Long, Long Ago and Far From Now

Prologue

By the time Castiel had landed in an alternative version of Bobby Singer's heaven, Michael had been wreaking havoc in Fairy World for 1,000 years alternate time. He had torn the Winchesters away from Charlie Bradbury's side. They had fought their way to the River of Immortals. Sam and Dean Winchester were cursed to never age another day. Their lives were entwined and they would die and die and live again, only in each other's company, by a trick of the Fates.

This fate that had scared many spiritual creatures of this world far away from Michael's battle line had only empowered the brothers. They became something else entirely. Guerrilla warriors who used spells from the Underworld to tear through the Doors. Sam and Dean fought Michael for eternity and eternity again. Long, long ago and far from now, they came walking down the highway that led to the door of Bobby Singer's real heaven. It was the same day that Castiel had landed there.

Present tense of a future day

"Cas?!" Bobby dropped his beer. He had been working on a Pinto here in heaven. Cas stood up, stunned to a numb mind. For the first time in so many years, a plume of black wings encircled him. Here, in this dimension at least, he was totally an angel again. His wings were visible, drenched in fire. And his friend and former world-saver, Bobby Singer, was here with him again, by some grace that God had allowed.

"Bobby…"Cas almost choked. The burn of the God pendant in his hand alone let him know that this was real.

Bobby came around the car, blinking rapidly. Between them was a moment of confounded silence as all the waiting wind around them suddenly became hushed and still.

"Are Sam and Dean with you?" Cas held his breath.

"Sam and Dean are dead?" Bobby's face fell. Cas shook his head, trying to catch his breath. Too much had happened too soon.

"Oh, one moment...Old friend...So strange to see you on a sudden. No, God sent me. Sam and Dean have been captured by an alternate world version of the archangel Michael." Castiel held his breath, letting his own renewed grace wash him. Total peace had returned when he'd come into Bobby's new and pure heaven. The heaven that God had made and not the one the angels had fabricated.

Bobby scratched his head through the cap, processing.

"Well, if that's the case...Then who's that up ahead?" Bobby's face had fallen in wonder and yet brightened like the first sunrise that was. Because there, like all the times before, and for the first time in Millennia...The Winchester brothers were marching home again.

Castiel felt the heavens brighten, the sun woken out of its sleep and as far as Hell below them now.

They swaggered, leaning on each other, arm around shoulder. Their feet cast up the dust of that lonely road coming back from Nowhere and Everywhere. The sun rose over their backs and in this rarefied place they were younger. Younger even than they were when the curse had rendered them immortal in the Fairy World. Younger than when Cas had known them. And Cas understood instantly. They were young because they were meant to look like the boys that had grown up at Bobby's table. Now they were 20 somethings again, as if no time had passed since the day that Bobby helped them save their Dad and all this odyssey in the Supernatural wars of heavens and hells had begun.

"Sam!? Oh my God! Oh my God, SAM! I think...I think we're in-"Dean's face brightened up as if he'd at last found God. And just maybe he had. The pendant was glowing in Cas' hand. Maybe now, the will of God was understood. The will of God that had woven the unspeakable bond of the four of them together. God had hidden his face from them so that they would look for him and find Him. And now, and here in heaven?...

Sam looked up, with someone else's ancient world and all her wars flashing across his eyes. And just like that, he was at peace. Rendered speechless by the sight.

Against all odds and the slowly depraved press of eternity, Team Free Will had been brought together again.

"We're in heaven…"Sam smiled face flickering with Hanukkah's every light at the sight of the man who was his true father. Bobby's eyes filled with tears, to the surprise of everyone. They blinked away almost as quickly as they came. But this was the answer to every prayer he'd ever prayed since he'd been rendered a spirit in the vast expanse of the sky.

"My boys! How long has it been?" Bobby held out his arms. Each of his boys hugged him in silence and awe.

"For us, about 10,000 years. And that without a single bit of that bright shining as the sun Amazing Grace stuff." Dean smiled, letting out an exhausted breath.

Sam turned to Castiel. His eyes went wide and he laughed. He laughed and then he too was blinking tears.

"You? Is it you?! Oh, it's been so so long…" Sam laughed. Castiel beat his wings.

"For me, it's...it's only been one day since you left the world. And that was far too long." Cas felt he might cry next. Then Dean's eyes, at last, turned on him, and his eyes were wide and his soul was glowing in his face even as his jaw grew slack.

"You...I could never forget you."Dean dropped his rifle. He wouldn't need it anymore. Not here...Not here in heaven. His arms went open and he stumbled on feet as weary as they should be since they had schooled themselves in the way of the road and thorns for these many Millennia. But they at last for all their weary study had finally found it. Home. Home and it wasn't a place. Home was with Sam and Bobby and Cas and all three of them at once.

His arms fell around Cas. His breath caught. Dean's eyes closed. And for Cas, it had only been one day. But holding this man, and his spirit, he suddenly felt it. All of the many, many years. The centuries...The longing for the world he'd come from, the loved ones he'd left in it. Cas being at the top of this list, to the warming of the angel's heart.

"Oh, you...Tormented soul that you have always been...Dean?!" Cas leaned back looking at his friend with a new wonder. For the eons and their epochs flashed before him, all the one red of brothers and their blood. Sam and Dean waging wars that would never be sung about across worlds that weren't their own forever and ever flipped through Cas' mind like a theater of unhappy far off things and battles long ago.

"I have been through...More than I can say or understand. But all the while...I wasn't alone. Sam and I, we swore we would make it back, that we would always keep fighting. That's why I know who you are despite how long ago I knew you...You were my first savior and my only best friend...I never forgot about you, Castiel..." Dean smiled.

"Come on in, everybody. There's beer and bologna and...My God, I don't get many visitors in this lonely corner of heaven...But if I'dda known you all were coming...Oh, this is the best thing that's happened to me for such a long, long time…" Bobby waved his family toward the door of their long lost home. The Singer Salvage house that had gone up in flames a long time ago, along with them. Here in heaven, it was still standing just as it had always been, with their mutual spirit keeping it young and giving it warmth despite a bit of South Dakota's snow still sticking to the ground.

Sam couldn't help himself. He took Dean by the hands, arm wrestling him in a circle so they could stare at each other in awestruck hope.

"Is...Is this for real?" Sam's eyes were burning like stars giving up the ghost, unsure whether to trust in or run from this.

"Sam...Maybe it is and maybe it isn't...And maybe we can't stay here in heaven, but...But let's...Let's let this be one little win…I think it's been long enough, don't you?"Dean smiled, unsure, timid like a wild animal but he nodded. Sam and Dean stood there, jaws dropped, fists knotted together looking up at the doorpost of it. The place they'd strayed so far away from so long, long ago, like a dream within a dream now...

Their lives, every road through the wild lands of war had led them back. Back to the heart of what love meant.

Cas wrapped his wings around either of them, giving them a moment to give in to this amazing grace. This would be the first time they'd heard of it. How sweet the sound...