Author's Note: Sorry about the delay in posts; it's been a few days since my last one. I've just been really busy lately. Work's getting more stressful, and I'm still studying for the MCAT, even though I feel like I won't be able to get into med school anyway because my GPA just tanked last semester… Gah.

But anyway. Here's the next one. God, we're getting close to the end. This makes me nervous.

Chapter 35 – Don't Fear the Reaper

I fly toward the presidential suite where I know Crowley has been staying—senses tell me that he's there right now. Balthazar isn't nearby, and neither is Meg or Bela. Why is he alone?

I land in the room and see Crowley standing by the window, looking out at the view.

"Hello, Cas," he says. "About time you showed up. It's getting late."

"Tell me about what's been so urgent."

"Oh, nothing much," Crowley replies, and sarcasm is dripping from his voice. "Just that conspiracy theories have spread through the government like wildfire in the last few hours, and that the United States is already prepared to launch a nuke—not at the suspected Soviet nuclear plant that's been built on their soil, but at Russia itself."

"When—"

"Oh, there are fingers hovering over buttons as we speak."

"Why didn't you come to me with this earlier?" I demand.

"You can't blame me," he responds. "You said not to bother you until it was urgent."

"This is urgent. Surely you know that the world going up in flames takes precedent over a conversation I was having."

"Oh, a conversation, was that what you were off doing? I'm sorry, but you neglected to tell me that 'til this very moment!" Crowley snaps.

"Fine. What's the target? Give me information—now," I say.

"St. Petersburg," Crowley says. "The nuke will be going up any second now. Balthazar said that he'd handle it."

"He'd what?"

Crowley just shrugs.

"If the nuclear war starts, or if Balthazar dies because of this, I will kill you."

Crowley sighs. "Just go, Cas. If you don't succeed in stopping the humans from destroying each other, then the Leviathans will be coming after me next anyway, and you'll be the least of my worries."

I hate how calmly he dismisses my threat, but he speaks truth. I take off and appear in Russia, circling high enough so that I can see all of St. Petersburg. But I don't sense any active nuclear warheads nearby. And where is Balthazar?

I extend my senses and realize that he's hovering near Iceland—he's planning to head off the missile before it even reaches Europe. As I move toward him, I feel the blast-off of the missile from an air base in Massachusetts.

Hurrying toward the source of the disturbance, I can tell when the missile is thrown off-course, yanked upwards, and I know that something is wrong.

I reach Balthazar in time to see him tugging the missile at an upwards slant, spreading his wings in preparation to take the bomb with him into another dimension. But I cannot confidently predict how the nuclear weapon will work in another dimension, so I reach a hand out, grounding Balthazar.

He stares at me, registering my presence with wide eyes as we spiral upward with the nuke. I grasp his shoulder and tug hard, angling us downward, toward a huge expanse of blue that I identify as the Atlantic Ocean, and I quickly consider the situation.

If we continue on this downward trajectory, then the weapon will detonate somewhere in the middle of that ocean. Sea life will suffer hugely from this, but we can limit the damage by suppressing nuclear radiation. Provided that there are no ships in the middle of the Atlantic right now, there will be no human casualties—it has been aimed away from any potential targets.

I shift my grip to Balthazar's arm, forcing him to release the missile and allow it to fall on its own. We fly out of range and watch as the weapon hits the water. The ensuing explosion is powerful, and I strain to keep the blast radius as small as possible. There is still about a five mile radius of complete destruction, with about another fifteen miles of moderate to light damage extending out from the center ring.

Even as Balthazar wipes away the mushroom cloud as best he can, I sense the release of another missile, this one from the opposite direction of the United States. The Leviathans must have worked on the Russians—or some other eastern European country—as well, convinced them to launch a missile at the United States, for that seems to be the target of this new weapon.

Beside me, Balthazar has sensed the new threat as well, but before I can stop him, he vanishes.

I curse him for taking advantage of my distraction and leave the blast site alone—it'll be pointless trying to curtail radiation damage to the fish in the sea when all of New York City, or worse, Washington D.C., has been leveled by this missile.

I follow my brother to the missile and reach him as he's tugging it upwards. I consider dragging it down again, but there is no convenient body of water in which we can throw this missile—we're just over Belarus. I consider the Baltic Sea, but it would be all too easy for the Leviathans to convince countries around that region—Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland—that Russia was attempting to intimidate them with this misfire.

So we ride the missile upwards, mile after mile until we're near sixty miles up.

I start to pull Balthazar away, but then we hit the edge of Earth's atmosphere, and I sense the impending explosion the instant before it happens. Instead of using the split-second I have to wing out of there, I use it to rip Balthazar off the missile, spinning around to put myself between him and the danger.

As the explosion hits my back, I wrap my wings around my brother protectively.

It feels like obliteration.

Like I've been shredded.

But I know I haven't, because the next feeling I register is that of rapid falling. And then I feel Balthazar come to, still pressed against my chest, wings crushed by what's left of mine. In such close contact, I can sense the panic rising in his Grace, and I am relieved that he is alive.

Balthazar curses loudly as we hurtle back down toward Earth, and I feel him struggling against my hold. But I can't force myself to let go—I don't know what will happen if I let him go. Will he go after another missile, as stupidly as he did this time? What if he still doesn't know when to let go?

Folded up in my arms, my wings, I know for sure that he is safe.

I'm dimly aware that he's now calling out for help, praying, demanding.

I think of Dean regretfully, and selfishly hope that if I come back from this death, the Leviathans will already be gone, and I won't have to fight anymore.

Then there's the feeling of all-encompassing warmth, and I slip away.

I've just left the mental institution when I hear Sam's voice and fly to him, cloaked.

"—look, I don't know if you're in on this whole Ben-Lisa thing, but if you have any heart whatsoever, bring 'em back to us, man."

Ben and Lisa? I haven't seen them in some time—there was no reason to watch over them as soon as Dean was gone. Has something happened to them?

"C'mon. Please," Sam is still going on. "I am begging you. I am begging you, do you understand?"

He looks around, but I do not reveal myself. I do not work miracles, and I cannot return Lisa and Ben to them when I did not take them. Sam scoffs and turns away, and despite his lack of faith, I feel that I should investigate.

I enter Crowley's lab a moment later.

"Sweetie," Crowley says, looking up from an open book. "You look tense."

"You took Ben and Lisa."

"Oh. That."

"I told you—"

"Not to touch Sam and Dean," Crowley says. "And I've respected that. I'm merely exploiting the obvious loophole. As long as I have the woman and the boy, your fop-coiffed little heroes will be scouring the earth for them, therefore not you, and not me. Everybody wins."

"You should've talked to me first," I say angrily.

"I'd rather ask forgiveness than permission," Crowley says, chuckling.

"Where are they, Crowley?" I demand. The demon pinches his fingers together and runs them along his lips before dipping them into his pocket. I don't understand the motion. "You are not to harm them, do you understand me?"

"You know what? You're maxed out on putting humans out of bounds. I'll do with them as I please. Want to stop me? Go find friggin' Purgatory!"

Then I hear Balthazar speaking my name in Enochian, calling me to him.

"Call on the bat-phone?" Crowley says. "Never call during business hours, do they?"

This demon is ridiculously difficult to comprehend. "I'll be back," I say before taking flight.

I allow Balthazar's voice to guide me to his location.

"Cas, Cas, Cas. So good of you to come," he says when I arrive.

"Balthazar. Why'd you summon me here?" I ask, looking around.

"Can I ask you a direct question?" he asks, turning to face me—I'd landed behind him in a stretch of woods.

"Of course."

"Are you in figrante with the King of Hades?" he asks.

I squint at him—how did he hear of this? "Of course not."

Balthazar laughs. "Always were such a terrible liar. So it's true. All right then, why?"

"It's a means to an end," I say, appealing to the soldier in my brother. "Balthazar, you understand that."

"Oh, absolutely," he says, and I feel a bit of relief that he understands. Then he continues, "But what's the end here exactly? You know, raid Purgatory, snatch up all the souls?"

"Win the war."

"And I can only assume that you'd be the vessel, correct? Suck up all those souls into yourself? All that power?"

"It's the only way," I say.

"Or too much juice for you, in which case you explode, taking a substantial chunk of the planet along with you."

"That won't happen."

"Sure, sure. Of course," Balthazar says, scoffing. "Just—just tell me that it's entirely risk-free."

"I'm sorry that I didn't tell you, but I need to know. Are you with me or not?"

We stare at each other for a long moment, calculating. I wish I could see into his mind, but he would know of the intrusion as soon as it happened.

Finally, my brother chuckles. "Ah. You know, you may be certifiable, but… fine. In for a penny, in for a pound."

Sweet relief floods me at the familiar phrase. I have not been left all alone. Dean, Sam, and Bobby could not understand, but I should have known that Balthazar would stand by me. We have always supported each other in the past—why should that change now?

"How'd you hear about this anyway?" I ask him.

"Oh, your howler monkeys of course," he says. "See, they're just a touch worked up about that kidnapping business, you know?"

"Yes, that," I say. "Crowley went behind my back."

"Of course he did. I know you could never put your precious Dean in such a position," Balthazar replies. "But it's already been done. And knowing the way Dean thinks, he blames this as much on you as he does Crowley. I advise against visiting him."

How did he know that my next stop would be to go talk to Dean? "I… I need to tell him that it wasn't my intention," I say. "I may have chosen a path that he does not approve of, but I would not intentionally hurt him. He should know this."

Balthazar shakes his head. "Suit yourself. I won't stop you."

I smile. "You wouldn't be able to stop me if you wanted to," I respond in jest.

My brother smiles as well, but it seems forced. This is troubling.

I wake to an acute feeling of unease churning in my gut, and the back-and-forth sensation of pacing.

Dean. These sensations are what Dean is experiencing. Dean is pacing uneasily.

I struggle to open my eyes, but an unnatural weight is resting over me, preventing me from showing any signs of wakefulness. I cannot move.

"You said he'd be awake within a day, Gabriel," I hear Balthazar saying. "It's been more than a day."

"Hey, you have no right to get all pissy, little brother," Gabriel says. "If it weren't for you, Castiel wouldn't be lying here right now."

It's silent for a moment, and I test myself, trying to reach out with my mind. I'm blocked. What is wrong? I struggle against whatever it is that's holding me back, but it's solid. There's no way out against the barrier—I'm still too weak. Retreating, I take stock of my condition. As weak as my wings feel, they seem to be intact. My Grace feels damaged, but recovery should not take much more than a few hours.

I realize that I can't hear anyone's footsteps, but the feeling of pacing is still there. So Dean is not in the room with me. This troubles me, but if Balthazar and Gabriel are both here, I should be safe.

Then a hand—I recognize it as Balthazar's—rests on my forehead. It draws back rapidly.

"He's awake," Balthazar says in an accusatory tone.

"Yes, I know. I'm the one keeping him under," Gabriel replies, and I am confused. Why would he…?

"Why?" Balthazar asks, voicing my question.

"I'm letting him stew a bit. That's what he gets for not calling me immediately," Gabriel says.

The pressure lifts, and I start to jerk upright. Balthazar's there in an instant, pressing against my shoulders firmly. I should be able to overpower him, but I am still recovering, and he manages to push me back down onto the mattress beneath me with little effort.

I look around and note that this is the room that Dean claimed for himself at Bobby's house, that I'm lying in his bed. Then I turn my head to the side to look at Gabriel.

He meets my eyes. "You know, if you'd just called me, we could have stopped all this before it got all nasty. Hell, we coulda taken down both of those nukes without breaking a sweat. You don't even know just how powerful you are, do you?"

"This can wait until later," Balthazar says. "Cas only just regained consciousness and he—"

"No, we're doing this now," Gabriel says. "I may have said that I wanted to help you out, bro, but I've got better things to do and better ways to help than to stick around in this shitty little house and play nurse, trying to fix you up. So—"

The door swings open, and Gabriel pauses, turning to look at the newcomer.

"Shut up, Gabriel," Dean says.

"I'm not even—"

"I'm serious—shut up," Dean repeats. "I want both of you two outta this room."

Neither angel makes any move to leave, and Dean huffs exasperatedly.

"Dude, I'll banish your asses. I'm not even kidding."

"Then your poor boyfriend would be banished as well," Gabriel responds.

But he flies away, and Dean apparently doesn't feel any need to shout a retort at him. Instead, he fixes his eyes on Balthazar, who still hasn't moved. They stare each other down for a moment, but Balthazar is the one who looks away first, turning to look down at me.

"I'll be back," he says.

I nod, and he takes off.

"Cas," Dean says, sitting down on the side of the bed and taking my hand. "Fuck, you scared me. And fucking Gabriel wouldn't let me stay in here, said that I'd be in his way, or whatever, and I didn't know if you were gonna wake up or not, and I couldn't—"

"Dean, I'm fine."

But Dean continues as though he hasn't heard me, "—feel you there anymore, and I… I thought… it was like a piece of myself died when you vanished like that. I felt it when you got hit, and then suddenly I was on the ground, but I felt like I was still falling, and then you—you were just gone—" Here he stops speaking, releases my hand, and slides off the bed so that he's on his knees.

"Dean, what are you doing?" I ask as he shrugs out of his shirt and then quickly tugs his undershirt off over his head. "Dean?"

"Shh," he responds.

Then he picks my hand up, and I know that he wants to really feel me there. I shake him off and move my hand so that it rests on his shoulder. Heat flares up from the contact, and Dean's eyes fall shut.

"You're alive," he breathes.

"Yes, Dean. I'm alive."

We stay this way for a long time, just reaffirming our bond. I occasionally get flashes of the pain Dean felt when I was falling. But the glimpses into the void that he felt instead when I disappeared… those are far worse. I've never felt such an excruciating emptiness before in my life, not even when Dean and I hadn't yet completed the bond. It suddenly isn't so difficult to understand why Balthazar would have given anything for Chronos to turn back time and allow him to change Leliel's path.

There's a light knock on the open door, and Dean twists his torso slightly so that he can see the doorway.

"Hey, Cas," Sam says. "You feeling any better?"

"Yes," I say. "Thank you, Sam."

He hovers awkwardly in the doorway for a moment, and Dean lets out a sigh, brushing my hand off his shoulder with a regretful look in my direction. He picks up his discarded shirts and begins redressing himself.

"Where's uh… where did Gabriel and Balthazar go?" Sam asks.

"They were being douchebags. I told them to fuck off," Dean says.

The corners of Sam's lips turn down into a frown. "Balthazar was still recovering, wasn't he?"

I instantly feel a shiver of worry, and Dean's hand reaches for mine without any conscious thought on his part, just an urge to soothe. "Balthazar looked fine to me," I say. "Was he injured by the blast?"

Dean chuckles. "You uh, sort of crushed one of his wings grabbing onto him."

I grimace, remembering the thought that I had to hold onto my brother as tightly as possible to make sure he wouldn't try to go after more missiles. I hadn't meant to hurt him…

"If you're worried, Sam, you can call him to you," I say.

Sam's eyes flit to me for a moment, and I can sense that he's thinking hard. Perhaps he's already guessed that I've spoken to Balthazar about him. "Nah, I trust you," he replies.

Sensing that it's time to change the subject, I ask, "Have you made any progress with researching? I understand I've missed out on about a day."

"Uh, no. No, not really. And Dean was pretty much worse than useless while you were still out cold," Sam says as he finally steps into the room. Dean turns to him, clearly about to defend himself, but Sam quickly adds, "Not that I blame him. I don't know how your uh, angel-bond thing works, but… it was freaky when Dean collapsed like that."

"Yeah," Bobby agrees, appearing just outside the doorway. "We couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with him, but when he finally started talking again, he didn't say much more than 'Cas is gone' and 'we gotta find him now.'"

I look at Dean apologetically.

"Don't you dare say you're sorry, Cas," Dean says before I can speak—he must be able to sense a hint of my apology already. "Look, you and Balthazar just prevented a nuclear war. The last thing you should be doing is apologizing to me."

"I hurt you."

"Not intentionally," Dean says.

"Yeah Cas, none of us is blaming you. You know that, don't you?" Sam says.

"Yes, of course, but—"

"But nothing," Dean interrupts. "Gabe said that even if you did wake up, it'd take probably another day or so for you to get back on your feet again, so just rest here. We'll be around."

"I will be fine in a few hours."

"No, we're listening to the archangel on this one," Dean insists.

"I am an archangel," I say.

"The other archangel, then—the one that agrees with me."

"Cas, if you don't want to feel useless, we could bring some books up for you, so you can help us research a bit," Sam offers.

"Yeah, what do you say?" Dean says. "I'll stay here with you."

I get the sense that he's doing this as much to accompany me as he is to keep an eye on me. He thinks I'll try to leave before he sees fit.

But I suppose his worry is justified. I need to speak to Crowley and get a sense of just how precarious the situation is. Only one missile each was fired this time. There was no harm done, but each side has seen that the other is willing to fire—I can't see how that would help matters. And if they fire multiple missiles simultaneously next time, we won't be able to stop them. After all, we are only three angels. The resulting destruction would be devastating.

I'm not thinking along the right lines, then. I need to speak with Chronos, not Crowley. We don't have enough time to attempt to stabilize the political situation, and we certainly don't have time to find another method for stopping time.

"Cas?" Dean prods, and he looks a little worried.

"Sorry—I was just thinking."

"About?"

"The political instability," I say. "I should speak with Crowley as soon as possible."

"Okay, great. We can summon him here—"

"Not now," Sam says firmly.

"Yes, I know. I have not yet recovered enough to fly without damaging my wings. They are still very sensitive."

"Well, yeah," Sam says, "considering there were holes torn in them and all."

It's strange to think that my wings were really ripped up, but the tenderness in them does indicate that patches of them had to be regrown. Gabriel must have had a lot of work to do. Thank you, I pray to him. He doesn't respond, but I know that he's heard it.

"Okay, so you'll stay here and rest for now," Dean says, sitting back down on the bed.

I glance toward the door and see that Bobby's gone, and Sam's turning to leave.

"I'll bring some books up," Sam says.

"Thanks, man," Dean says. His hand rests over mine again, but he's smiling up at his brother.

Sam's lips curl into a pleasantly surprised smile—the brothers don't ordinarily thank each other for things. "Yeah, no problem."

Then Sam's heading back downstairs, and Dean lets his eyes drop to the ground. A smile lingers on his face as he turns to face me, and I know what I have to do.

Sam won't let Dean die, and Dean won't let Sam die. Neither of them will be happy if I die, but the difference is that they can't stop me.

But then I recall the flashes of hurt, of icy cold vacancy that Dean had felt. The thought he'd had that the whole world had been emptied out, because I'd gone missing.

I remember the pained grimace on Balthazar's face when Leliel died, and how it turned to determination when he thought of Chronos and set out to search for him. We'd all thought he would never find him, but he eventually did. And I remember the deep depression Balthazar had fallen into when I'd finally taken him away from the God of Time, talked him down.

Could I really do that to Dean? All that pain…

But even as I consider not doing this, I know that it is the only path that remains. I am the only one of the three of us who can die. Dean will survive through the pain because that is the type of person he is. He'll think he can't—insist that he can't do it, but he can. I know this because he was able to endure Sam's fall into the cage with Lucifer. He'll do it if Sam asks it of him.

"Cas, what are you thinking?" Dean suddenly asks.

"Hmm?" I say, and I realize that he looks troubled.

"It just… feels like you're concentrating really hard on something, but I can't tell what. What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing," I reply. "My mind was just… wandering."

"Mhmm," he grunts, and I can tell he doesn't believe me.

Then Sam walks into the room again, this time laden with books. "Here you go," he says, dropping them on the ground by Dean's feet. "Have fun."

"Oh yeah. Fun," Dean says sarcastically.

Sam leaves the room, chuckling, and Dean picks up one of the books. Then he looks at me and frowns.

"Here, I'm gonna help you sit up, okay?"

"I can do it on my own," I say, starting to lift up my torso.

But Dean immediately reaches out to support me, and to make him feel more secure, I decide not to push him away. He lifts up the pillows behind me and arranges them so that they'll cushion my back against the wall.

When I'm settled in, Dean picks up two of the books on the ground and holds them out to me.

"Here, pick one."