His face stings painfully, and he can feel his own blood trailing off of his face and down his neck, under his shirt. Jack waves his hand over himself and feels his skin stitching together. He is healed again.

Sam and Dean stare at him in a way that Jack doesn't like at all. He feels guilty for withholding the truth from them, but even more than guilt, he feels fear at the realization of what the voice is and why it is calling to him. With Sam and Dean hovering above him, and Castiel kneeling in front of his chair, Jack feels like a patient in a hospital, like a specimen that is being studied.

"I'm fine," says Jack roughly, trying to orient himself in his chair in a way that hides just how rattled the experience had made him.

"Jack," says Sam seriously, "do you remember what just happened? What you just did?"

"I already told you. The Empty is calling to Amara—"

"No," he says. "Do you remember what you did?"

Jack looks at him, confused. "I don't know what you mean—"

"You did that to yourself," interjects Dean impatiently. "The blood. You were clawing at your own face. Do you remember that?"

Like he is in a dream, Jack looks down to his hands. The truth is in the blood on his fingernails. He doesn't know what to think of this, only that he doesn't remember doing this at all. For the first time since he has started hearing the Empty, he has acted violently completely out of his control.

"This is bad," says Castiel worriedly. "It's gotten worse. You're hurting yourself now. You're not in control—"

"I am in control," says Jack angrily. "I can stop this."

"What are you talking about? The Empty completely took you over!" shouts Dean.

"It looked like…" begins Sam, before trailing off.

But Jack rounds on him. "What?" he snaps. "It looked like what?"

Sam glances at Dean, as if asking for permission, then thinks better of it. "It looked you were trying to escape from…you," he says slowly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You were clawing at your face like...like you didn't want to be in your body anymore-"

"Jack, your eyes were black," says Dean bluntly. "Like Amara's."

"Are you saying she's possessing me?" says Jack forcefully.

"You told us that you had absorbed Amara when you took Chuck's powers," says Sam. "You said that she was in harmony with you. That you could feel her inside of you. What if she has some power inside you that you didn't notice until now?"

"I could feel her inside of before," says Jack. "I can feel her now. But it's not like that, like what you're thinking. It's more like a…a feeling."

"A feeling?" asks Castiel.

"Like an…intuition."

Castiel tilts his head slightly, and a glimmer of understanding passes across his face. "The kind of intuition that values darkness as a balance to the light?" he says softly.

Jack pauses, turns to him. "What are you saying?"

"What you told me," says Castiel. "Before. You said that you have this feeling that there needs to be balance."

"In order to have light there must be darkness," says Sam, sitting up straighter. "That's what you said to me. Cass has a point."

But Jack is still confused. "I don't understand—"

"That intuition," says Sam, "that feeling you had—it wasn't you. It was Amara."

"That's why you struggled so much," explains Castiel. "That's why you were so conflicted about what to do with Earth. Amara is a force of darkness. You were feeling her inside of you this whole time. She was the one who wanted to keep Earth as it was."

Jack looks down at his hands, stained with his own blood. It certainly makes sense. It all adds up.

"But," he says slowly, "why would the Empty be calling to Amara?"

"Maybe it's pissed," says Dean. Everyone looks to him. "I mean, you've busted Cass out of there twice now. And Billy sent you there when you were about to explode. That can't have made it happy."

"And what…the Empty thinks Amara will…avenge it?"

"Maybe the Empty wants you dead," says Castiel quietly.

Jack thinks hard. The Empty is still so elusive to him. Why was it always so difficult to know what it wanted? Why couldn't it just leave them all alone?

"I'll go to it," says Jack. "I'll go to the Empty and I'll talk to it. Make it understand that I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" scoffs Dean. "You think the Empty's gonna take that and leave you alone?"

"What else can I do?" challenges Jack.

"If you go to the Empty you'll be in its territory," says Dean. "Home field advantage."

But before Jack and say that he has no idea what this reference means, Sam adds helpfully, "The Empty will have the upper hand if you're there. Better to meet it on your terms."

"But I have all of the power of God," insists Jack. "It shouldn't matter where I meet it."

"Chuck had no power over the Empty," says Sam.

"But I did!" shouts Jack. He can no longer keep his anger out of his voice. "Before I took Chuck's power, I released Castiel from the Empty! All by myself!"

"This is different," says Sam, his eyes begging Jack to understand.

"How?"

"Because this time the Empty has Amara," says Dean. His eyes are cold and hardened. "And Amara is communicating with it inside of you. This is too risky, Jack. You can't just go in there guns blazing. It would be the end for you."

"Then what do we do?" cries Jack desperately. "I can't just let the Empty keep going like this."

"You could release Amara," says Castiel softly.

"What?" says Dean, Sam, and Jack all together.

Castiel looks at them guiltily. "It's obvious, isn't it? The Empty wants to talk to Amara, and Jack has absorbed her. If Jack lets her out, he won't be in danger anymore."

"But Amara said that she would join with it," says Jack, shaking his head. "She wants to go to the Empty, I can feel it."

"No offense, Cass," says Dean roughly, "but that's the dumbest plan you've ever come up with."

"I—" starts Castiel.

"Amara is the Darkness," says Dean impatiently. "And the Empty is about as dark as anything can get. They're practically meant for each other. Imagine what those two forces would do if they teamed up. No, Jack's got to keep her locked up in there. At least until we figure out a way to take the Empty out."

"But—" says Castiel.

"I agree with Dean," says Jack solidly. Castiel looks to him, and Jack can see in his eyes that he knows he has lost the argument. "Until we know more about what the Empty wants, it's too risky to let her go. I'm fine, Cass, really. I'll be fine."

"But how do you know?" insists Castiel. "What if the visions get worse? What if you do something to yourself that can't be undone?"

Jack puts a hand on the angel's shoulder. "You won't leave my side?"

"Of course not," says Castiel strongly. "Not until I know you're safe."

"Then I'll be safe," says Jack simply. Castiel looks at him, flabbergasted, like he can't believe the words coming out of Jack's mouth. "Until we find a way to get rid of the Empty, or at least appease it, I'll be protected by you. You won't let me do anything I don't want to do."

Castiel doesn't look convinced, but Jack has locked him into a corner that he knows Castiel will never willingly back out of.

"What we need," says Sam, rising to his full height, "is more help. Advice."

"Advice from who?" asks Jack.

"Who do we know that's our friend, that also knows more than anyone else about cosmic beings?" says Sam. "Someone powerful. Someone with connections. Someone who might give us that upper hand?"

Jack raises his eyebrows, not understand where Sam is going. But when he looks to Dean and Castiel, he realizes that he's the only one who hasn't caught on.

"Who?" he asks.

"Rowena," says Castiel. "We need advice…from Hell."

I hope everyone's had a happy new year! This story is chugging along nicely, and the next few chapters are going to be real firecrackers, so strap in!