Hello people. I would like to thank keacdragon for the wonderful review. So here is the next chapter. Now this is set sort of before and at the beginning of season 7, episode 21 'Reading is Fundamental.' But due to the changes I have made this is more a mishmash of scenes from different episodes and obviously won't be following that episode as closely as the story has followed previous ones. I hope you like it.
Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural nor do I own any lines I have taken from Supernatural.
Once they had dropped Charlie off at the bus station Dean, Gabriel and Emanuel made their way to the rendezvous point with a slight change in the seating. Emanuel was now sitting up front next to Dean much to Gabriel's displeasure. Though he knew he had to be in the back considering he was going to be doing his invisible angel act once they got close to the building. Neither he nor Dean wanted Sam or Meg to see him.
Emanuel sat in the passenger seat looking out of the window, to all intents and purposes watching the world go by, though in truth he was thinking. He remembered how Dean had told him to stay in the van if he had to go save Charlie, and he remembered how familiar the information that Dean and Sam had gathered about the leviathan was. One question kept circling in his brain, but it was one he wasn't sure he truly wanted the answer to, though he felt it had gotten to the point where he actually needed it. Turning to Dean he asked a variation on it instead.
"Why did you not want me to follow you into Roman Enterprises?" Emanuel asked into the quiet of the car.
Dean had been trying not to think of everything that was on his mind while he drove, concentrating on the feel of the car beneath him and the road stretched out ahead, therefore Cas' question surprised him and it took him a few seconds to gather an answer from his scrambled brain.
"I didn't want you to get hurt." He finally responded not taking his eyes of the road.
"Don't lie to me Dean." Emanuel said sternly to the man. He had had enough of the lies, it was time for the truth.
"I'm not lying." Dean replied turning to look into Cas' eyes.
"And yet you are not telling me something." Emanuel said more gently returning the stare with the man sitting next to him. At this Dean turned back to looking at the road without saying another word.
Emanuel took a deep breath and asked the question he was dreading the answer to.
"Did Castiel have something to do with releasing the leviathans?" He asked quietly into the car. He couldn't bring himself to ask the question with confidence. It took all he had just to vocalise it.
Dean briefly closed his eyes. He really didn't want to answer that. But before any words could leave his lips Gabriel spoke up from the back.
"Yes."
"Why did you not tell me? Either of you?" Emanuel asked rounding on Gabriel while cutting his eyes to Dean as well.
"Cos it doesn't matter." Dean replied through gritted teeth.
"Of course it matters." Emanuel said incredulously, how could something like that not matter? In another life he had inflected this pain on the world. Of course that mattered.
"No it doesn't. You can't change the past Cas, you can only decide what you are going to do in the future." Dean replied resolutely.
"It's Emanuel." Emanuel said with a frown. Why was Dean now calling him Cas? He had agreed to keep calling him Em.
"No. its Cas." Dean replied not turning round. He was fed up with lying and the angel next to him needed to step up to the plate and accept who the hell he truly was. They needed Cas in this fight, not Emanuel.
At that Emanuel went back to staring out of the window wondering just who he truly was. He had no idea any more, was he the angel who had released the leviathans or was he the human faith healer? He didn't want to be the one responsible for all the pain. He truly did not want to be Castiel, but he had a horrible feeling that his wishes in this would not be taken into account, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Meg and Sam where sitting around the building, Meg going out of her mind with boredom while Sam worried about his brother when they heard the roar of the impala approaching. Sam was up and out the door before Dean had even turned off the engine.
"So how did it go?" Sam asked as soon as his brother got out of the car.
"Just peachy." Dean replied tiredly. He really wanted to rest but he knew that wouldn't happen anytime soon.
"And Charlie?" Sam asked looking round for her.
"On a bus. Asked we never contact her again." Dean replied grabbing the stuff from the trunk and making his way inside to find Meg sitting on the table next to the silver case swing her legs backwards and forwards.
"Well hello cupcake. Didn't die then?" She said with a smirk.
Dean just glared at her and turned to his brother. "So what's in the case?" He asked going over to it with Sam.
"I don't know. We haven't opened it." Sam replied standing next to him, weary of the thing.
"Well let's see what we've won." Dean said opening the case to reveal a red rock.
"Did we just steal a hunk of red clay?" Sam asked incredulously. He couldn't believe they had just done all that for a damn rock.
"No. there's something in there. Something big." Gabriel said into Dean's head in a slightly awed voice as he felt the power radiating off of it.
"That's a good question. Let's see shall we?" Dean said to his brother while speaking to Gabriel in his mind. "You any idea what this is?"
"No… I don't know… Something at the back of my mind…" Gabriel replied trying really hard to remember what had been bugging him since he was at Dick's office.
"Well only one way to find out I suppose." Dean replied to him before turning to Sam. "I'll go get some tools and we'll crack It." With that Dean walked out the building to collect the things they would need to break a rock apart.
He returned a few minutes later with his tool box. Pulling out two pairs of safety glasses he gave one to Sam and put the other on himself as Sam took the rock out of the case and placed in onto the table.
"Hey what about the rest of us?" Meg asked in indignation when she saw Dean get a chisel out of the tool box.
"I guess you should stand back." Dean replied, readying himself to take the first strike at the rock. "Alright?" he turned to Sam, who nodded, then raised the chisel and slammed it down into he rock in front of him.
Suddenly outside the building a storm starts, Dean turned to look at his brother then shruged taking another swing at the rock in front of him. As soon as the chisel hits the stone lightning flashed around the building.
"That sound like someone saying no wait stop, to you?" Dean asked the assembled people.
"Err yeah. Yeah." Sam replied out loud while Gabriel responded inside Dean's head.
"Nope. That's just Daddy dearest playing his song." He muttered.
"What?" Dean asked unsure what the hell Gabriel was going on about.
"Carry on Dean-o. Trust me." Gabriel replied, finally finding the memory that he had been looking for but not quite sure he truly believed what he was looking at.
"Oh well." Dean said out loud to his brother shrugging his shoulders before he hit the stone again and again and again. The storm outside got louder and closer, rushing across the sky as a tablet started to be revealed beneath the surface off stone.
And in Neighbour, Michigan a high school boy stood in his room watching the storm outside. Suddenly the lightening shot down and engulfed him, making his eyes glow gold as he fell to the floor.
In the abandoned building Dean revealed a tablet, pulling out of the stone encasing it turned to Sam confused.
"What the hell is this?" He asked his brother but the response came from two other sources in the room.
"It's the word of god." Castiel and Gabriel said at the same time, though only they and Dean knew they had both spoken. Dean ignored Gabriel for a moment, turning to the angel that they could all see.
"Cas?" he asked hopefully.
Castiel turned from the tablet in Dean's hand to look at him before he spoke. "I remember you. I remember everything." He said into the silent room looking deep into Dean's eyes.
