The sun was up when Ben jumped into their bed the next morning.
"Mom! Mom!" he yelled, shaking the shoulder nearest him and managing to shake everybody, "The toilet's leaking all over the place!"
"Wha's that, baby?" Lisa muttered from her inside position.
"Is it coming out over the bowl?" Dean was already crawling out from under the covers.
"Out of the bottom."
"Seal's probably blown," Dean said. He dug through the pile of clothes he had left on the floor and pulled out his jeans. "Ben, grab all your mom's old towels, the ones she keeps for mud and car washing; pack them around the base of the toilet," he instructed.
"The toilet's leaking?" Lisa was up on her elbows, blanket neatly tucked over her naked breasts.
"Yeah," Dean said, taking a moment to pull on his T-shirt. "I'm gonna take a look at it. I'll let you know," he assured her then escaped to the bathroom.
It was as bad as Ben had said. The water had run from the side all the way to the bathtub where it had formed a decent sized puddle. The cistern was noisy, trying to fill up the bowl and the tank.
"Did you use it already?" he asked.
"Yeah." Ben answered, putting the towels down like Dean had asked. "It's not like I'm really awake in the morning," he said defensively.
Dean could appreciate the sentiment, if not the reality. Still, Ben was only ten. How much pee could one little guy hold?
"First thing we do is turn off the water." He looked at the pipe. It was old and plain—no knobs or switches. "Shi-oot," he corrected. "No shut-off valve."
"What does that mean?" Ben asked, looking at him with big eyes.
"It means we gotta find the main," Dean explained. "That means no water in the whole house."
"Uhh… like no showers?"
"Worse," Dean warned the kid in his most serious 'deadly danger' tone. "No coffee."
Ben broke out in giggles. It sounded good.
Dean ordered Cas and Lisa to fill up every container they had (including the coffee maker) before he turned off the water.
The basement was only minimally finished—wall studs in place but no plaster boards or ceilings—so it was easy to trace the line. Ben was with him, helping to mark the different pipes and vents and hoses that snaked around the space. He'd hoped, without actually hoping, that there would be a valve someplace in the line to the toilet. There wasn't.
"Did you learn all this stuff on the job?" Ben asked. For a moment, Dean thought he meant his job as a hunter then he realized Ben meant his job in construction.
"Nah," he answered. "We just lived in some crap places when I was growing up. Half the time, if Dad couldn't fix it, we didn't have it. Usually for however long we stayed there."
"Really?" Ben asked, and if Dean had thought the kid's eyes had been big before it was nothing compared to their size now. "You lived without water?"
"For a week once," Dean confirmed. "Our neighbor, Mrs. Jackson, she used to let us use her bathroom in return for us taking out the garbage and stuff. When Dad got back, he took a look. He went out and bought a new flush assembly, and had the toilet working in about thirty minutes. We had water back in the trailer in thirty-five."
The landlord had had a black eye in forty.
"That's cool!" Ben said with a bounce.
Dean frowned: how was plumbing cool? "Your uncle knows this stuff. There isn't any job on a construction site that he can't put his hand to."
"That's 'cuz his dad made him learn it when he was growing up," Ben said, repeating the oft-repeated family lore.
Dean nodded. "That's right." It was one of the reasons why working with the dude was tolerable. Dean could respect a man who knew his trade.
"You think we should call him?" Ben asked.
Dean looked down at Ben, his maybe-son. One day, maybe, he and Cas would be gone. If that happened then it would be good for the squirt to have a 'positive male role model', and Paul, though stupidly religious, was a good guy. "Do you think we should call him?"
"Mom says it's not a sign of weakness to ask an expert for help."
"Your mom's pretty smart," Dean agreed blandly. "Think he'll be out of church?"
"Maybe?" Ben's voice was unsure as he knew as little as Dean did about when masses or sermons or whatever was in session. "It'll go to voice mail if he is."
True enough.
"Okay. Let's phone," Dean agreed. "After we shut off the water."
.o0o.
Lisa didn't need this, not this morning. It was supposed to be just them, figuring out where they were going after last night. Step forward or run back? She knew what she wanted, what Ben wanted, and Castiel had been pretty clear. It was just Dean who she couldn't pin down. He seemed to be running towards them sideways.
Lisa thought of cursing Dean who'd managed to escape and had left her behind to deal with her family. It would've been okay if only Paul had come over, even Paul and Julie would have been okay. However, her mother had come along.
After fifteen minutes of Annette's passive-aggressive complaints, Dean had shot her a Look—an "I really want to kill somebody" look—and had taken off to the hardware store.
"Yes, Mom, Ben is eating healthy. However, since this is the weekend and we have no water, he gets to eat cereal."
"You should put a banana or some strawberries on it." Annette Braeden said with a sniff.
She wanted to smash the pot she was holding against the counter—repeatedly. And with great force.
"Getting him to eat bananas is not a problem, Mom. He likes bananas."
"I just want him to know how to make healthy choices." Her mother tried to sound hurt, but instead she sounded petty and manipulative.
"And you think I'm going to encourage him to run with scissors, is that it?" she snapped. Ben looked up at her with wide eyes before going back to his cereal, trying to eat it twice as fast.
"Lisa!" Julie protested. She was sitting in that end-of pregnancy sprawl that was the only way to deal with having a basketball-sized belly. "She's just concerned."
"No, she's judgmental." Lisa regretted it as soon as she'd said it.
"Oh, not this again!" Her sister added eye-rolling to tummy rubbing.
Ben popped up from his chair, dirty dishes held out. "Can I go now, Mom?" Lisa could read the pleasepleaseplease, let me out of here in his eyes. She nodded permission and took his dirty dishes.
"You're right. Just forget it." Lisa got up to deal with Ben's dirty dishes. Maybe her mother would let it drop.
"You disapprove of our faith," her mother said. "It has too many rules and restrictions for someone of your nature."
Lisa rubbed her aching temple. It has been a faint hope.
"You have always felt disdain for the Church," her mother explained. "The faith you were raised in, I might add. You have no idea how much that hurts–"
Lisa couldn't help it; she laughed. "Of course I do, Mom. You do it to me all the time. I have been a Buddhist since I was eleven—a wonky one, but still."
"Buddhism isn't a religion," her mother said dismissively.
Lisa slammed the dishwasher door shut. "Buddhism is a belief system, Mom. It's my belief system, but you have always—always, always—treated it with contempt. The same way you treat me and my choices." Annette opened her mouth to speak but Lisa lifted her hand. "I know I made some poor choices, but they were mine, and I've never tried to pawn off the consequences as the will of God!"
"You're talking about your father," Annette said, tight-lipped and ashen-faced.
"No, Mom. I'm talking about me. Though, yeah, okay. I see some similarities." Lisa gave a sad laugh. "Did you even like Dad? Because it sure as hell didn't seem like it half the time."
"Lisa!" her sister protested, eyes wide and mouth open in shock.
"Julie, you know it's true. You've said as much." At that, Julie's expression changed from shock to betrayal. Obviously her sister hadn't said the same things to their mother.
"I married him," her mother stated flatly.
"And you stayed married to him as your faith required, but that doesn't mean you liked him." Lisa took a deep breath—why stop now? "It's the same as you treat me. I mean, you love me and you tried to do right by me, because we're family, but you never understood me. Never tried, really. So it makes me wonder if you ever liked me."
"Lisa, you know she does." But it was Julie saying it, not their mother.
Annette Braeden was finally staying silent. Only the heavy movement of her chest gave any hint to what she was feeling.
"It's okay, Jules," Lisa said because her sister seemed really upset. "I came to terms with it a long time ago." At least mostly, or most of the time. It was because of Ben, of course. Most of her parent-child enlightenment came because of Ben. "It's just one of those things that happens."
"When you were a child, all you would do was ask 'why'," her mother said, tone flat. "Or 'why not'. And you would never accept my answers."
"Your answers too often were 'because'," Lisa explained. "Because you said so, or society did. Or God."
"Those are perfectly reasonable explanations. Your sister accepted them, but you…" She flipped her fingers in Lisa's direction. "And your father encouraged it. Thought you'd make a fine police officer."
"But how would he know, since he wasn't one. Right, Mom?" The words were out of Lisa's mouth before she could filter them.
Her mother's mouth tightened to white. "Your father was a decent man, but his friends! 'The righteous should choose his friends carefully, for the way of the wicked leads them astray.' Proverbs 12:26." Annette was breathing heavier now. Angry colour dotted her cheeks.
Lisa had heard all her mother's stories about Tom Braeden's corrupt, adulterous friends who'd essentially led Dad onto a path of failure and sin. She'd heard her mother blame Dad's suicide on those friends instead of her father's massive PTSD and history of depression. She didn't want to hear it again.
Before she could cut her mother's rant short, there was a pressure...
Like the moment just before your ears pop in an airplane, and then Rachel, the blonde angel was standing in the kitchen.
Julie shrieked. Her mother jumped. Then she ordered Lisa to tell her who the stranger was.
Lisa ignored them both.
"Rachel," Lisa said as calmly as she could manage.
"Lisabraeden," the angel responded. "I cannot sense Castiel. Is he here?"
There was a coiled urgency in Rachel's usually placid voice that felt like sandpaper on Lisa's skin. "What's the matter?" she asked before a hollow boom shook the windows and a plain-suited stranger was standing in her kitchen glowering at her.
He was blond, like Rachel, but built more like Dolph Lungren and less like Gwyneth Paltrow.
"Where is the traitor?" he growled.
"Castiel is no traitor, Lauviah." Rachel moved smoothly between Lisa and the Dolph-clone.
Julie's shrieks of "Ohmagawd!Ohmagawd!"were continuous. Her mother shouted over the noise to demand that Lisa tell her what was going on.
Like Lisa knew.
Still, it wasn't going to be anything good, so she slipped away from the angel showdown to her mother and her sister. "We need to get out of here." She tried to push her mother into the living room. From there they could escape out the front door.
"Michael is the one we should obey," Dolph-clone said. "He is our Father's Chosen One."
"Yet Castiel was Resurrected," Rachel answered. "Does that not suggest to you, that he is Favored as well?"
Lisa tried to pull her mother away, but like always, she wasn't going to listen to her oldest daughter. "Mom, this is no time to be stubborn."
"This is your home," Annette Braeden hissed. "Tell them to leave."
She wanted to thunk her head against the wall. "Julie, for Heaven's sake! Stop shrieking. It's not good for the baby!" Lisa said in desperation. Surprisingly, it worked. A little. Julie still whimpered and moaned, but at least those were quieter sounds.
Lisa renewed her efforts to get her family out, while keeping one eye on the battle brewing in her kitchen.
The new angel shook out his shoulders. "Heaven is already divided because of him. And your plan to restore his Grace will make him an Abomination."
"We are not planning to restore his Grace."
"Liar," the Dolph-clone snarled. "He must be destroyed before his very existence taints us all."
"I will stop you," Rachel stated.
He pulled out a long, triangular blade. Rachel drew hers in answer. The two angels circled around each other, cautious and slow.
The sight of the weapons set Julie off again, and her shrieks reached glass-shattering levels. Lisa rolled her eyes because they really didn't have time for this. At least the display of weapons got her mother moving.
"Mary Julianne, you stop that right now!" Lisa's mother barked and shut her youngest up like throwing a switch.
Lisa took advantage of the pause. "You need to leave. Now."
Her mother nodded silently, mouth in a thin, angry line. Between them, they got Julie out of the dining room and into the living room just as Rachel went flying into Lisa's fridge. The door bent, and Lisa could hear jars and containers inside it falling and breaking.
"I am here, Lauviah," Castiel said from the back doorway. He must have gone out through the front door and then around to the back. Hopefully, it meant Paul was safe.
"Abomination!" Lauviah attacked Castiel with a roar. There were more crashes and grunts from the kitchen, interspersed with the bright, high tang of metal hitting metal.
"Out the front door, Mom," Lisa ordered. Another silent unhappy nod, but Annette helped Julie waddle to the door. Ben gave her a large-eyed look. "Ben, go with them. You all run, and you don't look back."
Lisa dove at the bookcase with the long, thin drawer in the middle that wasn't good for holding anything except long, thin angel blades. Somehow, Castiel and Dean had collected a good half-dozen of the things and they were scattered around the house, just in case.
This was that case…
She grabbed the weapon, which should have felt way heavier than it did, and crept to the archway separating dining room from living room. A quick peek revealed the Dolph-clone's arms blurring as he weaved his blade back and forth, first blocking then attacking Castiel then Rachel.
Lisa tried not to notice what the fight had done to her kitchen, but basically the fridge was going to be a write-off, and her microwave, too. Most of the cabinets…
"Michael was given Command by God himself." Dolph-clone's voice boomed self-righteously. "I will kill the Traitor, and when Michael returns from his Mission, I will sit at his Right Hand. For I will have been the most Loyal of all the Garrison."
"He will send you to die in a war that needn't happen, Lauviah," Castiel answered. His breathing was a little rough, but he was still steady.
Lisa barely listened to the angels' smack talk. Instead, she emptied herself—no thoughts, no emotions—nothing intense enough to call attention to her. She was null, null, null… until the Dolph-clone was forced to take a step back within range.
Lisa flipped the blade so that it was pointing up. She stepped forward, and drove it up low on his side as hard as she could.
It slid through the angel's flesh like it was air.
She didn't let herself think that this was a human body she was damaging; that the angel's vessel had been someone's son-brother-lover. It was easier to forget that the body was human when light started bleeding out of the entry wound, and out of the ears.
There was a sound, more like a vibration, just above where she could hear it. It made her brain hurt worse than fingernails on an old-fashioned blackboard.
Lisa closed her eyes and twisted the blade like her dad had explained all those years ago.
Everything tightened, tightened, tightened… Until the angel blew out of his host body, and she went flying back through the doorway.
The world undulated. Walls warping and bubbling like something out of The Matrix. Sound, too, was distorted.
Somebody was playing with her controls…
"Lisa." She heard a voice say. It was a familiar voice, the voice of someone she cared for.
Holy crow, she hurt!
"Lisa Sophia." It was a different voice, female. She ignored it, too.
She was a huge bag of sensations, pins and needles all over, everywhere, and the floor undulated setting them off in rolling waves. It was too fucking much.
"MOM!"
That voice she couldn't ignore.
"Ben?" she hoped she said his name; she couldn't actually tell.
"Mo-m?" The floor beside her gave a little bump and wobble.
She opened her eyes. Ben was kneeling beside her. His eyes were big and suspiciously red. His face shifted and twisted. It was horrible to watch so she closed her eyes again. She tried to say his name, tried to reach out to him. Her whole right side seized like it was in a steel press. All the muscles, from her finger to her jaw to her hip, one big radiating ball of pain.
"What's happening," Dean asked. "When I killed Zachariah, I didn't have this happen."
He hadn't?
"You are a vessel," Castiel explained. "It gives you certain level of immunity."
She wanted to be Dean.
"She will be well," said a female voice. "Her body just needs to absorb the Grace that was emitted."
Around her the room bobbled and stretched, and she bobbled with it. Kinda cool, but she still wanted to be Dean because this wasn't like being on an amusement park ride: it was like being the air displaced by the ride's cars.
"That's it, Lisa," her brother-in-law said in the distance. "Pant."
Someone was holding her hand. Someone was stroking her hair. Someone was yelling. It was all far away, kept out by the pain. It was an amazingly Zen feeling.
But it still really fucking hurt.
Eventually, whatever was crushing her got bored and went away. She felt her head being lifted. She braced for a return of the pain, but all she felt was something being slid into place under her, and then her head being gently lowered.
"I got you a pillow, Mom."
She tried out a smile. No pain.
She reached out to her son.
Pain.
"Don't try to move. It will only cause your muscles to seize," she heard Castiel say. "We can shift you a little, but you will need to remain in place for anywhere from one to several hours."
Lisa didn't want to be lying on the living room floor. It was a nice floor, mostly clean, but it was hardly practical.
"Can we shift her to someplace more comfortable?"
That was Dean asking. His voice had been the soothing one. His fingers combed through her hair.
Lisa wistfully wondered if he wasn't Ben's dad after all. She knew there were three possibles. Three men with whom she'd been unlucky (condom breakage), stupid (tequila shots), or swept away (Dean). The blood test had only eliminated one for sure, and since she'd never expected to see Dean or the other one ever again, it hadn't mattered.
"How will we know when the worst has worn off?" Ben held her hand. He squeezed it as he asked his question. It was small, but there was the beginning of strength. He was a fine boy. She was proud of him. Did she ever tell him that, or did she refrain because it would embarrass him? Silly not to say it.
"It will start with her being capable of making small movements—speaking perhaps," Rachel said. "And her pupils will return to a more normal dilation."
Would Dean like DNA tests, or would that be too much like a commitment?
"You mean they'll stop fluttering like that?" Dean asked, and Lisa realized that was what was causing the world to be fuzzy—her eyes weren't working properly. That meant she still had 20/20 vision. That was good. She liked being able to see.
"They should stabilize, yes."
She didn't like it when the world wobbled so she kept her eyes shut. The floor had stopped moving, but it still felt like she had no body, or that pieces of it were floating just over there.
Lisa felt the blanket cover her, and the soft kiss on her forehead. Dean's lips. Dean's concern. There was no doubt that he cared.
There was also no doubt that it took stuff like this—life threatening upheavals—to make him admit it. Even then it would be temporary. In a couple hours she would be better. A couple hours after that, Dean would be freaking out at how much he cared and he'd want to run. Dean hated to be vulnerable emotionally and that's what caring did.
She'd known that about him ten years ago. And she'd known that a month ago when he'd shown up on her doorstep with a shaky ex-angel in tow.
She could hear her mother complaining about what had happened, what a fright she'd received and how badly it could have affected Julie. Paul was handling her. Paul was excellent with her mother, but even he was having a hard time soothing Annette Braeden. At least it was happening in a different room and not right over her head.
Odd, Lisa thought. She could accept Dean's panicked rejection of her person and her home, but she couldn't do the same thing with her mom. When would her mom accept that Lisa was never going to be a showcase daughter?
Of course, her mother was close-minded and judgmental, and Dean was just frightened. Totally different thing.
However, when Lisa flipped the question, it became would she ever accept that Annette Braeden was never going to be the mother she wanted?
That was an uncomfortable question. One best left to drift like her connection to her body, wavy and distant and dim.
Life went on around her. She was pretty sure that Ben sat beside her the whole time, although she was also sure that someone had given him his PSP so he could hardly be considered one hundred percent attentive.
At one point she was sure her mother and sister came through and said good bye. Neither of them bent down to her level and that was okay. She thought they might have said something about contractions, but it could've been contractors, and it didn't matter anyway.
Dean lifted her head once and trickled water down her throat. That went so well she tried to lift her finger again. Not a good idea. Dean waited out that seizure, stroking her hair and softly murmuring to her. Then she thought he got called away. Or maybe he just left. Whatever. He gave her another gentle kiss.
Lisa went back into her dim, distant, fluttery world.
Is this what a coma patient felt? All muffled and grey?
Someone was petting her. Someone with strong hands, calloused at the tips, and smelling of engine oil and wood dust. Dean.
She liked Dean's hands.
She'd especially liked Dean's hands on her, running over her skin. She could remember the strength of his hands on her skin. They'd felt nice. She could almost feel them on her right now. And Castiel…
Castiel was always fun. So responsive and open. His skin was pale and soft, like a baby's, but with hard muscles just under the surface. Nice surfaces.
She wanted to touch it again. She wanted to touch them both…
It was a nice dream.
"Listen to this song," her son said. "It's got my name in it." He proceeded to play some squeaky pop music.
"How can you listen to that crap?" Dean demanded and Lisa rose up out of the dream.
"You're just jealous that I have a song with my name in it."
"That's not a song," she heard Dean say. "But at least it's telling the truth: no sex for you until you're thirty. I might just be able to handle it by then." Lisa's heart gave a bump at the thought that Dean would still be around when Ben was thirty. The floor rippled.
"You said thirteen, right?" her son teased back. "I can do that, but I gotta warn ya: I might have trouble keeping the ladies away 'til then."
"Dream on, munchkin." Dean's voice was farther away. Ben's disgusted raspberry was right above her. She could feel the spit drops landing on her face. She frowned in disgust and her nose twitched with the desire to wipe it off.
"Whoa, Mom. You moved," Ben commented in awe. "Dean! Cas! She moved."
All her men came back.
"Move your finger." They watched as she carefully flicked her pointer finger. Ache, but no pain.
"Bed or couch?" Dean asked and they waited for her reply.
She was already removed enough from the world; she didn't need to be in the bedroom. "Couch." Her voice was raspier than Castiel's but they understood.
They moved her to the couch, and the world went on without her.
.o0o.
Castiel was no longer an angel. He had no Grace, no way to tap into the Powers of Heaven, no way to view the core of a being. He was still sure they were lying to him.
"Why did Lauviah call me an Abomination?" he repeated the question.
"Because you are an angel without Grace, yet you are not Fallen, nor are you Mortal. You are Unclassifiable, and therefore, Inexplicable, and Lauviah has always demanded that all Beings maintain their proper Roles in the Ordering of the Universe."
It was distressing how comfortable Mehiel looked with their careful shading of the truth. It reminded Castiel of Zachariah and of Uriel before him. So sure they were right that all their actions could be justified.
"Try again."
The two angels exchanged glances. Rachel straightened. It was her turn.
"There is a faction of our Brethren who either believe that Michael's plan was correct or they wish to follow him merely because he is Michael. Regardless of why, they all wish to return to our Brother's plan to bring about the Apocalypse."
"You informed me of this previously," Castiel reminded her.
"We suspect that Lauviah was one of the latter."
"That doesn't explain why he called me 'Abomination'." Castiel was losing patience. How odd. He used to be able to wait hours—days—for a conversation to reveal its purpose.
"There are rumors circulating within the Garrison that we are working not only to stop Michael from completing the Apocalypse, but also to… That we intend to–" Rachel faltered and looked to Mehiel.
"They are under the impression that we intend to bring souls out from Hell, Damned Souls that we could use to fight the archangels." Mehiel sounded embarrassed, but he had also, just a short time ago, sounded forthright.
"Souls to fight Michael and Raphael," Castiel repeated doubtfully. "Is such a thing possible?"
"Oh yes, definitely," Mehiel nodded. "Or, rather, the theory has been discussed for millennia. It's never been tested in the field, of course, as there was never a force strong enough to oppose the Garrison when they fought united."
"The Garrison is not united."
"As you say," Mehiel said. "If the calculations are correct, using souls—Blessed or Damned—would give the average angel power nearly equal to that of Raphael. Enough of us so powered would be able to overwhelm both he and Michael. ."
"However, souls from Hell would be tainted," Rachel explained needlessly. "To use such to enhance our powers…" She trailed off, leaving the consequences to their imaginations.
By now, Castiel had a good imagination, and he could certainly agree that such a thing would indeed be an abomination.
However, it still did not answer his primary question.
"That does not explain Lauviah," Castiel pointed out. "I am not an angel. Therefore I have no use for souls of any kind, as I have no power to enhance. So why did he call me, specifically, 'Abomination'?"
"Lauviah –" Rachel started.
"And some of his more fanciful companions," interjected Mehiel.
"They believe that we are searching for a way to use those souls to restore your Grace to you–"
"Or to replace it." Mehiel interrupted again.
"And that by doing so, we plan to put you in Michael's place."
The longer they spoke, the higher Castiel's brows rose. The possible uses of a human soul had been discussed almost as soon as God created them. Re-Gracing a fallen angel was not, and never had been, one of those uses.
It could be a true explanation…
"Is this something you are exploring?" Castiel asked. "Is Harachel searching for a way for me to be 're-Graced'?"
Rachel stretched out a hand. "Castiel–"
"If so, then I must agree with Lauviah. It would be an Abomination. I would be an Abomination," he said flatly. "It would be a gift I could not accept."
"Castiel," Mehiel said firmly. "We are not, and never have, planned on using random souls from Hell to give you back your Grace."
Very carefully worded. Castiel recognized the style.
"Are you, or any who follow you, planning on using the souls to boost your own powers, or the powers of your allies, to fight against Michael or Raphael when they return from Hell?"
Again, the two angels looked at each other, just a quick sideways glance, before Rachel spoke. She assured him that they had no intention of doing such a thing and then they disappeared.
Castiel stood in the backyard, looking at the carefully planted border without seeing it. He had phrased his questions incorrectly. The angels were lying to him.