Fifteen

Brooke walked beside her husband, who walked beside Dean. Kevin called Dean, who seemed frustrated with the boy. However, about thirty seconds into the conversation, before Brooke had a chance to ask him what was up, she heard rustling behind her. An angel.

Immediately, as if by instinct, the Grace in her blood roared to the surface. She spun around and was about one second away from throwing her angel blade into Naomi's face, when Castiel grabbed her arm. Talk first, stab later, he said.

Naomi glanced at Brooke, swallowed, and then looked at Castiel. "I'm not here to fight you," she said. "Any of you. Not anymore."

"Fuck you," Brooke spat. There. That was talking. Can I stab her now?

Castiel ignored her, stepping closer to Naomi. "Where is Metatron?" he demanded.

Naomi answered in a quavering voice. "He told you he was going to fix Heaven, didn't he? Murdering a Nephilim? Cutting off a Cupid's bow—it's a lie, all of it."

Brooke wanted to argue, for she did not trust Naomi at all, but as the Grace in her blood calmed, she began to notice the genuine fear in the angel's face, in her body language.

"I've been in his head," Naomi insisted.

"You've been in all our heads," Brooke and Castiel said, at the same time.

"That's the problem," Castiel continued.

"No, you're wrong," Naomi said, sounding desperate.

Cass shook his head. "This is what you do," he growled. "You twist things. I'm trying to fix Heaven! Metatron is trying to fix Heaven!—

"Metatron isn't trying to fix anything," Naomi yelled. "He's trying to break it—an act of revenge for driving him away."

"Break it how?" Dean asked, joining the conversation. He came to stand beside the other two.

"Dean," Castiel warned, turning to look at him.

"Expel all angels from Heaven," Naomi explained. Her eyes were shining. With tears? "Just as God cast out Lucifer."

"Cast you out?" Dean asked. "To where, Hell?"

Naomi shook her head. "Here," she said. "Thousands of us, walking the Earth."

Castiel lunged toward her. "Lies!"

"Wait!" Dean said, grabbing at his arm.

Castiel yanked his arm out of Dean's grasp, but refrained from attacking Naomi.

The woman—the angel—stared at all three of them, imploringly. She really was teary-eyed. "Our mission was to protect what God created," she said. "I don't know when we forgot that." She looked at Dean, specifically. "I want nothing more than see you shut the gates of Hell, but I told you that you could trust me." She took a breath. "If Sam completes those trials, he is going to die." Tears began to fall from her eyes.

"What the hell are you talkin' about?" Dean said.

"I saw it in Metatron's head," Naomi continued, her voice thick with emotion. "It was always God's intention—the ultimate sacrifice."

Dean stared at her, silently.

She turned her gaze back to Castiel. "As for you," she said, "I beg of you: stop this path. Metatron had been neutralized. If you want back in, truly, I will listen. And Brooke."

Brooke raised an eyebrow.

"If Castiel chooses to return to Heaven, I will ensure that nothing prevents him from visiting you. Heaven doesn't need to be shut down. As long as the gates remain open, Castiel will be free to come and go as he pleases, to be with you—his wife."

Brooke gave Naomi an appraising look. Half of her did not believe a word that came out of the angel's mouth, but the other half desperately wished that such a bloodless compromise could truly be made. But if it were made, that would mean that Metatron had been lying the whole time… Suddenly, she recalled the creepy vibe she had gotten from the Scribe, back when he'd rescued Kevin from Crowley. The way he seemed to pull information from her, listening greedily. How rat-like he had seemed, back then.

Brooke and Castiel looked at each other, sharing thoughts back and forth so quickly that the words and feelings overlapped, a cacophony.

Dean turned and put the phone back up to his ear. Evidently, Kevin had been privy to the whole conversation. "Hey, right now, talk to me. Is she lying?" A moment later: "Well, find out!"

"She's lying," Castiel growled.

Brooke shook her head. "I don't know if she is."

"Take me to him," Dean demanded, turning to stare intently at Castiel.

"Dean—

"Take me to him now!"

Castiel gripped both their shoulders and flitted away. They appeared back at the rundown church where Sam was performing the exorcism on Crowley. Brooke immediately began to follow after Dean, into the church, worry for Sam coursing through her. If Naomi was right, then Sam was possibly seconds away from killing himself.

"Both of you," Castiel called, and Brooke turned to see that he had not followed. "I'm not wrong," the angel said, conviction ringing from his voice, from his being. "I'm going to fix my home." He gaze lingered on Brooke for a moment. I would take you with me if I could, he told her. And then he was gone.

Dean stared at the empty place where Castiel had just been standing. "Cass!" he shouted.

"Sam," Brooke said, pushing down the pain of Castiel leaving. There was nothing she could do to return him to Earth, not when he was like this. It had been a long time since she had felt such righteous anger from him, but she remembered how difficult he had been to talk to the last time he had felt this way. Sam, on the other hand, was someone she could do something about.

Dean turned and slammed his way into the church, Brooke right behind him. Sam was walking toward Crowley, who was chained to a chair, encircled by a devil's trap. He about to shove his bloodied hand into the demon's mouth.

"Sammy, stop!" Dean shouted.

Sam, who had not noticed them enter, looked up, startled. His eyes were wild, his arms glowed with some magic—something to do with the Trials, no doubt. He looked like death.

Brooke followed close behind Dean, but she was barely there. Somehow, despite being so far away, Castiel was able to get some sort of message to her. No words could come through, but an overwhelming sense of dread flooded her mind. Something up in Heaven was very wrong.

"Where's Cass?" Sam demanded.

"Metatron lied," Dean said.

Brooke held her head in her hands, trying to shake off that sense of dread. Something was happening—or was about to happen—to Castiel.

Cass, what is it? she prayed.

And suddenly, all that dread—vanished. It was not replaced by anything, no sudden calm or peace, no anger, no nothing. It was just… gone.

Sam and Dean were speaking, but Brooke could barely hear them. She squeezed her eyes shut. Cass? she said. Castiel?

"AHH!"

Brooke spun, confused, and saw Sam falling to the floor. "Oh, fuck."

"Help me!" Dean yelled.

Together, they picked Sam up off the floor as he continued to scream in distress. They dragged him, stumbling, out of the church—he could barely walk—and to the Impala.

"I got you, little brother," Dean said, straining to hold Sam up as he got the door open. "You're gonna be just fine."

But the three of them slammed, hard, into the side of the car as Sam fell over completely. He began to gasp horribly, as if he could not breathe.

"Cass!" Dean shouted, into the night, rain pelting down around them. "Castiel!"

Brooke began to shake her head frantically. "Something happened," she said. "Our connection, it's… it's gone."

"Fuck!" Dean yelled, slamming his hand down on the ground.

Sammy continued to gasp, clawing at his clothes.

Brooke felt the air shift, the wind picking up. Rain sliced into her face, freezing cold, then the rain stopped. She stared up at the sky, and her mouth opened in horror.

Thousands of lights dotted the sky—not stars, and not meteors, which is what they looked like. Angels.

Angels were falling from the sky. All of them.

Dean had seen it, too. "No, Cass," he murmured.

Brooke put her hands up to her mouth, crying. Would they die, on impact with the Earth? Was Castiel among them, or had he caused this?

"Sammy?" Dean said, beside her.

She turned back to see that Sam had passed out.

"Sammy!" Dean repeated, shaking his brother, but Sam did not respond. "Help me get him in the car."

Together, they lifted Sam into the backseat and laid him out. The second Brooke had gotten in and closed the door, Dean peeled out, away from the church, to the nearest hospital.

They did not speak the whole way there, did not listen to music. Brooke occasionally looked behind her to see if Sam was waking up at all, but he was completely unresponsive.

Brooke desperately wanted to pray, but not to God. To Castiel, to her husband. But judging by the thousands of angels she had just seen falling from the sky, and the sudden lack of any mental connection to him, she doubted the prayer would get through to him. But the lack of anything useful to do drove her to silent tears. Anxiously, she twisted her wedding ring around and around on her finger, trying not to cry too loudly and upset Dean at all. He had his own shit to worry about.

The ring began to rub uncomfortably as Brooke continued to spin it on her finger, but she could not stop. Desperately, she racked her brain, and began to silently recite Psalm 27 in an effort to calm herself down:

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? / When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. / Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. / One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple…

To enquire in his temple… In Heaven… What would happen to Heaven now that all the angels had fallen?

The prayer, instead of calming Brooke's fears, had simply made everything worse, and without Castiel there to calm her, she felt herself slipping.

The drive to the hospital felt like the longest drive of her life.