a/n: Thank you for the lovely reviews for Chapter 10, and I apologize for the delays in updating. I've been a bit sick and haven't felt like doing anything but sleeping and/or dying. Here we are with Chapter 11, though!

I had the idea for "other gates" (eg, Heaven) a while back, and then this week they introduce the "angel tablets" idea on the show, so I'm like, "Hey, now it's canon!" Also had the thought that Cas' blade could kill demons, and now that's canon, too. Nice when things work out like that.

Chapter 11: Fates, The

Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
-Shakespeare, Hamlet (3.2.208)

The door drifted open before she could touch it, and Layla stepped inside. The only source of light was the lamp flickering in the window, and at first she thought the one room cabin was empty. Gradually her eyes adjusted to the dim and she began to make out shapes. A spinning wheel in one corner, thread looped around the spindle. A loom set against the far wall, the weaving on it unfinished but, she noticed, glowing with a faint light of its own. The walls were roughhewn, and occasionally she thought they weren't wood at all, but instead made of something else. Rock? Impossible.

She took another step. "Hello?" she said.

aahh, sister…

…DAUGHTER…

…child…

…you have come at last.

Three voices, she thought. Three voices, but one. Just like her dream. "Who are you?" she said.

A laugh.

who are we, she asks!

…BETTER, DAUGHTER, TO ASK…

…who are you, sister?

"I don't understand. I know who I am."

YES, DAUGHTER, BORN THE NIGHT THE STARS FELL…

…sweet sister, named for a song…

…foolish child, an angel's lover!

Layla cast around in the dark, at a loss. "Ladies, please, I'm trying to understand, but you're speaking in riddles. Am I…am I dead?"

There was a vast sigh, like a wave crashing against the shore. The darkness lifted, but instead of the homely cottage Layla expected, she found herself in a palatial suite. Somewhere out of sight a fountain chimed. The floor was a dizzying pattern of black and white checkered marble. The ceiling soared above her head. On a low settee a woman lounged.

She stood, and Layla lifted her chin to keep her eyes on the woman's stern and beautiful face. She was tall and willowy with mahogany hair that fell nearly to her waist in complicated braids and coils. Her gown was gray, the style ancient, and around her neck she wore a pendant showing the three phases of the moon. Her eyes changed color constantly, and her smile was cruel, kind, and neutral by turns. At her waist was a golden girdle from which three charms hung: a spindle, a pair of scissors, and a measuring tape.

"Of course," Layla murmured. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm normally not so thick."

"You have been through a trauma, and memory dims with time. The Moirai are not so highly regarded as we once were."

Layla could hear all three voices when the woman spoke, and it took a great deal of concentration to pick out the words. "So is this your way of breaking the news of my death to me a bit more gently?"

"On the contrary, child," she said. Her fingertips danced over the scissors and her smile gave Layla a shiver. "You are most certainly not dead, though it is very foolish for one of your kind to consort with angels."

"One of my kind? You mean a human?"

"If only it were so simple, daughter," she said with gentle compassion.

Layla took a deep breath. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear what she—they—had to say, but she knew she had no choice. First, though, "Where's Cas? Samandriel?"

"Ahh, your angels." She stepped aside in a flutter of semi-transparent gray fabric and Layla surged forward only to be rebuffed by an unseen force.

The two angels were stretched out on the tile and neither one was moving. They looked dead, but she had a feeling that an angel made a far more dramatic corpse than either one of these two. "What's wrong with them? Why can't I…?" She pushed at the energy separating her from them, but she couldn't get past it.

"They are merely sleeping, sister," said the youngest of her (their) voices.

"Angels don't sleep!" she said as she spun to face her again.

"They do here." She smiled again, the cold and pitiless one. "If you want your angels, child, you will have to get them."

"How? I can't get past this…is this a forcefield? Are you kidding me?!"

She lifted an eyebrow. "We rarely joke."

There was a silence. "Sister. Daughter. Child. You who unlocked the heart of an angel. Open the door and set them free."

"I don't know what you're talking about, and I am so. Fucking. Sick. Of riddles!"

Her (their) face morphed into a nightmare creature. Fangs and scales and a lashing tail. "Do not provoke our Fury, little girl!" the new thing screeched in an ungodly voice. "We wear many faces. Kind or cruel, which do you wish to see?"

"Kind," she said. "I prefer kind. I'm sorry."

She advanced, and Layla fell back until the energy field stopped her. "Please," she said. The tail, poisoned tip glistening, hovered near her cheek, and she craned her neck to avoid it. "Please," she whispered.

Abruptly she shifted again, and the stern woman reappeared. "We are not to be trifled with, child. Pray remember that."

"I doubt I'll forget any time soon, ladies," she said. She took a deep breath. Glanced toward the angels. Back at the Moirai. Her eyes were dark as she remembered her conversation with Kevin that morning. Samandriel's reaction upon seeing her. Open the door and set them free. She shook her head, a short jerk. "Crowley always said I was ordinary as toast."

"The current King of Hell is an arrogant fool," she said. A storm flashed through her eyes. "And now thanks to you and your angel, the Gates have been summoned but the ritual has been stopped. Unless you awaken to your destiny, the world will be overrun."

"Okay," she said with a deep breath. "Okay. This is completely nuts, but…okay." She reached toward the wall of energy again, but she knew this wasn't something she could do with her hands. She wasn't really sure how to do it, but.…

Oh.

There.

The lock. So simple. The air rippled and the energy dissipated.

"Ahh," said the Moirai in her/their dizzying triple voice, "the key!"

Dean wondered when a fight went from survival instinct to too dumb to know when you're beat. He thought they were getting dangerously close to that line. The demons were legion, and they were five. Five ordinary humans with one tiny weapon. Their angel was gone. Their key was gone. They had no hope of completing the ritual.

Oh, hey, and guess what? They'd summoned the enemy some convenient reinforcements, so now they were getting it from both ends.

He tossed the knife to Sam and shot a demon in the face with a double barrel of salt. He was running low. Not only that, but the blood that dripped from the cut on his forehead was becoming a problem. Sam's left shoulder was clearly dislocated. Garth was bleeding from about twenty different places and had a broken wrist. Mrs. Tran had several broken ribs and Kevin, despite his mother's best efforts, had a nasty gash that ran nearly the entire length of his right thigh.

Dean shoved blood out of his eyes again, shook off the sickening wave of dizziness, and searched for more salt rounds. His pockets were empty. "Sammy!" he called. "I think I'm out!"

"Yeah, Dean," Sam said, "me too."

"Garth?"

"All out!"

"What now?" Kevin said.

They'd managed to find a makeshift bit of shelter among a rockfall created in the explosion, but they knew it wouldn't last long. Demons were throwing themselves at Crowley's Devil's Trap, and once they broke through it, the group was screwed. It was a minor miracle it had lasted this long.

Sam stabbed the next demon that managed to wiggle through the gap in the rocks. "I don't know," he said. "I think we're open to suggestions."

"Sit down, Dean," Linda said. "Let me look at your head."

"It's fine," he said.

"Sit down before you fall down, young man. Don't make me say it again."

He hated it when she got that mom tone. He made a face that only caused his head to bleed harder, but he did as she said. She ripped the sleeve off his shirt ("Hey!" he cried. "Be quiet," she told him. He did.) and fashioned a makeshift bandage from it. When she was done none of them—despite how much pain they were all in—could keep a straight face.

"That's right. Laugh it up. We're trapped between an army of demons and the Gates of Hell, our only two angel allies are missing, the key's gone poof, and I've got a shirt wrapped around my head. Ha fuckin' ha."

"Oh, Dean, if you could see yourself!" Garth said.

"You're wearing a trucker hat, Garth. You have no room to judge me."

"Bobby's trucker hat, Dean, you know that," Garth said, his dignity offended.

"What would Bobby do in this situation?" Sam said.

"Say balls, tell us to quit our pansy-ass bitchin', and give those demons what for," Dean said with half a smile.

There was a small silence, a tribute. Even though Kevin and Linda had never met Bobby, they'd heard his name before and knew his importance to the three men and the Hunter community at large. Linda, a mother first, sensed a deeper level of love and reverence from the Winchesters than she'd picked up even from Garth, who idolized the man like a fallen hero.

"Balls!" Garth said with delighted conviction.

"Quit your…quit your pansy-ass bitchin'!" Linda said, earning her surprised looks all around. She laughed and shrugged.

Sam tossed the knife back to Dean and let his brother take point. "Let's give those demons what for," he said.

Layla didn't stop to ask questions. She didn't say aloud what was running through her head: when the fuck did I blink and end up in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where I'm a fucking living key with some weird-ass destiny of key-dom?! She just let it roll over her like weird-ass destinies manifested themselves every day. She had more important things to worry about. Castiel. Samandriel. The barrier was gone, but they were still out.

She knelt beside Cas and reached for him. "Cas? Cas, it's Layla. Can you hear me?" When her fingers brushed his cheek there was a shock, a golden spark that she could see and feel that made her cry out in surprise and pain. She snatched her hand back and stared.

"What just happened?" she said as she whipped around to face the Moirai.

They were suddenly directly before her, still in their single aspect, and if she didn't know better she'd think the smile was pitying. "You are the key, daughter."

"Yeah. Yes." She swallowed and remembered not to roll her eyes. "I understand that, even though I don't really understand what it means."

There was a small silence. "If the prophet completes the ritual, you will lock the gates."

Layla blinked. "I'm sorry? You mean Kevin will read the tablet and I'll decide if I want to lock the gates, right? Because I'm a human being and I decide things."

"Child. Foolish child. You are the key. The key is a tool. If the prophet completes the ritual, you will lock the gates, because you will be compelled to do so. Does this clarify?"

"It's becoming clearer."

"There are other tablets, sister," the Moirai said. "Other locks. Now that you are made manifest, you will be sought."

"By demons," she said through a voice gone thick. Her eyes were trained on Cas' prone form. She didn't like where this was going.

"By all, daughter." The rustle of fabric as she moved closer. "It is for your protection. Yours and his. If his superiors knew.… Ah, daughter. Heaven can be cruel."

"I see," she whispered. She shoved the wetness from her cheeks with a defiant, angry gesture and turned to face them again. "What do I do now? I get the feeling you ladies don't want the gates closed. Am I right about the damned souls?"

"We cannot offer glimpses of the future, sister; however, we can offer small counsel. You are the key, and the key is a tool, but you are contained in human form. You have existed as a human for three decades."

"So I do have free will."

She let out a chilling cackle, the Crone's cackle. "Free will is a sucker's game, child. But, yes, you have the ability to choose. Small things. Tiny decisions that hardly matter in the grand tapestry."

"They must matter or we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"The gates must be returned, or your plane will be overrun. That is not a glimpse; it is merely common sense. Sealing the gates would be…unwise…for many reasons. That is all we may say. You are the key, daughter. A key turns both ways."

"What about Crowley?"

She dismissed Crowley with a flick of fingers that stirred the air into a minor whirlwind. "A snake oil salesman elevated above his station. Do with him as you will." A pause. "There is another. A rightful King of Hell, locked away."

"Oh no. No way. I might be the key, but there's no way I'm touching that lock. Sorry, ladies, but Lucifer is staying in his box."

"Ah, well. We prefer the order of the old ways, you understand."

"Right." Layla frowned. Looked around. "How long have I been here? Are Sam and Dean okay? The explosion—"

"Time moves differently here, child. We will send you back when we are ready."

"Cas and Samandriel?"

"The angels also."

"What happens when they figure out what I am? Will they be safe?"

"The key protects itself, daughter."

With this last, cryptic statement, the palatial room faded. There was the dizzying sound of a wheel turning, and Layla found herself back on the plain in Nevada.

"Now?" she cried to the empty air. "Now is when you're ready? We were right in the middle of a conversation! For fuck's sake!"

That was when she noticed the demons. And the Gates. Especially the Gates. She contemplated copious vomiting, but opted to run like hell instead. The demons, of course, gave chase. Where were Cas and Samandriel? The Moirai had promised to send them back, and a couple of angels would really come in handy against all these rampaging demons!

In her distraction she stumbled and would have fallen and gone down, but strong arms caught and held her. That was becoming a theme lately, and though she wasn't usually the "damsel in distress" type, she thought maybe she could get used to it.

"Layla?" he said. "Where'd you come from? I almost stabbed you!"

"Dean?" she said, almost as surprised as he. She blinked. "Why the hell do you have half a shirt wrapped around your head?"

So, uh, where are the angels? Did the Moirai lie? They wouldn't do that...right?!

Every time you review, Cas gets to heal a baby and feel really, really happy and NOT AT ALL SAD.