"You should probably be up there for this," I said. Hershey shrugged and magiced himself beside me. The audience let out a rather dramatic gasp. "Oh, come on! He did the same thing last night! Although I'm not sure why he just didn't walk like a normal person."

"Where's the fun in that?" Hershey asked with a cheeky grin. Dean rolled his eyes.

"Right. Let's take a poll. Haven't done one of those in a while. How many people think that Hershey will actually be honest with me and tell me the truth? About anything at all. Who thinks that he will give me a straight answer when I ask for one?" Maybe a quarter of the hands went up.

"Aw, I thought that there'd be more!" Hershey complained, snaking an arm around my waist. I froze. I refused to lean against him. I couldn't

"Really? I was expecting less," I said. Something dark and tired flashed in Hershey's eyes, and he nonchalantly pulled his arm back. I pretended not to notice. "Well, believe it or not, those of you with your hands up are right. You can put them down now. Hershey was very honest for himself… up to a point."


2009

Hershey leaned against the switchboard and shrugged. "Fine. But I only have a minute before I need to go mess with the Hardy Boys."

"Well, this is probably going to take longer than a minute," I said.

He sighed and motioned for me to continue. I didn't like the way that he looked at me. His eyes weren't hard, or cruel, or mocking, or anything like that. But they weren't warm, or kind, either. They were just… blank. And I hadn't seen that in a very long time.

"What's going on?" I asked. I could barely hear my voice over the pounding of my heart. He looked down at the floor. I could see the muscle in his jaw working. "You got to talk to me, Hershey. Because right now? All I know is that you just told the Winchesters to end the world. And Castiel seems pretty convinced that you're not a trickster. And my hand did this weird thing earlier. And I have had a very stressful week. We both have. So tell me what's going on. Please."

"I was with you when you died," Hershey finally said. "I just sat there, watching you breathe, and I couldn't help you." He squeezed his eyes shut. "My Cola was hurt and I couldn't do anything. And then you were gone." He snapped his fingers. "Just like that. And I couldn't do anything!" I flinched when he suddenly yelled.

"Well it obviously turned out okay," I said. Hershey laughed, the same, harsh laugh from when I said that maybe the Apocalypse could be stopped.

"Yeah, no thanks to me." He sighed when he saw the confusion on my face. "A demon possessed you and killed Vulcan. And that kind of help rarely comes cheap."

"Heaven or Hell, which side are you on," I echoed, deliberately ignoring the fact that a demon took control of my body. I would process that information later. He nodded and looked over his shoulder at the screens. It looked like some sort of procedural cop show, judging from the fact that both Winchesters were wearing sunglasses at night. Castiel was nowhere in sight.

"It's a one time deal, but Dean's smarter than he looks," Hershey said. "He likes you, too. Not sure if that's a good thing or not. Gotta go." He was at the door before I could stand.

"Hershey, wait!" I still had so many questions. Like my hand, and Castiel, and how could Dean possibly like me after Mystery Spot? We barely interacted!

"Cola, I need to go or the trick won't work." Okay. So what was the most important question?

"Castiel said that you're not a trickster. He was very sure of that. But you would have told me." For a second, Hershey didn't say anything. My hands started to shake. I stared at them, hoping that they would stop. "Right? You would have told me by now if you weren't a trickster."

"Cola, I have never lied to you about something important. Never."

"Then what are you?" I asked.

"I'm your Hershey Man."


Present

"Which was not an actual answer," I said, giving Hershey a mock glare. He held a hand over his heart and threw his head back.

"You wound me! I thought that it was a great answer. Right?" he asked, turning to the crowd for support. They immediately burst into applause.

"You're with me on this, Becky, right?" I asked. Becky hesitated for a moment before shaking her head.

"No, but that was so adorable! Him calling himself your Hershey Man, signifying that that is the most important identity to him… it's… so dreamy."

"Ha!" Hershey said triumphantly.

"Traitor," I told her. "And I don't know why you're so happy." I turned my attention back to the grinning archangel next to me. "Your oh so wonderful answer came back to bite you in the ass. As did something far more serious." Yep, that struck a nerve. "And I, personally, think that it would have been much more romantic if you had actually told me what you are before the Winchesters forced you to."

"It all worked out alright."

"You call this alright?"

"We both know that this is because of something completely different. How far is your story going to go?"

"Until the bitter end."


2009

Somewhere along the line, I had accepted people getting turned into cars as normal. Dean loved his car so much, it wasn't any surprise that Knight Rider would make an appearance. Of course, Sam became the car, or what Hershey dubbed the Sampala. But maybe it wasn't that I was used to insane things going on, but rather I was still freaking out that Hershey had been stabbed through the heart with a stake.

It had looked so real. The pain on Hershey's face, the way the screens and motherboard flickered out of existence for a moment, the fact that, as far as I could tell, Sam and Dean had broken out of TV Land and left the warehouse. I was certain that Hershey was dead. He told me that he loved me, and then he was gone. It made me sick to my stomach to think that I had doubted him.

And then he came back.

And everything was okay again.

Except it wasn't.

I couldn't find Cas, no matter where I looked. Hershey yanked Sam and Dean back into TV Land, saying that he needed to at least get a little payback after they tried to kill him. I told him to just let them leave. Hershey had made his point already. "Play your roles," fine. This was just asking for trouble. Something bad was going to happen. I just knew it. This feeling of dread rooted itself in my head, and even Hershey's reassurances that he wasn't going anywhere, that everything would be fine, that he loved me, that he would tell me everything and anything I wanted to know once the trick was over, wouldn't shake it. This – TV Land, being the Station Manager, stopped being fun a while ago.

When Dean and Sam finally gave up, I didn't want to go. It wasn't like them to just give up. But then Hershey gave me this grin that he knew I couldn't resist, and any resolve crumbled. So I let him lead me to the park where the Winchesters were waiting.

"Wow, Sam. Get a load of the rims on you," Hershey said with a whistle. I fought a smile as Dean caught my eye. He seemed surprised to see me, although he didn't say anything. He just looked at the ground a few feet away from where Hershey had magiced us in. I followed his gaze, but didn't see anything.

"What?" I mouthed when he looked back at me. Dean moved his head a fraction of an inch to the side.

"Eat me," the Sampala said. Dean's eyes immediately locked back onto Hershey. The trickster god grinned and returned to my side.

"Okay, boys. Ready to go quietly?" he asked.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, not so fast," Dean said. "Nobody's going anywhere until Sam has opposable thumbs."

"What's the difference? Satan's going to ride his ass one way or another," Hershey said. He gave me an unrepentant shrug when I looked at him. "It's true." Dean just glared until Hershey huffed and snapped his fingers. The red, scrolling lights on the Sampala's front bumper went out, and a human Sam got out of the car. Dean used the distraction to look at me, and then very pointedly looked at the same place he had before. It suddenly dawned me on what he was trying to say. My feeling of dread only increased. "Happy?" Hershey asked.

"Tell me one thing," Dean said. I slowly began to walk away from Hershey, pretending that something by the Impala's rear bumped had caught my attention. Dean had given me the warning to move, and despite nearly everything in me screaming at me to tell Hershey that this was a trap, I stayed silent. Hershey had said that Dean liked me. That was enough for me to give him the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully it wouldn't blow up in my face. Who was I kidding? Of course it will. "Why didn't the stake kill you?" Dean asked.

"I am a trickster!"

"Or maybe you're not," Dean said. Sam held up a flaming lighter and tossed it onto the ground. A ring of fire rose out of the ground and surrounded Hershey. I yelped and scrambled back. For a moment, all I could see was Vulcan standing over Hershey's smoldering body. His mocking laughter rung in my ears as I tripped over my own feet and fell hard on my tailbone. Hershey lunged towards me, but pulled himself back just before he crossed the flames. "Maybe you've always been an angel," Dean continued.

A what?

"No," I whispered as Hershey laughed. He couldn't be an angel. He would have told me. He would have told me!

"A what?" Hershey asked, his voice slightly higher than usual. "Somebody slip a mickey in your power shake, kid?" Dean shrugged as Sam walked over to me to help me to my feet. I ignored his outstretched hand and got up on my own. He gently led me to his brother so that I was flanked by the two hunters.

"I'll tell you what. You just jump out of the holy fire, and we'll call it our mistake," Dean said. Hershey scoffed and I waited expectantly for him to do just that. I waited for Hershey to jump through the holy fire so that I could laugh and smile and shout "I told you so!" to anyone and everyone who would listen.

But then Hershey looked at me. And I saw the light die in his eyes. And I'm sure that the light in mine died along with it. And then he looked at the Winchesters, and if looks could kill, then the two hunters would have been reduced down to atoms.

The park disappeared in a burst of static, and we were standing in the middle of the warehouse. I could hear my blood roaring through my ears as Hershey started clapping.

An angel. Hershey was an angel.

"No," I repeated.

"Well played, boys. Well played. Kudos for not trapping Cola as well." He looked down at the ring of fire. "Where'd you get the holy oil?"

"Well, you might say we pulled it out of Sam's ass," Dean said with just a little bit of a cocky smirk. Of course, he would be proud of himself.

"Where'd I screw up?" Hershey asked.

"You didn't," Sam admitted. "Nobody gets the jump on Cas like you did."

"Mostly it was the way you talked about Armageddon," Dean said.

"Meaning?" Hershey asked, tilting his head to one side in a motion that almost exactly replicated a still missing Castiel.

"Well, call it personal experience, but nobody gets that angry unless they're talking about their own family," Dean said. Hershey inclined his head slightly, as if to concede the point.

"So which one are you?" Sam asked. "Grumpy, Sneezy, or Douchey?"

None of them. Because he couldn't be angel. He couldn't. He said that he never lied about the important stuff, and I had believed him.

Hershey looked at me. I had never seen him more vulnerable. I had never seen his guard up so high. "Gabriel, okay?" he told me. "They call me Gabriel." I felt like I had been punched in the gut.

"Gabriel," I repeated. "The archangel."

Hershey – Gabriel – shrugged. "Guilty!" I shook my head so fiercely I gave myself a headache. I didn't realize that I was shaking until Dean placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. I looked at his hand, but didn't pull away. I didn't stop shaking either.

Why didn't you tell me? I asked you. I asked you what you were.

"Okay, Gabriel," Dean said. I flinched. "How does an archangel become a trickster?"

"My own, private witness protection," he said. "I skipped out of heave, had a face transplant, carved out my own little corner of the world. Till you two screwed it all up."

"What did Daddy said when you ran off and joined the pagans?" Dean asked.

"Daddy doesn't say anything about anything."

"Then, what happened?" Sam asked. "Why'd you ditch?"

"Do you blame him?" Dean said. "I mean, his brothers are heavy weight douchenozzles."

"Shut your cakehole," the archangel growled. "You don't know anything about my family. I love my father, my brothers. Love them. But watching them turn on each other? Tear out each other's throats? I couldn't bear it! Okay? So I left. And now it's happening all over again."

And I'm brought back again to that night, to our walk in the snow, and I just want to scream, but I can't because I can barely breathe, because I thought that he loved me, trusted me, that he would have told me by now, especially since I asked him, asked him what he was, and he didn't tell me, and I want to scream, and cry, and hit something – someone – but I can't because he's still talking and there will be time for that later, that is if he – Hershey – Gabriel – I don't know what to call him anymore – doesn't run away the second he gets out of the holy fire.

Why didn't he just tell me?

"I want it to be over!" he shouted. I shrank back a little. Dean gave my shoulder another squeeze. "I have to sit back and watch my own brothers kill each other thanks to you two! Heaven, hell, I don't care who wins! I just want to be over."

"It doesn't have to be like that. There has to be some way to... to pull the plug," Sam argued.

"Oh, you do not know my family. What you guys call the 'Apocalypse,' I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this. Because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers who loved each other and betrayed each other. You'd think you'd be able to relate."

Oh… Oh…

"What are you talking about?" Sam asked. The archangel looked at me, incredulous. It was the first time that he had looked at me since he had said his name.

"It's obvious," I said. Sam looked shocked that I could speak. To be honest, I was a little surprised myself. "Think about it." I looked up and over my shoulder at Dean. He looked so damn apologetic. "Michael," I said, "the big brother, who always follows his father's orders." I turned my head to a much less sympathetic Sam. "And Lucifer, the little brother, who fought against his father every chance he got."

A smile flickered on the archangel's face. For a moment, he looked like my Hershey Man again. "Knew you would figure it out before them. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you!" He raised his hands up to the ceiling, his voice taking on the quality of a preacher. "As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth." He dropped his hands back listlessly to his sides. "One brother has to kill the other."

Dean's hand on my shoulder tightened, although I doubted that it was because he was trying to comfort me. "What the hell are you say?" the elder Winchester demanded.

"Why do you think I've always taken such an intrest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you." He leaned forward. "Always."

There was a moment of silence, as if no one knew what to say. I shook off Dean's hand and took a step forward up to the line of fire. The heat almost drove me back, but I refused to move.

"Nicky," Dean said softly. I didn't have to turn around to know that he was probably reaching a hand out towards me. I ignored him and waited until the archangel looked at me before speaking.

"You're wrong."

He looked at me sadly, almost pityingly. "I'm sorry, Cola. But I'm not." He sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face. "Listen, I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow, the guy gets his girl…" Now it was my turn to look away. "But this is real. And it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's got to be."

He sounded so damn resigned. This couldn't be it. There had to be something – anything – that someone could do. Because otherwise, what was the point? If he knew that Sam and Dean were the end, then why even bother with me? Why even bother to take me on adventures, or to fall in love?

"So," the archangel said. "Now what? We stare at each other for the rest of eternity?"

"Well, first of all, you're going to bring Cas back from wherever you stashed him," Dean said.

"Oh, am I?" the archangel challenged.

"Gabriel," I said. I hated the way the word felt on my tongue, and hated more how the archangel's eyes squeezed shut for a fraction of a second. He looked at me and nodded before snapping his fingers. I felt the familiar rush of magic, of Grace, on my skin and turned to see a rather angry Castiel standing a few feet behind me.

"Cas, you okay?" Dean asked. Castiel didn't take his eyes off of his brother.

"I'm fine. Hello, Gabriel."

"Hey, bro. How's the search for Daddy going? Let me guess. Awful." The archangel made a face, but I saw how much he looked like a lost little boy once he turned away. And despite everything that had happened, that was what finally broke my heart.

Okay," Dean said, "we're out of here. Come on, Sam. Nicky, you're welcome too."

"What?" the archangel and I asked at the same time. Sam looked at his brother as if he had grown a second head.

"You obviously don't want the world to end," Dean said. "And you've survived this asshole, recent death excluded, of course. Honestly, we could use all the help we can get."

Could I? Could I actually help? I was just an artist. And yeah, I could run, I guess, and I knew a little bit about supernatural creatures, but I couldn't fight. I relied on Hersh – on the being inside the ring of holy fire to actually fight and save me. Wouldn't I just be in the way? But Dean looked sincere. Like he actually believed I could help. Maybe I could? Maybe I could actually do something. I found myself nodding before I even finished that thought.

"Okay," I said. Dean smiled at me and started to head out the door.

"Don't," the archangel breathed. I swallowed around the growing lump in my throat and followed Dean. "Wait." Sam shook his head and fell in line with us. "Wait!" Almost there. I was almost at the door. "Cola! Don't leave me again. Please!"

I stumbled to a stop with a sharp intake of breath. He sounded absolutely panicked. When I had ever heard him sound like this? For that matter, when was the last time I heard him say "please"? I bowed my head and squeezed my eyes shut. Could I do it? Could I really walk out that door? I still loved him. The fact that I even stopped in the first place proved that much. But he had lied to me. And not a small lie, either.

I let out a breath that I didn't realize I was holding and looked up at a waiting Dean. My decision must have been all over my face, because he didn't need me to say a word.

"You take care of yourself," he told me.

"You too. All of you," I said quietly. I nodded to Castiel as he passed. He hesitated at the door for a moment and looked back at his brother before leaving. The door slammed shut behind him with a finality that I didn't like.

"Thank you for staying."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked without turning around.

"Same reason why I didn't tell you that I loved you the moment you came back to life," he said. "I was scared, okay? And it didn't matter. I haven't acted as an angel in millennia. You asked me what I was, and I told you the truth."

I finally turned around. "No, you didn't. Your brothers are out there tearing the world apart, and you honestly thought that that didn't matter?"

"Yup."

I laughed so that I wouldn't cry. "Any other unimportant things you'd like to share?"

"Sure, I love the color blue."

"No! You do not get to be snarky! Not right now! You…" Oh my God. "You were actually staked in the cop show, weren't you?" The archangel looked at me warily, not trusting the sudden change in topic. Good. He should have been terrified. "Answer me!"

"Yes!" he shouted. "Stakes do nothing. Hurt like a bitch, but they can't actually hurt me, happy?"

"So, when Cullen stabbed you. You were fine. You were just pretending so that your cover wouldn't be blown. And Damon knew too, didn't he? He knew that you were fine the whole time."

All of the color left his face. I was wrong before. This moment was what finally broke my heart. "Cola," he whispered. I shook my head.

"I killed a man because your secret identity was more important to you than the fact that I was terrified and in danger."

"Cola – "

"Stop calling me that!" I screamed. The archangel actually took a step back. I had expected tears by now, but my eyes were dry. "I killed him, and it's all your fault! Do you have any idea how many nightmares I've had? I could barely sleep for a month. I saw him everywhere."

"I know."

"'I know'. Gee, thanks."

"Nicolette – "

"You know, I think the really screwed up part is that I think I still love you. Even after all of this, even if Dean was still outside, I'm still going to end up staying here with you. God, how messed up can I be? And it's all your fault, Gabriel. You damned me the moment you decided to kill Daddy."

He was silent for a long time. Then, quietly, "What do you want me to do?"

"Stop your brothers."

"I can't."

"You can do something… You owe me that much."

"I can't. It's destiny! Set in stone."

"Then prove it to me."

"Fine," he snapped, as if he had any right to be angry. "Just get me out of the holy oil first."

"Fine," I snapped back. I found a discarded plank of wood and dragged it over to the burning holy oil. I could feel his eyes burning into me the whole time. I pushed one end through the flames, breaking the circle and allowing the archangel to step across.

"I'm going to send you somewhere," he said. "And it'll be real. No tricks. Three days, then I'll bring you back."

"How do I know you're not lying again?"

"Because you won't be alone."

Before I could ask him what he pressed two fingers to my forehead. And then, I was gone.

So, any guesses where she is? Feel like screaming at me? Leave a review!

Until next time!