Twelve
Chuck looked shocked to see them all standing there in his dark living room. He hung up the phone and babbled to them about how they weren't supposed to be there, about how he hadn't written it like this. "You're not in this story," he complained.
"Yeah, well," Castiel said, "we're making it up as we go."
Brooke looked at him with a half-smile. It was a very human thing that he'd just said, and it amused her, despite the dire circumstances they were all in. Their plan had been sort of made up on the spot: go to Chuck's house, "threaten" him, and draw the attention of the Archangel Michael, as well as the others, so that Dean could find Sam and stop him from killing Lilith. It was a crazy plan, but it was all they had. Castiel had brought her along, despite the danger, because he had remembered what Chuck had told them: Brooke was a witness. That was her destiny, to witness the Apocalypse. And, although she and Castiel were still unsure whether or not that was what he had meant, they intended to keep that part of the prophecy if they could.
The room began to shake almost immediately after their arrival, and every electronic device in the room roared with static and emitted a high-pitched whine.
If Brooke had thought that being around Castiel, at first, was too much—or even that time in the barn when Castiel and Uriel had both been there—what she experienced now was leagues beyond that. She wanted to die. She was in so much pain, in fact, that she couldn't even cry out. It paralyzed her. Her head was thrown back, her arms spread, and her head felt like it was held in a vice. She wanted to curl in on herself and disappear, but Michael's form—the Archangel set to protect Chuck—was so vast and overwhelming, forcing her mind wide open, that she could not close herself to him. And he wasn't even in the room yet.
Castiel placed a hand on her shoulder, and she felt his mind envelop hers, doing his best to shield her. But he was so small, compared to Michael, so insignificant, that it was like trying to slap a bandaid over a full-body burn.
She knew that Castiel was speaking, but she did not understand anything he was saying. Her mind was too full of Enochian to even comprehend English. Michael's presence was like a weight on top of her, like an entire house pressing down around her. She wanted to scream but her throat could make no sound—
Suddenly she was standing somewhere else, and Castiel and Michael were gone. She gasped and fell to her knees, realizing that she hadn't been breathing at all.
"Come on," Dean said, yanking her to her feet. "We gotta find Sam."
They found him quickly enough, but not quickly enough to stop him. He and Ruby stood in altar room. They rushed forward, but Ruby smiled wickedly at them and slammed the doors in their faces.
"Sammy!" Dean yelled, slamming his hands on the doors.
Brooke pushed with all her might, but the doors did not budge. Dean found something heavy to use, and began to slam at the doors. All the while, he yelled Sam's name. Brooke backed up, slamming into one of the doors with her shoulder. It did not move. She tried again and again, ignoring the shooting pain from the constant abuse. She slammed into the door five, six, seven times. Finally, her body could produce no more adrenaline. She had used up much of her strength trying to simply survive Michael's presence. Her shoulder ached and twinged, sending stabs of pain down her arm. Beside her, Dean continued to slam into the door with the heavy object he'd found. A statue? She didn't know. She could barely lift her head.
She realized, then, that, assuming she survived this night, she would be useless in the fights to come. If angels were going to be as prevalent as they had been, she could not continue on in this way, held immobile or writhing in agony every time one appeared who wasn't Castiel. She needed to become stronger, better able to be around them. She needed to learn to fight them, or at least fight their hold over her.
She took a steadying breath, stood up, and began to ram the door again, with her other shoulder. Two broken shoulders would be the least of her worries if Lucifer walked free.
The doors suddenly burst open, almost of their own accord, and Brooke nearly fell over and she rammed her shoulder into nothing. She watched as Dean rushed forward to kill Ruby.
That was the last thing she really remembered. After that, her world became a blur. He was coming. That was all she could think: Lucifer is coming. He is coming. He is coming.
The room filled with light, shook, roared, and a high-pitched whine made her drop to her knees and cover her hands with her ears. Sam and Dean did the same.
I HAVE COME, he said.
Brooke's mind shattered into a thousand pieces. Her eyes were closed against the light, but even closed, she could see his true form. No, was the only thing she could think. She did not remember her own name, where she was, or how she had gotten here. All she could think was: No.
His true from was the most horrifying thing she had ever seen in her life. So terrifying as to be indescribable. Her mind shied away from him, and, though she did not notice, her body had curled into a ball on the ground. He was Hellfire and Brimstone; he was ice; he was every bad memory she had; he was every horror she could imagine. He was an angel, still, but that cold beauty had been twisted into something so monstrous that she could not comprehend it. No, she thought, weakly, feebly. No. No. No. No. No.
YES, he said.
She screamed.
The world went dark.
###
She awoke long enough to be aware of the fact that her body was plummeting to the Earth. Someone shoved something onto her face. She passed out again.
###
She awoke in the back seat of a car. Sam and Dean were in the front seat, muttering to each other. She sat up all the way, opened her mouth to ask something, and coughed. She felt as if she'd just woken up with the worst flu of her life. Her entire body hurt, and her head… She remembered Lucifer, and felt her will seep from her body. They were all going to die.
"What happened?" she croaked, though she no longer really cared.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Dean asked.
"Lucifer," she said, shuddering as she said his name aloud.
"After that happened, something teleported us into an airplane," Dean explained. "The plane crashed. You've been out of it since."
Brooke sat in the backseat, silently, for a long time. Finally, she said, "Thanks for not leaving me."
Dean looked at her in the rear-view mirror. "Cass would kill us if we'd left you," he said.
###
They drove to Chuck's house in search of Castiel, only to find the house in shambles. The floor and the furniture were splattered with blood. There was no trace of anyone. Not Cass, not Chuck, not Michael. Brooke wandered the living room, fearing the worst.
Chuck appeared, swinging something long and heavy at Sam's head. The blow landed, but it was glancing. Brooke looked up when it happened, but she was sluggish, barely awake. She still felt very sick, and so tired she thought she might pass out again.
After Chuck calmed down, Dean asked him where Cass was.
"He's dead," Chuck replied.
Brooke's ears began ringing, and the rest of their conversation was muffled and sounded far away, or as if they were speaking underwater.
She fell to her knees on the floor of the living room. She would have sobbed, but she had no energy. She simply crumpled to the floor, staring at nothing, hearing nothing. It really was over. Everything was over. Lucifer had risen, and Castiel was dead. The End was nigh.
"Thought we'd find ya here," said a voice.
Brooke knew they were angels, but she didn't have the energy to fight them. They spoke around her, to Sam and Dean, and ignored her crumpled form on the floor. There were three of them in the room. Ordinarily, that would have been agony for her, but she was so tired and so distraught over Castiel's death that the pain they caused her barely touched her.
And soon they were gone, torn from the room by the sigil Dean had painted on the door, when he pressed his hand to it.
Brooke's ears rang. Dean squatted beside her, shaking her shoulder, saying something to her. She didn't understand him.
The sting of his slap woke her up a little. She gasped and her eyes focused. Her cheek burned.
"Pull it together, Brooke!" he demanded, loudly. "Let's go!" He yanked her up and set her on her feet. She nearly fell over again. He grabbed her by the shoulder and slapped her again.
Automatically, she grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back. Rage kept her focused, aware of her surroundings. Sam took a step toward her.
"Good," Dean said, through the pain. "Good, you're with us again. Now let go of me. I won't hit you again."
She released his arm, breathing hard. He turned to face her. "I won't slow down for you again," he warned. "We got shit to do. I don't have time for you to fall apart. Let's go."
She nodded and followed him out the door.
###
It had been a few days since everything had gone down, and she, Sam, and Dean were holed up in a motel room somewhere. She knew it was awkward with her there. Neither of the boys really knew her, and now they were all forced to sit in the same room. She'd left once or twice to allow the brothers have their little spats without her hovering nearby, but, other than that, they'd all sat around together.
She'd tried to help them do research, to try and find Lucifer. She'd thrown out ideas, and they'd been kind enough to take them into consideration. But, mostly, they didn't speak to her.
That was why she was so surprised when Sam looked up from his father's journal and said, "How you holdin' up?"
She looked up from staring at the table and blinked, as if she'd been asleep. "Well, you know. Lucifer is out and Cass is dead. So, not great." Her voice dripped venom and sarcasm. She saw Sam's face crumple a little, and sighed. "Sorry. I'm just… It's a lot."
"Yeah," he said, quietly.
They were silent for a while.
Sam glanced behind him at Dean, who seemed to be ignoring them and flipping through TV channels. He looked back at her. "I wanted to ask…" he began, but stopped.
"What?" she prompted. "Look, the end is coming. I don't really have privacy issues right now. Just ask."
He pursed his lips. "What was it… about you and Cass?"
Brooke plastered a smile onto her face to prevent herself from crying. Her lips trembled. Since Chuck's house, she hadn't allowed herself to grieve, not wanting to slow the boys down. But the pain was still there, raw and bleeding, just below the surface. "Well," she said, shakily. "I told you and Dean about how I can… see angels' true forms. And… how I can hear their thoughts."
Sam nodded.
"It's not easy for me to describe my relationship with Castiel," she went on. "All things considered, we didn't know each other very well, but, at the same time, being around him… It was like I'd known him for years. When you're in someone else's head, feeling what they feel, it's hard to have any kind of privacy. He tried to shield his mind from me sometimes, but towards the end, I got more used to him. His thoughts were always difficult to understand, but his emotions were almost human."
She spoke about Castiel for some time, relieved to have someone to talk to about him, but eventually she ran out of things to say. She seemed to come back to herself, then, and looked at Sam as if she had forgotten he was there. Then she looked over at Dean. He was watching her; he'd been listening. His expression was unreadable, but certainly not happy.
He opened his mouth to say something, but someone knocked on the door.