A/N: OMG! Look, it's a chapter! And its number is 9. Yes, folks, I'm back :)

After a hugely overly long hiatus I finally managed to get the ball rolling again with my baby that is this fic. Yay! \o/

I told you lovely, loyal people not to give up on me and that I had no intention of giving up on TAOND and I sincerely hope that all my amazing reviewers and readers haven't wandered too far without breadcrumbs and can't find their way back. I'd be heartbroken…

So yeah, massive apology for how long this has taken but as you'll see when you read this chapter (hopefully, that is) things are about to get interesting…

On with Chapter 9 and, as always, enjoy my lovelies…


Chapter Nine

Seeing All The Signs From Above

It's three days after the Winchester's brought Castiel from the ruined church back to Bobby's house and that means that it's time to renew the cloaking spell. At the crack of dawn Dean pulls his icicle legs from the sleeping bag and lifts his body from the floor he's been camping out on. He's stiff and sore all over but he's shot down Bobby and Sam's suggestions to take one of the spare rooms or even the damn sofa many times and instead opted for the oh so (not) comfy wood floor of Castiel's room. He told them it's strictly business, purely to keep an eye on the angel but in truth he doesn't like the feeling he gets when he's away from him; he feels on edge, constantly worried and sick. It's far easier and much more convenient to crash on Cas' floor and put his mind at ease.

At noon the spell will wear off and Bobby's place will officially be back on the radar to any supernatural being that wants in. They have around 6 hours to get the cloaking spell back in place but Dean's impatient and would rather get it out of the way now.

He heads downstairs into the kitchen and catches Sam loading the table with all the ingredients and materials needed for the spell and Bobby searching the cupboards. Apparently he's not the only impatient one.

"Mornin'," Bobby greets. "Your brother here thought it a good idea to get the spell outta the way asap. Guess it makes sense, it'll put all our minds at rest if we just do it now."

"Yeah, I had the same idea."

Sam looks at him with crumpled brows and Dean chews his lip. The last time they did this it wasn't pretty – in fact it was goddamn ugly. He remembers the blood and the screams (on Sammy's part of course, he is the girl after all) and the pain. It's necessary, he knows, and if anyone's no stranger to pain its Dean Winchester. But there's just something about cutting into his own, very human skin that he doesn't much enjoy.

"This time we don't have to take as much blood. And we only need a lock of hair, not a tooth."

Oh yeah, the teeth issue. Dean's hoping Cas can zap them with some of his healing mojo when he's better after that one. He misses his back molar.

"What a relief; there I was thinking I was ending up a gummy bear at the end of this whole she-bang. Turns out I'm heading for the Mr Potato head look instead. We're gonna need to buy hats."

"You aren't the only who has to do it Dean."

"Please Sammy, taking a lock of hair from your vastly overcrowded head is like taking a cup of water from the ocean and Bobby hardly has any to begin with. Neither of you are gonna miss it," Dean quips back, and flexes his eyebrow triumphantly. Sam sighs and ignores him and instead carries on with the preparation for the spell.

"Bobby, could you hand me the dead snake please. I think we put it in the cupboard under the sink."


With the spell in tact Dean feels free to roam about his day without worrying that the house will suddenly crumble in to rubble. It was painful and there was blood a plenty, which was kinda the point of the spell, but it's done now and Dean can relax somewhat.

He decides to go and check on Cas. The angel had woke up countless time in the night, murmuring about Raphael and towers and the occasional whimper which Dean had come to realise meant he was re-living snippets of his attack. Each time Dean went to him and put a tentative hand to his shoulder and shook lightly, squeezed his fingers or smoothed a cooling hand over his heated forehead Cas woke equally as violently and terrified. Bolting upright, clutching the parts of him that hurt, breathing strained and frantic eyes wide and round with droplets of moisture gathering in his tear-ducts. After gentle coaxing from Dean who had eventually scooted Cas over and sat himself on top of the sheets that were wrapped around the angel, he told Dean every snippet in great detail. Each one was as short as the next but they grew in intensity and horror and listening to Cas' scream damaged voice whispering and choking over his words, Dean couldn't begin to imagine what he'd been through. He'd seen it, sure, but seeing and experiencing is an altogether different thing.

He didn't keep track of when the whimpers and the thrashing stopped but he does remember that Cas had called out to him when he went to leave his side and return to the floor, so Dean had remained surreptitiously half-sleeping next to the angel for a fair amount of time. He began to get uncomfortable when Cas had shuffled closer to him and twined his long fingers into Dean's shirt sleeve. His discomfort hit an all-time high about the time that he almost slipped into a deep sleep only to we woken by Cas gripping his waist so hard he was certain it would bruise, head tucked into Deans neck, breathing heavy. He'd hastily extracted himself from the angel, calmed him down, tucked him back in and retreated to his sleeping bag on the floor, so many unwanted thoughts swarming his head and bleeding into his dreams.

Cas hadn't woken up again after that and Dean can only hope that he'd stayed asleep long after Dean had dragged himself up to do the cloaking spell.

His hopes are proven true when he lets himself into the room and sees a sleep riddled Cas, mussed hair aplenty, just waking up and scrubbing at his half open eyes. At the sight, Dean bites back an 'awww' that's threatening to creep up his throat and twang on his vocal chords and instead thinks of cars and engine grease and giant manly cheeseburgers, 'cause really, when did he become such a freakin' girl? Cas, oblivious to Dean's internal struggle with his masculinity, carries on with his waking up routine; eyes scrubbed he's now stretching out, limbs elongated like a cat, joints popping back into their usual places and a sigh of contentment leaveing his lips. He doesn't even seem to have noticed Dean's presence at all so the hunter clears his throat and grabs his attention.

"Hey Cas," Dean smiles warmly before plonking himself down on the edge of the bed.

"Good morning, Dean," Cas returns the smile after licking his dry lips and the two proceed to stare, remarkably not awkwardly, at each other for a solid 5 minutes before Dean's breaks eye contact and clears his throat yet again.

Without Cas' eyes locked on his own, his thought process kicks back into gear and Dean relays the latest news of the Singer household to the silent angel. He informs him of the renewed cloaking spell, of Sam's freshly acquired, not so inconspicuous bald patch (Dean's own handiwork which he's damn proud of) and, saving the best til last, the news that breakfast is done and there's eggs and bacon awaitin' on the kitchen table for him.

Cas' eyes widen at the prospect of a good meal and he eagerly promises to be down in just a moment after he's taken a shower and changed.


After breakfast the four men scatter about the house to their respective roles. For Castiel that means lounging on Bobby's front room sofa and trying to comprehend the wonder of the TV. For Dean it means lounging at Castiel's side trying to explain the wonder of the TV and in turn, the wonder of Dr. Sexy, which so far, has only earned a slight tilt of the head and a confused expression from the angel.

For Sam and Bobby it means work and research, Bobby in his gigantic library rifling through books the old fashioned way and Sam perched demurely, like the girl he is, on one of the kitchen chairs, eyes glued to his laptop.

For hours there was no progress for any of them Dean was no further on in his mission to get Cas appreciating Dr. Sexy, Bobby had a colossal amount of papercuts, but that's about it and Sam was hitting his head agains a brick wall with google.

That is until the brick wall smashed under the weight of that gigantor head of his and he burst out with an overexcited "I've got it!"

To Dean it felt a bit like that scene in Willy Wonka where Veruca's dad has his workers rifling through Wonka Bars for a golden ticket; one minute there seems to be no hope and the next there's a lady in a hairnet brandishing gold from her hand and screaming with glee. Sammy had the glee part down to a tee, too bad he wasn't wearing a hairnet though, Dean would've paid to see that.

As it was, Sam's outburst was in relation to a possible solution they had for offing an archangel, only it wasn't a solution to offing him so much as…downgrading him?

"According to Gabe at , there's an ancient Enochian spell that can strip an archangel of their status and bring them down to standard angel level," Sam explains, eyes bugged out from excitement at getting his geek on. "Gabe also says that, whilst there's a 'downgrading' spell there's also an 'upgrading' spell…" Sam pauses to flick his eyes back to the screen at an instant message that's just popped up on the site's private chat. He reads it and then continues, "…meaning that if Raphael knew the spell, us downgrading him wouldn't be of much use."

Dean is about to point out that the 'if' Sam's referring to is a ginormous one and that his Willy Wonka style outburst was totally uncalled for and stupid and pointless before his brother begins to speak again, seemingly thinking that he was letting the information sink in with everybody first.

"But, and this is where it gets complicated," Sam starts. Then stops. Again.

Dean thinks he's gonna slap him upside the head if he carries on like a freakin' talent show host pausing for effect when announcing the winner.

"Gabe told me that there's another spell that can be used along with the downgrading spell called a binding spell. Basically, what this does is binds an angel completely to their Grace. Now, you're all probably thinking the exact same thing that I was thinking, surely an angel is already bound to its Grace, right?"

Dean nods along with Bobby and Cas who're are both looking as completely confused and dubious as he is. Cas more so as, throughout his entire life he hadn't known there was any other archangels, he figured Raphael was the one and only and because it never came up in friendly chit chat over shots, neither Dean nor Sam had ever known to correct him on his very inaccurate theory. His eyes had widened impossibly more than usually when Dean had told him the story of Michael, the archangel who'd tried to kidnap him when he was a child and had wound up killing his mother in a fire brought on by rage at his futile attempts. Cas had gone white, both from the horror of the story and the revelation that there were more big, bad evil winged bastards out there on power trips than just the Teenage Mutant Ninja Angel.

Dean can tell just by looking at his scrunched up eyebrows and weary expression that it's all a bit too much for the angel to take in. He's going to insist that Cas has a lie down and rests up after Sammy finally gets to the point. Sometime within the same decade hopefully.

"Right. They are." Sam announces, confirming what everyone already knew; angels are bound to their Grace because it is essentially their soul. "However, once a downgrading is complete the Grace of the particular archangel changes, thus detaching them from their Grace meaning that it is extremely easy for said angel to upgrade again within a matter of seconds."

It's funny, Dean always thought of angels as mindless robots without emotions and here Sam is talking about them like they're computers with hardware upgrades and downgrades. Go figure.

"So what does any of that have to do with a binding spell, boy?" Bobby chimes in, asking the question on everyone's mind. Sam looks over his shoulder back at the latest IM and reads it before rattling off more information.

"Well, Gabe's just replied to that very question and he says that once an archangel's Grace is brought down to the level of a standard angel, i.e. they no longer have unlimited supply of Grace, they lose immunity to an angel sword and you can deep fry them amongst other things, you have to bind them to their newly changed Grace and this makes the upgrading process much more lengthy. We're talking a solid week before Raphael could get his archangel powers back and that's a huge margin of time for us to get rid of him."

A bud of hope beings to blossom in Dean's chest at those last words. A whole fucking weak to hunt down a demoted archangel and kill the sonofabitch.

"So, were gonna have to get our hands on these spells. Sammy, work your magic? Cas, you're taking a nap and Bobby, I'll come help you rifle through books and shi–" Dean starts reeling off orders hyperactively but is stopped midway by his brother's raised hand.

"No need Dean, Gabe says he has the spells in an old Enochian version of the bible he has on hand. He says if we meet up with him he'll gladly hand over the spells and he's happy to help."

A wave of uncertainty settles over the room and Dean wants to know why this Gabe dude is so willing to give out pretty heavy ancient biblical murdering info.

He raises an eyebrow suspiciously, "Dude, we don't even know this guy. Hell, he isn't even a hunter and we have a hard time trusting them most of the time. What makes you think this guy's legit?"

Sam chews his lip thoughtfully, "Before I even mentioned Raphael, right after I asked about the binding spell, he told me that he knew it worked 'cause he'd tried it on an archangel that was hunting him." Sam goes back to chewing, this time nervously, apparently trying to decide whether to share with the class.

"Dean…it was Michael. He killed the archangel Michael."

Well I'll be damned, was all that came to Dean's mind.