Epilogue: Ash Wednesday

She was running. The passageways twisted and turned before her, endless and confusing, but always she could hear the thing pursuing her. It made no secret of where it was, though it moved so quickly through the labyrinth that she never quite caught sight of it.

Suddenly, her bare foot caught on one of the thorny roots that clung to the walls and floor of the labyrinth, and the girl was sent sprawling to the stone floor, her foot bloody and her ankle sprained. She tried to get up, tried to keep running for her life, but it was too late. The creature was upon her.

Fearing what she might see, Holly closed her eyes and began to scream in one shrill note-

"My goodness, your imagination must have gotten significantly darker since you became a djinn."

The labyrinth, the creature, and the pain melted away, replaced by two familiar sights: the garden and Cas.

"It was a dream?" Holly asked, accepting her friend's hand and he helped her to her feet.

"Only a dream," Cas nodded. "Or a nightmare, I suppose."

"My heart is still racing," Holly laughed shakily, placing a hand to her chest and feeling the organ in question pumping double-time. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself, then looked again at Cas.

"Are you good now?" he asked, in a perfectly friendly and Cas-like way, but it was just slightly... off.

Holly nodded, sobering now that she was feeling more lucid. Her thoughts must have shown on her face, because Cas frowned.

"I know. I'm not quite the same as I was before. In all fairness, neither is the djinn part of me. Neither one of us can ever be the same."

"I know," Holly admitted, seating herself on the low stone block below the apple tree. "It's just... I really miss you, Cas. Already. I understand that you had to go and do angel stuff, but what about the djinn part of you? What's he doing? And what about Buck?"

Cas, though in Holly's mind he was too neat, bright-eyed, and slightly too emotionless around her to be Cas, sat on the dewy grass next to her. "For clarity's sake, let's just call me Casca and djinn Cas 'Cassius,' okay?"

"Okay, I guess. Where'd this come from?"

"The play Julius Caesar. Cassius and I agreed that we should have new names since we're new people. Anyway, Holly, what you need to realize is that both Cassius and Buck have a lot to think about. They both need to find themselves- one has lost half of his sense of self forever, the other regained his body, power, and conscience that he believed was lost forever. Neither knows who he is anymore. Right now, they're just... wandering. "

"I know the why about why they left, but I just... Ever since I got my powers, it's like I've become a different person. You, too. Sometimes all I want to do is go back to freshman year, when everything wasn't this complicated and the most we had to worry about were finals." She looked over at the almost ripe apples hanging from the branches above her.

"What's done is done, Holly. We're long past the point where Moses lost his sandals in the desert."

Holly sighed, knowing that Casca was probably right. She looked at her feet, which were still bare, but showed no indication of the cuts and sprain she'd felt in her earlier nightmare. "But what if Azazel shows up again? What if he manages to find some other way to free Beelzebub? What if the seal breaks on its own before Cassius and Buck get back?"

Casca smiled gently. "As ever, you are full of questions, Holly. I can't answer many of those, but know that I will always come to your aid." He stood and took her hands in his much larger hands, and pushed her chin up slightly so that she was looking into his cool green eyes that now held the same laid-back power that lay behind Gabriel and Raphael's eyes. "I made you a promise that you'd always be my best friend, didn't I? I intend to honour that promise. If ever you have need of me, just call my name and I will be at your side."

Despite herself, Holly began to cry. "What name should I call? What should I say, exactly?"

Casca smiled. "All you need say is 'Casca, I have need of you,' and I shall be there." He squeezed her hands once, and was gone with a soft fluttering of feathered wings. The garden melted away, and Holly was left, lying in her bed, looking up at the starry night sky on her ceiling, and weeping silently, all alone.

xxx

"Hey," Cas said, as he and Buck loitered around a train station early that morning, "It's Wednesday."

"So?" Buck asked. "What's the big deal?"

"It's Ash Wednesday. The first day of Lent."

"Oh," Buck looked at the readout on his digital watch. "Hey, you're right. We also have a train to catch in fifteen minutes."

"We should go to Mass. Lent is symbolic of a journey, you know?"

"I hate churches." Buck said sulkily. "Let's just catch the train."

"You need to lighten up." Cas told his cousin. "C'mon, we can go to Notre Dame. Don't you like famous architecture?"

Buck rolled his eyes and made a noise like a bassoon. "Fine," He groaned. "But I'm not gonna get that dirt on my forehead."

"From ashes we were formed, and to ashes we return," Cas quoted cheerfully, zipping up his coat and tugging on his knit cap.

"We're djinn, wet wipe. We're made of fire, remember?"

"Well, right now we're just two normal cousins backpacking across Europe. And why would you stop off in Paris and not go see Notre Dame?"

Buck slung his knapsack over his shoulder, trying to look cool while he tried not to smile. "Y'know, most of the Teers are big douches."

"Your point?" Cas grinned.

"For a Teer, you're decent, even if you are kind of a nerd."

"My name's Malone. But thanks. Back at you."

"My name's Sachertorte. But yeah, thanks. All right, let's go and find some hunchbacks or whatever."

"We're going to Mass, not trolling around the belltower."

"Sure we are." Buck grinned mischievously. "Whatever you want to believe."

xxx

Many miles south of the train station, across the vast Mediterranean Sea and well into the Egyptian desert, the sand shifted. A great rumbling sounded from beneath the earth, and all at once, a previously immovable sand dune collapsed in on itself with a soft sshhh of sand and the ominous thunder of stone collapsing in on itself.

The desert was quiet for several hours after that: nothing disturbed the site of the collapse. An Egyptian cobra slithered by, and after a curious initial glance, slithered quickly away. A scarab beetle on its way to make a nest went well out of its way to avoid what had once been a sand dune. When the twilight hour approached, a scorpion scuttled out of its burrow to look for food.

It didn't anticipate the clawlike hand that suddenly plunged out from the sand and crushed it to death, ignoring the poisonous stinger that was trying its best to do its job, without avail.

The dark claw of a hand holding the dead scorpion scrabbled around and pulled more of its owner out of the sand, gasping for air.

Hungry eyes peered out at the prize they'd found from an unkempt mess of dark brown, almost black hair. He hadn't eaten anything in longer than his memory stretched, and his insides were gnawing with primal hunger.

The scorpion's corpse vanished down his gullet in a series of slurpings and snufflings. Strengthened by his venomous meal, the scorpion eater labored to pull the rest of himself out of the sand and stood, assessing his single arm, single leg, and invisible charred and tarnished wings.

A raspy breath, along with a half-dead fly escaped his chapped lips and he looked up. In the dying light, his blank green eye glinted with black fire, while the other, underneath the angry scar, burned red as live coals and his teeth gleamed as his mouth curled into a wide, sinister grin. Being incomplete like this meant nothing.

Once again, Beelzebub walked the Earth.

xxx

Author's Notes: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO WHAT AM I DOING NO WHY DO I ALWAYS HAVE TO END ON A CLIFFHANGER NO THIS IS NOT OKAY NO

Also I think it's fair to share my thoughts while writing each part of this epilogue:

First part~Yay, fluff! Casca and Holly are going to have lovely adventures and friendship bracelet type fluff!

Second part~ yeah, okay, nice. when was ash wednesday 2013 again (remember when this story was set in the slight future? me neither) but hey Cassius and Buck are going to have a good time and maybe do some stuff and be like "heey our family's shitty but i get along with you okay"

Third part~ (WRITing this YESTERDAY) WTH AM I DOING NO NO NO NO I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS NO HELP ME PLEASE OH MY CEREZAS NO HELPMEPLZ

Anyway, it means a lot that you, my lovely readers, have stuck with this monster of a fic for any amount of time, and you're all beautiful for reading my grossly oc centric trash that I spent about 3 YEARS writing (for the life of me whyyyyy) and now that it's finally finished, I can rage in silence for awhile, cursing myself for ending with a cliffhanger.

Goodbye for now, my beautiful people, and don't forget to leave a review!

~Lucinda