would want to hunt you. The memory of saying that to his little brother came back strongly and he swallowed hard against it. The siren in Iowa had only proved that Sam wasn't telling him the whole story.

"There are only two or three seals left," Ellie said.

"I know." He chewed on the corner of his lip as he stared through the windshield, watching the rain running down over the glass without seeing it. "Why us? Why'd it have to be us?"

Beside him, Ellie sighed. "Penemue said that it was the bloodlines. Winchester and Campbell, descended from two of the angels that fell before Lucifer started his war with Heaven."

"What's that even mean? That we're angels?" He turned to her, scowling.

"No. Not really," she said, shaking her head. "Just compatible, somehow, with them."

He looked away, his expression hardening. "So, it'll never be over."

She didn't respond and he felt his anger at her dissolving in the silence. She was right, he thought uneasily. He hadn't wanted to know about the seal, hadn't wanted to talk about what he'd done, how he'd broken – hadn't wanted to see the disappointment in her eyes. His jaw tightened a little as he realised he hadn't wanted her to see how far he'd fallen from what he'd thought he was, what he'd wanted to be.

He looked back as Ellie straightened up in the seat and reached for the door.

"Where are you going?" he asked, the feeling that they hadn't finished here twisting through his gut.

"There's a job," she said, her hand on the door catch. "I was on my way when I got your message. I need to go."

"What the hell I'm supposed to do about all this?"

She turned then, looking over her shoulder at him. "Follow your instincts," she said, her voice cool. "You'll figure it out, you don't need anyone."

It was a slap, and he stared at her, his jaw clenching to keep his denial behind his teeth. He needed help, for fuck's sake, as much as he could get, but he couldn't admit to it now, he couldn't let that need – that weakness – out now, not to her.

He watched her open the door, felt the clean, rainswept air blow into the car along with a fine mist of moisture and he said nothing.

Ellie slid halfway out and paused, her head ducked against the rain. "You could've trusted me," she said, very softly.

She didn't wait for a response, the door slamming shut behind her and through the water-smeared window he saw her stride back to her pickup, getting in, heard the engine start, the truck reverse back.

Trust was a commodity that he had little of, these days. He'd always trusted her, without knowing, precisely, why. He still did, he realised very slowly, as he watched her taillights turn out of the lot and disappear up the road. He wondered why he'd been so quick to believe she'd held the information back deliberately, in that case.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Dean parked the Impala in front of the workshop and got out, walking to the house and climbing the stairs to the back porch.

"Where'd you go?" Sam asked, looking up from the laptop on the kitchen table.

"Uh, just, uh …" Dean hedged, swerving to the fridge to pull out a beer. He closed the fridge door, knocking the top off on the counter and turning back to his brother. "Nebraska."

Sam's brow furrowed up. "Nebraska."

"I met Ellie there," Dean said, not sure if it was a good idea to talk about it or not. He hadn't been able to get the misgivings he'd felt on hearing her thoughts on his brother out of his head the entire drive back.

"Oh," Sam said, looking back at the screen. "She okay?"

"Yeah," Dean said, going to the empty chair at the table and pulling it out. "She was on her way, uh, somewhere," he said as he sat down. "I, uh, wanted to ask her about, uh –"

"Why she didn't tell you about the seal?" Sam guessed, closing the screen as he looked over the table at his brother.

"Yeah."

"You wouldn't listen to me either," Sam reminded him.

Dean tipped the bottle up, swallowing a mouthful. Sam was a helluva lot better at lying to him than he ever would be lying to Sam.

"Yeah, well, that's more or less what she said," he admitted, looking down at the closed computer. "You find anything?"

"Maybe," Sam said. "Might be a haunting or poltergeist, in Cleveland."

"Cleveland? Seriously?" Dean asked, nose wrinkling up. "Okay, whatever. What's the story?"

"Not much, building's got retail on the ground floor, apartments above," Sam told him, getting to his feet and going to the fridge for a beer. "Two tenants died in the last six months, two others driven out, one still in a mental hospital."

"Sounds real enough."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "The ground floor store's a book/comic store," he said. "We could start there."

Nodding, Dean finished the beer and tossed it in the trash can behind the back door, getting to his feet. "Leave in the morning?"

"I was thinking tonight," Sam said, gesturing to the row of phones against the wall. "Bobby called a while ago. He's on his way back. We'd be there by morning, get the suits on, first thing."

"Alright."

I-80 E, Illinois

Glancing at the passenger seat, Dean saw Sam was asleep, his tall frame awkwardly crunched into the corner between the seat back and the door.

The interstate ribboned ahead of him, lit up by the headlights, his world reduced to the straight run between the white lines to either side of the car.

Cas had told him that Uriel had been working against them, no surprise there, he'd thought at the time. He'd told him how his brother had broken into the torture room, flicking Alastair off the angel and against the wall, barely breaking a sweat. And whatever it was he'd done – whatever it was he could do, Dean amended silently to himself – Alastair had talked, had told them it wasn't the demons or Lilith that had been killing the angels.

Only an angel could kill an angel. Anna had killed Uriel. Cas didn't say where she'd gone, but it occurred to him that she would've known about the seal as well, could've told him that he'd broken it. Cas had known. He shook his head slightly. He hadn't been mad that the angels hadn't prepared him. Why was that?

Cas was the one who'd seen it – seen him – down there. Knew every detail of what he'd done, had looked at his soul and seen it written there, all of it. Yet the angel hadn't told him.

You don't need anyone.

He flinched back at little at the memory, his fingers tightening around the wheel as another memory crowded in.

Anna, I don't w-want to, uh ... I don't want to ... I can't talk about that.

I know. But when you can, you have people that want to help. You are not alone. That's all I'm trying to say.

The angel, who hadn't even been an angel then, hadn't pressed him, hadn't tried to tell him that it was a whole lot worse than what he'd thought it was. And Ellie had backed off as quickly, he thought, turning the two conversations over in his mind.

Had they all considered him so fucking fragile that he couldn't take the truth, he wondered bitterly? Or had he let everyone see how many pieces he was in and that he couldn't find a way to make himself whole again?

I guess I'm not the man either of our dads wanted me to be, he'd said to Cas, and it was true, wasn't it? Under the siren's spell, Sam had been brutally blunt. It was a poison, the siren's venom, but he hadn't said anything to his brother that hadn't been the truth, and he knew that what the poison had pulled out of Sam had been the same.

You know why I didn't tell you about Ruby, and how we're hunting down Lilith? Because you're too weak to go after her, Dean. You're holding me back. I'm a better hunter than you are. Stronger, smarter. I can take out demons you're too scared to go near.You're too busy sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. Whining about all the souls you tortured in hell. Boo hoo.

It'd been the poison that brought them to that point, the poison that made it seem inevitable, necessary to kill each other … but the poison hadn't put those thoughts in their heads. Those had been there already.

He needed someone, he thought, someone to trust. And he knew that he'd probably blown that out of the water with the one person he did trust, and who'd tried to help, and with whom, someday, he might've been able to tell something of what he'd done and how it had felt.

END

AN: Chronologically, the next meeting of Dean, Sam and Ellie takes place just after episode 4.18 The Monster at the End of this Book, in April 2009. The case they are working is detailed in Roses in December, which is yet to be revised.

The next story in the Ramble On series is If You Needed Somebody, which is set between Good God Y'All and Free To Be You and Me in S5, prior to Dean's solo vampire hunt. This makes it early August 2009.