AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I'm super sick so if this has type-os or wrong words in weird places, I apologize and will fix them when I'm less blech feeling.

Originally, this story was going to take place more around 5.07.

However, after 5.10, it has to take place after that—it makes FAR more sense.

The Milly storyline is really complicated and yet not complicated at all, and makes FAR more sense after 5.10.

You'll understand that soon enough.

Warnings: Language, Sensuality, Sex, Violence, Dark Themes, Drugs.

ENJOY!!

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The question caught her off guard for a moment but she pulled him with her around the way and took a deep breath. He was starting to feel that he was going to lose yet again someone else and he couldn't take that. If he was going to lose someone else he cared about it was going to break even more than he was already broken, and he didn't know how much more of this he could take.

"Milly explain to me now." Dean told her.

She shook her head. "First you have to call Sam and tell him that you're fine. I can't see Grace, Dean…please."

"All right." Dean replied with a small sigh, taking his phone out and calling his brother. "You owe me some explanations."

"I know I do, and Cas can help with that." Milly admitted, holding onto his jacket and looking up at him lovingly as he called Sam.

Sam looked at his cell phone and answered it. "Hey, Dean. Where are you?"

"I'm actually almost back to the motel. You sound like you have something important to talk to me about." Dean told him, wishing he didn't have this gut-wrenching feeling in the pit of his stomach like it was all too good to be true.

Sam took a deep breath. "Milly knew Cas. Grace explained to me that Milly was talking about him before he died and I…I don't think that this is all one big coincidence, Dean. Especially since Grace has been seeing her. She suddenly shows up after everything we've been through? After Lucifer summoned the Angel of Death? Dean…we have to look into this."

"I'll keep that in mind, Sammy. I'm almost there so why don't you send Grace home and thank her for everything." Dean told him, hanging up the phone and looking at Milly. "You're not the Angel of Death, are you? Like an angel using Milly as your damn vessel?"

"Dean, I'm not an angel." Milly told him truthfully.

Dean nodded slowly and stroked her hair, taking a deep breath and trying to see if he could piece it all together without any other information. There was something else going on and he had to know what that was—he had to know why all of this was happening to him now. There were more important things going on in the world, and for this to be happening to him now? Sam was right—this was not a coincidence.

"Before we head into your motel room, we should test some things." Milly explained to him reaching for his knife and cutting into her hand. "For example this stings, but I have no reaction to it so I'm definitely not a revenant. Holy Water?"

Dean handed it to her and then chuckled a little when she asked for the salt first, making a face when she ate some of it, then washed it down with Holy Water and gagged. It wasn't pleasant, but it proved to him that she was at least human. If Castiel was definitely her guardian angel though, it made sense…which meant that there was one more thing to test out.

"I was in Hell once, Mill…do you have any distinct marks on you?" Dean asked her.

Milly smirked a little. "Other than the ones you've already seen?"

Dean stroked Milly's hair softly as he pulled her naked body tighter to his, kissing her forehead as she looked up at him with sleepy eyes. The night before had been the first night that the two had slept together and for some reason that morning Dean didn't want to leave her—ever. Milly was so different from any other woman he had ever met or been with and as close as they were now, Dean just wanted to be even closer.

"I'm not a machine, Perv." Milly told him lovingly, smiling at him and nuzzling his nose with hers. "Was it worth the wait?"

Dean chuckled and kissed her. "I guess so."

"Oh you just 'guess so', huh?" Milly teased, crawling on top of him and tucking her hair behind her ears. "I certainly didn't do my job then."

"However will we rectify that?" Dean asked her, kissing her softly and grunting when she rocked against him a little. "I thought you weren't a machine."

Milly giggled and kissed him again, shifting her body against his a little, both of them happy about the skin on skin contact. They were in love, and though neither of them had said it yet and Milly was the only one willing to admit it to herself internally, they were. Dean cared about her far more than anyone else, and he would die for her. He wouldn't truly admit it to himself until that fateful night she caught him talking to John on the phone and was faced with losing her or coming clean about everything and hoping that she would accept him for who he truly was.

"Baby, what's this scar?" Dean asked her, his fingers running along a scar on her abdomen.

Milly glanced down in between them from her perch and bit her lip, smiling sadly. "That is where they cut into me to remove an ovary…too much information?"

"No, but…why would they do that?" Dean asked her curiously, a little upset he had paused the rocking against each other.

"I got a nasty virus and it affected a lot of different parts of me—I got part of my liver taken out too." She lied, knowing she couldn't tell him about the cancer…that she couldn't worry him with such things. "Why are we chatting? We were kinda getting to the place I think you were trying to get to when you woke me up…"

Dean smiled at her and kissed her again, holding her close to him, both of them actually kind of intrigued by the marks each other had, and the stories behind him…the stories that at that point were more like half truths…

Dean smiled at her and nodded, glad to know she still had the playfulness in her even though she really had no reason whatsoever to be playful right then. She was going against her own orders just to be with him, and as grateful as he was, he knew how grave things were. He watched as she nodded, lifting up her shirt a little to show him the handprint on her—the handprint that looked slightly different from his own on his shoulder.

"I…there's something off about it." Dean admitted.

Milly smiled at him and put her shirt down. "Yes, because you are so well versed in angelic handprints on human bodies, Dean—I wasn't in Hell. My soul was taken out of Heaven to be put back in my body. Nevertheless, when a soul is dragged back to its flesh, that is the work of an angel, and a mark is left behind."

"I'm glad you never had to be in Hell." Dean told her firmly.

"Me too…but I hate that you had to endure it all." Milly explained sadly, nodding as he looked at her questioningly. "I know so much more than you think I do. I actually was an angel kind of if we're having a Milly/Dean truth-out." She told him and then took a deep breath and ran her fingers through her hair as he gaped at her. "Castiel granted me that much and though at first I didn't understand why, I soon got it all pointed out to me. I saw you and Sam reunite, I saw Sam die, I saw you sell your soul, I saw you in Hell, I saw Sam drinking demon blood, I saw the fighting and the destinies unfolding—I saw your heart break when you had to say goodbye to one of your dearest friends a few weeks ago after she saved you. I saw you try and kill Lucifer and it not working. I mean honestly, I kind of doubted it—the gun was supposed to kill demons. Lucifer is a fallen angel. He created demons…he isn't one."

Dean nodded slowly as he tried to take it in. "How are you a 'kind of angel'?"

Milly smiled at him when he asked the question because she had a feeling that taking in that she knew it all would be the easy part for him. The hard part for him to accept was that she knew all of it because of her 'angelic' ties to Heaven. Truth was she wasn't really an angel…she had just been granted the knowledge in case she and Dean had to meet before her task was complete. She was never supposed to jumpstart that meeting—in fact most of the angels had really hoped the two would never meet, and she could do her job and then her soul could once again be laid to rest.

"I was bestowed with knowledge—I don't actually have wings, or healing powers…I can't even just poof from one place to the next. I'm…I'm a vessel too…just like you." Milly explained and then bit her lip. "You know I think I know why Cas didn't want me coming to see you."

Dean frowned and reached out to take hold of Milly's arm. "Don't you dare disappear on me."

"Dean…Cas cares about you and he wants you safe. He wanted you to be able to protect your heart from more pain when I had to…die again." Milly said slowly and her heart broke as the pain swept over all of Dean's facial features. "Baby, you can't handle watching one more person die."

"Especially not when they're going to sacrifice themselves!" Dean yelled, slamming his fist into the side of the motel. "Ellen and Jo were my family! I already lost Mom, and Dad, and Pamela, and a whole slew of people that shouldn't have been caught in the cross fires! Hell, Bobby wants to give up and I can't live if he dies! Now I have to lose you twice?! Tell me why that is, Milly! Now!"

Milly swallowed at the demand in his voice but nodded when he punched the side of the motel one more time, staring at her. He wasn't entirely angry at her—he was angry at the angels and their 'destiny' crap that Milly was now trying to peddle to him. He just wanted to understand why all of this was happening to him. She had come back to him and at first he had thought it was a miracle, but now he was more convinced than ever that it was just a ploy—that she was purely an instrument of the angels to wear him down.

"You and Sam were brought here under false pretenses…well, mostly." Milly began, tucking her loose hair behind her ears. "The mutilated bodies? The deaths? It's the work of Hellhounds. There are only two other people in this town that have made crossroads deals who will be torn to pieces by Hell hounds and their times aren't up yet and you can't save them from that fate."

Dean nodded slowly. "All right…what about the rest of it?"

"Dean there is a lot going on here, and—" Milly tried.

"—MILLY TELL ME!" Dean thundered at her, reaching out to stroke her hair to physically apologize for yelling at her like that.

Milly swallowed. "I'm here because I'm taking your place."

Dean raised his eyebrows and made a face—he didn't actually understand what it was that she was saying to him, and he was pretty sure that unless she stopped looking at him and explained it, he was never going to get it. What the Hell did she mean by 'take his place'?

"Milly…" Dean tried, but trailed off when he thought of nothing else to say.

Milly started to tear up. "Being a vessel is in your blood, Dean. Michael picked you, and he wanted to use you, but you won't say 'yes'—and I don't want you to. You shouldn't have to do anything that you don't want to do. However, you're not the only one here that has your blood…a significant amount of your blood runs through my veins…so as a back-up, they kept me on the sidelines."

"Milly, no…" Dean told her, tearing up too and shaking his head. "Milly, no!"

"Dean someone has to let Michael in!" Milly exclaimed and Dean started to break as she started to cry. "I'm Michael's second choice. You saw how Lucifer's vessel wasn't able to fully contain him already, Dean. Sam is Lucifer's true vessel, and he would be far stronger in Sam. So far, thankfully, Sam hasn't given in. You are Michael's true vessel, but you don't want to give in either."

Dean nodded vigorously. "Because they will go to war! Do you know how many innocent people will lose their lives when Michael and Lucifer go at it, Milly?! You can't seriously be considering this!"

"Dean you saw it! You saw the Colt bullet go right into Lucifer's head and it did, nothing! The only way to kill the devil is to have Michael do it!" Milly protested. "He has to sadly, kill his own brother and with some of your blood running through me, I have to give him the upper hand. He can defeat Lucifer. Michael, with some of your blood pumping through me, will be a little more powerful."

"Damn-it, no!" Dean told her angrily, letting go of her and taking steps back. "No! I'm not going to let you do this!"

Milly's lip trembled. "He's not in me now, Dean…but I already told him 'yes'."

Note: As you can tell, you know MY thoughts on the Dean/Jo stuff. Eric has spent the ENTIRE series pointing out that Dean's feelings for Jo are NOT romantic. Lets face it: Dean would hit on ANYTHING with legs if he knew he was gonna die, and Jo happened to be around—there was nothing ROMANTIC about that at all, so don't pretend there was. Jo is one of his dearest friends, and he thinks of the Harvelles as part of his rather dysfunctional and broken family, but he and Jo are NOT an epic romance. That kiss between them was a, "You are one of my truest friends, you risked your life for me, you mean a lot to me, how dare I lose you too?" As glad as I am that there will never be a time that the beautiful friendship between them will ever be grossly destroyed, I am devastated that she is dead. He looked at her the way he looks at Bobby—with mutual trust and respect, and I value their friendship and now understand how anti-slash fans feel when they are having friendships turned into something they're not for the sake of us slash fans wanting to put people together—that is how I feel about Dean/Jo. Don't make it something it wasn't—they had a beautiful friendship and that was all it was. As to THIS story, things are about to get more confusing. Feedback is always appreciated!