[Note: Sam and Dean, Bobby & Castiel- not mine….but I can pretend!]
----Chapter 13----
Astrid sat up with a moan. She noticed that Ella had fallen asleep on Sam's shoulder. She smirked as she thought about how she could use that to get back at her for all the jokes about her and the ass. Thinking of the ass, he was sitting in a chair his head leaned back against the wall. The shotgun was held in his hands across his lap.
She grimaced as she realized what had woken her up. She had to pee like crazy. Struggling to disentangle herself from the blanket, she staggered to a vertical position.
"Are you sure you aren't drunk?"
She jerked at the sound of the voice. She turned to see that Dean was awake. "I almost wish I was. Either that or high on some kickass painkillers," she said honestly.
Dean gave a dark chuckle. "Where you going?"
"I have to pee, mother. Is that all right with you?" Astrid said putting her good hand on the wall to balance her.
"Are you always this much of a smartass?" Dean asked.
"You just bring out the best in me," Astrid said with a grin. She moved stiffly towards the door. Her head swam with the pain of her broken arm and what she was sure was a myriad of other bruises from slamming in to the ground and running through the woods and being the cheese in the zombie maze. Dean stood up when he saw her wobble in the doorway.
"Come on, gimpy."
Astrid glared at him. "Watch it, Dean-y." Her expression softened as he came on her injured side to support her. "You're going to ruin your rep as an ass if you keep being nice to me."
"Want me to push you down?"
"Please, don't," Astrid said plaintively. Dean gave her a look that said he just might be thinking about doing it. However, they made it to the restroom without any incidents.
"I can manage to pee by myself," she said testily at the door to the one and only bathroom in the jail.
Dean just gave her a look, but let her go in by herself.
After they got back, Astrid realized she still had Dean's phone and car keys. She got a wicked grin as she concocted a plan. "Here's your phone, Dean…. and I'm sorry, but this is all I managed to get," she said with just a hint of sorrow and regret as she handed his phone to him and then held out his keys.
He got a horrified expression on his face as he thought that the keys were all that was left of his car. Astrid burst out into laughter that made her arm ache, but did her soul good. When she managed to control her laughter she said, "To be honest, I wouldn't worry about your girlfriend too much. Considering the zombie horde that was with Death, I don't think anything living is going to be coming down the highway in the near future."
Dean gave her a nasty look and grabbed his keys. "Not funny."
"What the hell is all the noise in here?" Bobby asked as he wheeled into the room.
"Seriously, Trid, did you have to wake everyone up?" Ella asked as she woke up rubbing sleep out of her and blushing slightly as she realized she had been lying on Sam's shoulder. Her blush darkened as she saw the drool that had soaked into his shirt. Sam rubbed a hand over his face as he woke up, but he didn't comment on the wet shoulder.
"Sorry," Astrid glanced at Dean giving him a half grin, "but it was totally worth it."
Dean muttered something unflattering under his breath. Astrid resisted the urge to respond in kind.
"Sooo…Did I miss anything?" Astrid asked.
"Castiel found Tessa, she's agreed to help with the zombies. From what we can see out the windows, she's done fast work. The zombies are dropping like flies out there," Bobby filled her in. "It's about an hour until sunrise and we still have to deal with Death."
"I tried to block that part out," Astrid said with a shiver of disgust. She looked around and noticed someone was missing. "Where's Cas?"
"He's gone to look for Death."
"Oh," Astrid said with a confused look, "Why?"
"Because we can't just let Death leave," Dean said.
Ella and Astrid were confused. "Why not?" They said in unison. Letting Death go on his merry way seemed like an excellent idea to them.
Sam grimaced, "Because he'll just do this somewhere else."
"I hadn't thought about that," Ella said softly.
"The horsemen all have rings that give them their power," Sam explained. "We need to get his ring."
Astrid tried to remember if she had seen a ring on Death's hands, but for the life of her she couldn't. "I don't remember seeing a ring, but I was a little on edge at the time."
"Trust me, he has one," Dean said emphatically. He didn't know how they were going to get the ring. Suddenly, Cas was standing in the room with them. His face was pale and his eyes glassy. "Fuck. Cas!" Dean said as he moved quickly to catch the angel as he pitched forward. "What the hell happened?"
The whole office became a flurry of movement and tension. "Death, I …found him," Castiel said weakly, "but he cannot be touched." As proof of his statement he held up his left hand, which was black and blue with bruises from the fingertips to the wrist. His voice said a little stronger, "He is the harbinger of death, and his touch brings death to all whom he embraces." Then, the angel passed out.
"Well," Astrid said unhappily, "that complicates things."
Dean felt anger rise up inside of him as he looked at Sam. Things were never easy for the two of them. They had to figure out how to get a ring off of something they could not touch. Sam said, "We'll find a way."
-
Time passed slowly. People began moving around in the jail. Sam and Dean prepared to go outside and hunt for Death. As far as anyone could tell, the zombies were about gone. Tessa did good work. Still, Dean couldn't let go of the fact that for every break they got they got another problem to replace it. He felt like he was going to fail. Death was the one thing that always seemed to get the Winchesters- Mom, Dad, Sam, even him. They had all died at one point another. Hell, the only reason Sammy and him were alive was because Lucifer and Michael need their meat suits.
"You okay, Dean?" Sam asked as he grabbed the shotgun.
"Yeah, peachy-fucking-keen."
"Look, I know it sucks," Sam said, "but we've got out of some pretty bad crap before."
"How the hell do we fight Death, Sam?" Dean said angrily.
"I don't know, Dean," Sam said. "But I'm not going to lose you again." Sam said the last with that hard glint that he'd had in his eyes ever since he'd come back from the dead.
-
Ella glanced over at Astrid who was watching the two brothers. "You like them."
"Sam's cool. Dean, the jury is still out."
Ella raised her eyebrows at that. "Uh-huh, pull the other one."
"So drooling on Sam?" Astrid said with a smirk.
Ella blushed. Then, her look turned contemplative.
"They have some really dark emotions," Ella said.
"Are you surprised?"
"No, it just makes me sad."
"Me, too." Astrid might be a smartass, but like Ella on the inside she was a sucker for broken things.
-
Sam and Dean were ready to go after Death. Ella was going with them since she was like Death GPS. Astrid didn't like sending her back out there alone, but she had agreed that with a broken arm she was a liability. At least, Ella had the brother's to keep her safe.
She grabbed Dean's arm. "She comes back. Alive."
Dean nodded. Astrid shifted her eyes away and then looked up at him.
"And you come back, too."
Dean smirked and waggled his eyebrows. "Want to play pelvic pinochle when I get back to celebrate?"
Astrid rolled her eyes. "Ass."
Then, they were gone out the door and Astrid felt her heart clench with fear. Father, you are in the control. You have conquered Death. Keep them safe. Show them how to stop this.
-
Time ticked by as Astrid sat with Bobby. Sheriff Mills was explaining to everybody that they were going to have to burn the bodies. It was the only sure way to keep them from rising as zombies again. Alex introduced Astrid to his mother. It was one small blessing in sea of bad.
"They'll be fine," Bobby said as he watched the girl shift anxiously for the millionth time. Still, he was nervous, too.
Her blue eyes looked a him. "I don't know. I just feel like I should have gone with them."
"I understand if I had my legs I would be right there beside them," Bobby said gruffly. "Instead I'm useless."
Astrid looked at him, "You're not useless. You made sure that we did the ritual that protected all these people. We don't always like the path God puts us on, but there's a reason he put you on this one. Besides modern medicine is pretty awesome, Ella's mom was telling me a couple of weeks ago about how they used olfactory stem cells to help someone walk again." She gave him an encouraging smile reached over and squeezed his hand. "Plus, I hear I'm pretty tight with God so I'll put in a good word for you."
Bobby shook his head in disbelief at her faith. He wondered what it would take to shake that faith, and he hoped he never lived to see it. "You do that."
-
Ella sat in the middle of the truck between Sam and Dean. She couldn't feel any of the hunger from the zombies. She hoped that meant that Tessa had done her job. Because she had herself open to find Death, Sam and Dean's emotions were pouring over her. She hated to invade their privacy, but she had little choice. Dean had turned the radio on to a classic rock station. However, no one spoke as the drove through the town. The streets were littered with bodies in various states of decomposition.
Sam's was feeling an angry determination. It slashed at her insides like a red-hot poker. Still, it was threaded with a need to protect and deep-rooted love. Dean on the other hand scared her. It was like drowning in an ocean of defeat and despair. Sometimes Ella wished she could read thoughts as well as she felt emotions. As she sat trapped between two dangerous maelstroms of emotions, she felt the first ice-cold touch of Death. "He's still here."
They glanced out the windows at the sun that was almost completely above the horizon. "Where?" Dean asked.
"Turn left," Ella replied shivering as the pain of Death's touch reached deeper into her. Sam noticed and reached out to grip her hand. She gave him a pained smile. His emotions had shifted to something more bearable – concern for her. Dean noticed, but didn't say anything as he took the next left. "Right," she ground out as the pain became almost unbearable.
They pulled up beside an old cemetery that was next to an ancient church. "Well, this is not cliché at all," Dean said darkly. "Church or cemetery?"
Ella tried to get a better direction from the pull. "I'm sorry. Too close."
"It's okay, Ella," Sam said. They slowly got out of the truck. "You think you can handle a gun."
Ella nodded affirmatively, but she wasn't so sure she'd be able to focus through the pain.
-
Sam and Dean led the way. Ella brought up the rear. Neither brother noticed as she lagged farther and farther behind.
Dean decided to check the church first. The sun was shining brightly as they stepped into the church. The wooden door was rotten, but the floor was just an old dirt floor. Patches of weeds grew where sunlight filtered in the boarded up windows. Their footsteps stirred up dust that floated through the beams of the morning sun. Old wooden benches sat in disarray. Sam said, "There doesn't appear to be anything here."
They turned to find that wasn't quite true.
-
Castiel woke up. He felt weak like after he had taken Sam and Dean back in time. He had never truly understood human suffering until he'd been cut off from heaven's power. Before when he had been damaged, he was aware of it, but it had been more of a mental acknowledgment. Now, pain was something he felt and couldn't always ignore.
He heard soft footsteps. He opened his eyes and looked into the blue eyes of Astrid. She was kneeling beside his prone body. "Hey, welcome back to the land of the living."
"I was not dead," Castiel said flatly.
Her laughter trickled over him, "It's just an expression, Cas. You don't take it literally." She offered her uninjured hand to him as she stood. He took it and she helped pull him to his feet. She was not a tiny woman, but she wasn't tall either.
"Dean and Sam?" He asked.
"They went after Death," Astrid explained.
"I should…" Castiel began as the woman's expression went blank. Her eyes widen and she turned to go.
"I have to go!" she said frantically. "I knew I should have gone with them. Oh, God, please keep her safe." Her voice had an urgency to it.
Cas stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "Ask Him to allow me to take you."
Her eyes looked at him full of tears, but she said, "Father, please, allow Castiel to use angelic powers to take me to Ella."
He reached out and touched her and almost laughed with joy when he felt them both shift towards the other woman.
---Review Please----
[A/N: As a special treat this chapter is a little longer than usual to make up for not updating. Next episode, the final showdown with Death. BTW, thanks for all the kind thoughts about my husband's grandmother. She is doing very well despite having 3rd degree burns. As always, I delight in getting reviews. Thanks for reading]