Epilogue: Choose Your Own Ending
It is very well possible that in the greater scheme of things this little incident, this one hunt, made barely a ripple in the pond. Life is not always so changeable, after all. People don't always change course because of one thing that happened to them.
As such it is quite possible, even likely, that despite all of this Mitchell will eventually fall off the wagon. All vampires do, sooner or later. It's not in their nature to stay off the blood. There may not be a Box Tunnel incident. It may not even be for another few years. Mitchell may hold out longer than most, but eventually something will give and he'll do something he can't come back from. And then George will deal with him, because he must. Maybe Mitchell will beg him to do it, to save him in the only way he can be saved.
And nothing really changes.
As for George, of course he can't protect Nina forever. It doesn't matter how careful he is. The wolf is not. One day Nina will be somewhere she shouldn't be and George may regret it to his dying days, but there's no cure for being a werewolf. They might try one, before they realise just how bad the people offering said cure are and maybe they will walk away from it. They'll still be werewolves. And well, there isn't a vampire who doesn't know George's name now. He's made enemies. Powerful enemies. Eventually this is going to come back to bite him in the arse.
And nothing changes.
Not for the better.
And Annie? She's a ghost. There's no changing that either. She'll stick around, at least so long as her housemates do. She clings to them, not the house, which is just as well when they have to leave it. But a ghost she remains and as such she needs to cling to something. When first Mitchell goes and then George and Nina, perhaps she'll just fall apart, like dust on the wind. Perhaps she'll cling to a semblance of life and eventually become the sort of creature that attracts the attention of hunters. Even if she does go out in a blaze of glory, hers is not a happy fate. It was never going to be. Ghosts don't get happy endings.
No big changes there either.
Sam and Dean plunge right back into their violent struggle to stave off the end of the world. We all know how that ends. Sam goes off the rails. Addictions are hard to break. Impossible even. He knows that now, so when the struggle becomes too hard, well, he doesn't feel too guilty. It was inevitable, after all.
Everything remains the same.
The brothers go right back to the war they never really stopped fighting. They just do their job, just like they've always done and always will. The cycle of violence and struggles, of unnecessary drama and miscommunication, of betrayal and reconciliation continues. They win some, they lose some. They lose some more. They never come to rest.
The destination remains the same as it's always been. The minor details altered along the way don't count for much. If they count at all.
Castiel is there for most of that and it takes its toll on him. He falls, he doesn't, he falls again. He loses his way and he redeems himself. He doesn't regret his choices, not as such, but he's never truly happy, or even content.
There is no happily ever after and there was never going to be. People like that are not the kind who are destined for happiness. Or old age.
In the greater scheme of things this one meeting, these few days, are nothing more than a blip on the radar, a fond memory perhaps. They'll occasionally wonder how it's all going on the other side of the ocean, but they're all too wrapped up in their own problems to do anything more than that. They never meet again.
This, my friends, is what we call a worst case scenario.
But…
Everyone knows that they very seldom happen, if they happen at all. I would therefore like to invite the reader to consider another, perhaps more realistic scenario.
Vampires and related supernatural baddies tend avoid Bristol like the plague nowadays. There are no more vampires and, now that rumour is going around that the three weirdos in the pink house have hunters on stand-by, very good hunters at that, they stay away. There is just one vampire-related incident, about a year later. It's really a shame that this is the exact time the Winchesters are staying over for reasons of their own.
There's never another incident.
As the government is so fond of saying after yet another homemade catastrophe: lessons were learned.
And without the vampires there to pull him back into the murky world of blood and power, Mitchell manages to stay on the wagon. The struggle is continuous and twice he almost fails. That's where his friends come in. The first time it happens, about six months after the vampire incident, George physically pins him down until the urge passes. He also shouts helpful comments about his friend who's forgotten to take his medication to the people in the shopping centre. Mitchell gives him hell about that later while Annie supplies the both of them with more tea than they can drink and they laugh over it. He doesn't say how grateful he is, but they both know it and that's what counts.
The second time is about three years later, on a rainy afternoon in the hospital, and once more it's George to the rescue. He apologises profusely for knocking his friend out with a tray later and surely Mitchell does have a headache for about twelve hours, but by then he's firmly back in control and he doesn't come so close.
Ever again.
Bit by bit, he conquers his own nature and none are prouder than his housemates. When five years have passed without incident they throw him a bit of a party and hand him a certificate stating that he is now fit for public consumption.
There are Winchester signatures on it as well.
Mitchell hangs it above his bed.
Meanwhile George's love life progresses at a pace easily outmatched by a snail until Nina has quite enough of his bullshit and proposes to him in front of the resident vampire and ghost, both of whom are cheering her on with extreme enthusiasm. George flails for about five minutes before he manages a yes and then it's Mitchell's turn to flounder as George promptly names him the best man.
A task which he takes far too serious according to some.
But everyone agrees that it's a lovely wedding.
Nina moves in and there even is a baby at some point. George manages to fret himself nearly to death for the entirety of Nina's pregnancy, but the baby is born both healthy and human. George nevertheless frets some more – Nina eventually sedates him just to have a break – until after the first full moon after the birth. The baby stubbornly refuses to sprout fur and fangs – 'For God's sake, George, she won't even teeth for another few months!' – and he relaxes at last.
And if this child has the most eclectic bunch of godparents, no one ever says anything about it.
Annie is happier than she's ever been in life. She has her house, she has her friends and, after a while, she even has love again and isn't that a surprise? She doesn't make a big fuss about it, but when Nina's expecting and they need a place to turn into a nursery, Annie vacates her room and moves in with Mitchell. George somehow manages to not pick up on this for the grand total of six months.
There is a multitude of bickering and good-natured abuse over that.
Sam doesn't go off the rails. If even a vampire can change his ways and go off the blood after almost a century, then he can give it up after a few months. But addictions don't go quietly, especially not when temptation dangles itself – or herself, in this case – before him at every available opportunity. Life continues in this vein until one day Dean catches her in the act of seduction, gets hold of a handy little knife and puts an end to Ruby's wiles there and then on a permanent basis.
The conversation that follows that isn't fun.
By the end of it Dean hauls his younger brother to Bobby's panic room for the detoxing session from hell. It's hands down the worst week of Sam's life – and Dean's too, although he keeps his mouth well shut about that – but by the end of that he's clean. And he stays that way.
It's not an easy road they have ahead of them, because both sides keep trying to pull them in, but although the seals break by the bucketload, the last one never does. Sam and Dean go into hiding for a while – this part may or may not be taking place in a certain pink house – until eventually everyone comes to the conclusion that the apocalypse isn't going to happen. Tough luck, people. Better luck next time.
Whenever that may be.
The general consensus is that both sides are far too embarrassed for an immediate rematch, so no one mentions it for a good long while. They don't forget, but they can pretend to. Egos are saved in the act of doing so.
Life returns to normal. Well, Winchester normal, which is not quite the same thing. There are hunts and, eventually, a bunker, a place to put down roots. They have the Bristol gang over for the housewarming party, flown in especially by Angel Air, since for some reason neither Mitchell nor Annie can get a passport.
The most interesting part is the bit where Dean gets to explain to Bobby and the Harvelle women that they have somehow managed to strike up a friendship with a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost. Sam can't stop laughing for thirty minutes. Neither can Mitchell, once Jo stops trying to decapitate him.
They have a grand time after that. In fact, it's so grand that they decide to do it again sometime. And so they do. Bristol plays host the next time.
The city may never recover.
Castiel still falls. Unfortunately there is no avoiding that. He likes humanity. According to his brethren, he likes them far too much. He especially likes those who aim for humanity even when they themselves haven't got it. Their natures are very different, but he feels a certain kinship with the unlikely trio in the little pink house and as a result the trio becomes a quartet with startling regularity. It gets a bit cramped once Nina joins and they become a quintet, but since Cas does not need to sleep and so has no need of a bedroom, this is not the problem it would seem.
He still needs to sort out things with Sam and Dean in the States every once in a while and he treats the bunker like his favourite bed and breakfast, but when he leaves the pink house in Bristol for these visits, he leaves the house in a better state than in which he found it. There's never any trouble with the pipes again. Ever. A window miraculously stops leaking, the paint looks so much fresher and, on one occasion, the demolition order for the by now quite lovely pink house vanishes without a trace and is never seen again.
Certainly not by the city council.
Life is not always easy, but it is quite good. No one dies. No one gets seriously hurt for long. They aren't always happy, because that would be the stuff of fairy tales and that's not what they're like. They are however almost always content. There's friendship and love and – don't forget – lots and lots of tea.
It's a much nicer picture than the first one, don't you think?
And so we've come to the end of this story. I hope you've all enjoyed it. Reviews would be very much appreciated. I'd love to know what you think. Either way, I would like to thank you all very much for sticking with this little tale to the end. A very happy Christmas everyone!