Thirty-four
Brooke was absolutely calm as she marched toward the Devil, angel blade in hand. He merely smiled at her.
"No!" Castiel said, yanking her back by the arm.
Brooke allowed herself to be held back, but continued to face Lucifer.
Behind her, she heard Dean say, "Sam? What happened?"
Sam spoke in a low voice. "He, uh… He brought me back."
Lucifer shrugged, smiling, his hands clasped in front of him. "It's what I do."
Castiel was furious, and unintentionally squeezed Brooke's arm. "It is not what you…" Releasing her, he demanded, "How did you get in here?"
"VIP pass," Lucifer replied. "I'm with the band."
Everyone stared at him.
"Come on, shouldn't you be thanking me? I-I gave Sammy and extra life. Besides, what with my… little bro, here, being a hot mess…" He turned towards Gabriel. "I figured you need me. So, I'm here to join the team." He shrugged, and approached the place where Brooke stood with Jack and Castiel.
He stepped right up to the boy. "Your name is Jack," he said.
And, somehow, Brooke broke. Rather, the barrier over her emotions cracked.
"Get the fuck away from my son," she hissed.
Lucifer stared at her, as if she had wounded him.
"No," Dean said loudly, coming forward. "No, no, no." He pointed at Lucifer. "You don't talk to him! And you"—he pointed at Jack—"don't listen to him."
"Um, don't you think that's his choice," Lucifer asked, petulantly.
"Shut the fuck up," Brooke snapped, shielding Jack with her own body.
"Agreed," Castiel growled.
"Are you trying to keep me from my son?" Lucifer asked, laughing.
"He's not your son," Brooke said, her voice wavering with high emotion. Apparently, such a threat to the boy had been more than enough to shatter whatever spell Castiel had placed over her emotions. She had gone from feeling nothing to feeling everything in a matter of seconds.
"He's Kelly Kline's son," Castiel spoke up. "He's nothing like you."
"Don't say he's nothing like me," Lucifer replied, calmly, tilting his head to look past Brooke.
She stepped to the side to continue blocking Jack from his view.
"I'm the only one who understands him," Lucifer insisted. "This power he has? I'm powerful, dangerous, ruthless. In the… best sense, though."
"No," Dean spoke up, looking at Gabriel. "Kill him."
Gabriel glanced at Dean, then at the ground.
Lucifer laughed. "He can't. He's not strong enough."
"Dean," Gabriel said.
Dean turned on him. "You've got the blade!"
"Stop it," Jack said, behind Brooke.
Brooke, sensing a change in the boy, half-turned to look at him.
"He's the Devil!" Dean was yelling. "Kill him!"
"Stop it!" Jack yelled, and was gone in a snap of his wings.
Brooke seemed to deflate at his absence. All this time and energy spent looking for him, coming to rescue him, and now he'd gone off to hide somewhere. She closed her eyes, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. Without that numbness in her mind, all of her emotions seemed about a hundred times stronger than usual. "Fuck," she whispered.
Castiel, also upset, pulled her to him and held her.
"Well, great," Dean said, sarcastically, turning on Lucifer. "Does that when he's scared. Way to go, Dad!"
"I'll go look for him," Gabriel said, giving Castiel and Brooke a tight-lipped smile.
"I don't understand all the hostility," Lucifer said. "You… need… me. I am a walking weapon…"
He continued talking, but Brooke didn't care about what he was saying. Whatever he said, it pissed off Castiel, who gently extracted himself from Brooke and went over to open Dean's backpack, pulling the angel cuffs from it.
He approached Lucifer. "In case your innate evil overwhelms this newfound team spirit, you won't mind wearing these, then, will you? You're not at full power. They should hold you."
Lucifer showed Castiel his wrists. "Slap 'em on."
Castiel looked at him as if he didn't quite trust him, but Lucifer did nothing as he put the cuffs on him.
Sam spoke up, then. "So, if you're here, is the rift closed?"
A thrill of fear went through Brooke at the thought of being stuck here forever.
"No, it's open," Lucifer said. "I left Rowena some Grace. So, you have… I'm thinkin'… thirty-one hours, give or take?"
Everyone looked around at each other, and then went their separate ways to do whatever it was they needed to do before Gabriel found Jack and they could leave.
###
Castiel and Brooke had gotten stuck with Lucifer babysitting duty, and now they were dragging him across camp to somewhere quiet and out of the way where he couldn't bother anyone—except, of course, for the two of them.
As they walked through camp, Lucifer pulled on Castiel's hold of him to stop and smile at Mary as they went past her. "Hey, mama," he said.
She looked up at him, her expression blank.
"Miss me?" he asked.
She punched him in the face.
Brooke burst out laughing as Lucifer stumbled back into Castiel. Mary winked at her.
"That a yes?" Lucifer asked, trying to act as if nothing had happened.
Castiel rolled his eyes and grabbed hold of the Devil, yanking him away. "Let's go!"
…
"Come on, Cass, old sport," Lucifer began, in a low voice. He looked so pathetic that Brooke actually wanted to punch him in the face again.
"I am not your sport," Castiel began, speaking to him as he might a very young child. "And I will not broker a relationship between you and your—
There was the sound of wings and Brooke looked up, her heart skipping a bit as it always did anytime she heard that sound. Even after all these years, it only ever reminded her of her husband, who had once had a way of appearing in the middle of the night in her motel room when she least expected him.
It was Jack, of course, and Brooke stared at him with a smile. She realized that she hadn't exactly given him a proper greeting yet.
"Speak of the Not Devil," Lucifer muttered, thinking himself hilarious.
The boy came forward, looking at Lucifer.
"Son," said Lucifer.
Both Brooke and Castiel gave him withering stares, but they needn't have done so, for a moment later, the boy, himself, said, "It's Jack."
Brooke smirked.
"Jack," Castiel began, concerned, "talking with Lucifer, it's—it's not a good idea."
"I'm not gonna talk," the boy replied. "I'm gonna listen."
Castiel stared at him for a moment, and then sighed.
Lucifer smiled at him, triumphantly. "He's gonna listen," he whispered, with a wink.
"One thing first," Brooke spoke up, and wrapped her arms around the boy.
Jack returned her hug. "Are you… normal again?" he asked.
"Yeah," she said, pulling away. She studied his face, a mother searching for signs of injury or pain, and then smiled, and murmured, "Hello, boy."
He smiled a secret smile, his eyes on the ground for a moment, because Brooke was the only one who ever called him that. "Hello, Brooke," he replied, quietly.
She stepped away from him, his words echoing in her mind, overlapping with all the hundreds of times that Castiel had appeared before her, far too close to her face, and also said: "Hello, Brooke."
"Jack," Castiel tried again, every instinct in his body straining to take him somewhere far away from Satan.
Brooke laid a hand on her husband's shoulder, looking him in the eye. He quieted, surprised.
Jack is so you, Brooke told him. He'll be fine. Have a little faith.
"This… this dad thing is sorta new to me," Lucifer was saying to Jack. "So, um… Do—do you have any questions that you wanna ask? Don't let my status as a legend hold you back. Now, just… fire away."
Brooke rolled her eyes.
"Why does everyone hate you?" Jack asked, immediately.
Brooke had to physically prevent herself from laughing, and turned to hide her face against Castiel's shoulder as her body shook with silent amusement. See? she told him.
"Huh," said Lucifer, awkwardly. "Wow, he just got right to the—right to the point."
Castiel nodded, sagely, also highly amused, but much better at hiding it than Brooke was.
"That's good, that's good," Lucifer said, sounding as if he were trying to convince himself of it. "Good question. Um…"
Brooke folded her arms across her chest, ready to hear Lucifer talk his way out of this one.
"So you've uh, probably heard the stories. Right? Anything ugly happens, any evil befalls the world, it's my fault." Lucifer leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, "Fake news—
"And that's not entirely true," Castiel began, unable to help himself.
Lucifer spread his hands. "Well, I mean, yes, I have done things that I am not entirely proud of. I have led the occasional soul to ruin. This is true. But, Jack, it's because humans are so messed up. They're—they're so willing to be led."
Jack stared at him. "My mother was human."
Welp, he walked himself right into that one, Brooke thought.
"Awesome lady," Lucifer began, attempting to backpedal. "Incorruptible. Not like that. You know, great kisser. And, uh, lost my virginity to her."
Brooke whipped out her angel blade so fast that Lucifer had no time to react until it was already pressed to his throat.
"You will stop talking about Kelly Kline now, or I will stab you," Brooke growled. "This blade might not kill you, but it'll fucking hurt." Hearing Lucifer casually talk to Jack about his mother in a sexual manner had awakened some kind of deep-seated rage that had previously been taking a backseat.
Jack glanced up into Brooke's face at the same time that Castiel pulled her gently back.
"It's all right, Brooke," Jack said, and, once again, he sounded so much like Castiel that she was instantly calmed.
She threw a nasty look at Lucifer, who was eyeing her with—surprisingly—a little actual fear, and then grumpily put her blade away.
"Look the point is," Lucifer said, focusing on the boy again, "humans are not perfect. They are hardwired to fall, and when they do, they need a fall guy." He pointed to himself.
"That's a vast oversimplification," Castiel spoke up.
Frustrated, Lucifer shot back, "Okay, so true/false, Cass, um… For almost, like, ever, I've been locked away in a Cage?" He leaned forward, staring at Castiel.
Still frustrated, and wondering where Lucifer was going with this, Castiel eventually said, "Yes."
"True! It's true. So, how did I do all this evil for all these centuries, I wonder?"
"I dunno, you created demons, for one," Brooke muttered, unable to help herself.
"About that," Lucifer quipped. "You remember Meg, don't you? The demon you fell in love with? You're welcome."
Brooke closed her eyes, slightly shaking her head. Should've expected that, she murmured, that familiar ache in her chest coming on at the mention of Meg's name.
Castiel held her hand.
After a moment, Jack asked Lucifer, "Who locked you up?"
"My dad, 'cause I told the truth. See, he loved humans so much, he couldn't see their flaws. And I told him about it, and he got mad. He got—he felt like I was personally dumping on his masterpiece, and so he kicked me out. No time-out, no 'go in the corner,' you know, anything like that. Just… gone, banished." He glanced at Castiel. "And yes, as Cass says, I have done some bad things. I had my reasons, and I just want the opportunity to get better. Doesn't everybody? Don't you?"
Jack said nothing, but he was looking at Lucifer a little differently now, with less open hostility.
Castiel stared down at the boy, and suddenly he couldn't take it anymore. Lucifer would do what he always did and twist Jack, just as he had twisted hundreds before, and Jack would fall into the palm of his hand. And he would become lost.
Castiel turned, suddenly, releasing Brooke's hand, and walked away, with purpose. He was angry—so angry—but underneath that was… fear. The fear of losing his son to the Devil. Not through violence, but through manipulation.
Brooke was torn between the desire to stay with Jack and the desire to follow her husband.
Stay with Jack, Castiel told her. I don't want him alone with Lucifer. I'm getting Sam and Dean. I'll be right back.
Brooke nodded, though Castiel wasn't facing her and turned toward Jack and Lucifer again, her arms folded across her chest.
"Where's he goin'?" Lucifer asked her.
Brooke said nothing.
Lucifer shrugged and began to speak to Jack in low tones about family lineage.
"What's he like?" Jack asked, after a few minutes. "God."
"Well—
"Hey!" Dean yelled, and Brooke snapped to attention, looking up. "Hey!" He pointed accusatorially at Lucifer. "I told you no talking! And I told you no listening." Now he was looking at Jack.
"Dean, he's in chains," Jack argued.
"His mouth isn't!" Dean yelled. "Shoulda gagged him."
"I need to know about my powers, my family!"
"We are your family!" Brooke and Castiel said, at the same time, and neither of them could help the small twinge of pain in their hearts.
"We've been protecting you, we've been honoring your mother's wishes," Castiel went on. "We're your family."
"Jack," Sam spoke up, "you have no idea who Lucifer really is—
"And I never will unless I talk to him."
"Jack," Dean began—
"Dean! He's my father."
Brooke inhaled slowly, closing her eyes and turning her face away as she felt Castiel's heart break. She swallowed, taking a shaky breath, and risked a look up at him. He was staring at the ground with such a look of sorrow and betrayal that she had to blink back her own tears.
He didn't mean it like that, Cass, she tried. You know he didn't—
Castiel turned and walked away. "I'm going to look for Gabriel," he said, over his shoulder, as his insides turned to ice and he began to shut down his own emotions.
Brooke glanced at Jack, pained, and then followed her husband, taking two strides for every one of his in order to catch up to him. She followed him around a bend and then yanked on his arm to get him to stop. Automatically, he turned towards her, holding her tightly, and she felt his desire to curl up in her lap like a small child and cry.
Cass, it's okay, Brooke said, stroking his back as she held him. We're not gonna lose Jack. He'll come around. He… Look, I hate admitting this, but he has a right to know his own… biological father, even if all he knows is how much Lucifer sucks. You are still his father—actually, you're not just his father. You're his dad, more than Lucifer will ever be.
The entire time Brooke had been speaking, Castiel had taken those moments to breathe deeply and slowly, and when she was finished, he bent down and pressed his forehead to hers, closing his eyes. You're right, he murmured. I know you're right. But it still hurts.
It's allowed to hurt. It hurt me, too. But he didn't mean it the way it came out, and we both know it.
Castiel nodded, inhaling slowly, and kissed her, holding her face in his hands. Thank you, he said, and then offered his hand to her so that they could go look for Gabriel, together.
###
There was a problem. They could not find Gabriel anywhere, and all the others were already marching out.
After spending several minutes circling farther and farther outward from the camp, in opposite directions, searching for Gabriel, Castiel and Brooke finally reconvened with the others. They were both on edge; finding an Archangel should not have been so difficult for either of them, and the fact that they could not even sense him nearby meant that he had gotten off track somewhere, or perhaps captured.
"Hey," Dean called to them as they approached the group. "Find him?"
"No," Castiel said, still glancing about as if Gabriel would miraculously appear from out of a bush somewhere. "Gabriel went ahead to scout, but he should be back by now—
Just then, Brooke sensed Gabriel running through the trees straight at them. "Cass," she said, reaching out her hand to get his attention, and staring into the trees where she could see Gabriel's true form barreling closer to them.
Castiel turned, tensing at the sight of his brother running flat-out. He was being chased by—
"Angels!" Gabriel yelled, throwing himself behind the line of refugees that were marching with Sam, Dean, and the others. Right on his heels were a group of five or six angels, who seemed unaffected by the sight of so many people aiming guns at them.
The commander, an angel in a male vessel, said, "Kill them—on my command." He was very calm.
And, a moment later, he was very dead. He and the other angels who had been chasing Gabriel had just exploded into puffs of smoke and leftover Grace.
Brooke blinked, and everyone turned to see what had just happened.
Lucifer was standing there, one hand raised. He'd just snapped his fingers. As Brooke looked at him, the angel cuffs turned red-hot and melted off of his wrists, dissolving into ash.
"Oh, yeah," Lucifer said, calmly, "about the cuffs—I knew they wouldn't hold me in this world. Long story short, I didn't want your impotence to get awkward, so I just went along." He chuckled.
Everyone stared at him, silently, some looking angrier than others.
"You're welcome!" he added, with a smile. "Welcome. Right? Don't… thank me at once." He glanced around, meeting Jack's gaze. "See? Team player."
Brooke closed her eyes and tried to resist the urge to either stab Lucifer in the face or run away as quickly as possible. She settled for squeezing Castiel's hand until her fingers hurt, while trying not to think about the fact that Lucifer had killed her husband a year ago and could, if he wanted to, simply snap his fingers and kill them all right now.
###
Seeing Bobby again was a strange and uncomfortable experience for Brooke; the boys were taking it much better than she was, but she mostly stood in the background with Castiel, looking at Apocalypse World Bobby as if she were staring at her surrogate father's ghost. Every time she closed her eyes, all she saw was his actual ghost going up in flames after Sam and Dean placed his flask in the fire. It had been years ago, and yet, as with Meg, Bobby had left a hole in her heart that no one else could fill. He'd been the closest thing to a father—or a mother, for that matter—that she'd ever had. She thought of Daphne then, too, who had taken her and Castiel in after they'd lost their memories. At least Daphne was still alive, as far as they knew…
Perhaps we should have contacted her, after all, Castiel mused, sadly.
No, Brooke replied. We agreed, long ago, that leaving her out of our lives was the only way to keep her safe.
He sighed, nodding.
###
Brooke stood in the back of the room with Castiel some time later, watching as a few others dragged a chained man inside and dumped him onto a chair. Sam, Dean, Bobby, Mary, and a few other people sat or stood around, staring at the man with hostile intent.
They'd come here looking for Charlie and Ketch, to take them back to their world. But Charlie and Ketch had been ambushed—and this man had fed them right into the ambush.
Brooke focused all of her energy on the man in the chair to keep herself from going insane. Castiel had agreed to be the… persuasion, if the man in the chair needed persuading at some point. There would be no killing, or destroying of minds, as he'd done to Donatello, but Castiel's tactics of persuasion would involve fucking with this guy's mind. And, in order to do that without possibly harming Brooke, he'd had to pull himself from her mind. Now she stood in the corner, her arms wrapped around herself, hyper-focusing on the man in the chair to avoid thinking about how small she was and to prevent herself from freaking out that Castiel was right there but she couldn't hear him. It was better than it had been when he'd tortured Donatello. At least this time he was, in fact, right here, and not in a different room, away from her.
"What do you want from me?" the man asked. "I didn't do nothin'."
"We're thinkin' you did," Dean said.
The man stared at them, warily, half of his face already blood-splattered from his attempts to get away from this interview. That's why he was in chains. He'd tried to run. Not a good idea.
"Did you tell Charlie and Ketch about the angel kill squad?" Sam asked.
The man looked at him, but said nothing.
Castiel, who had been standing quietly in the corner with Brooke, slowly approached him, his tread thudding on the wooden floor menacingly. Slow, lazy steps: Don't forget that I'm here, if you decide you don't want to answer the questions. He stopped behind the man's chair, and stayed there.
"I…" the man began. "… Yeah."
"So, you set 'em up!" Dean accused.
The man was panting, now. "I dunno what you're talkin' about."
Dean stared at him for a long moment, giving him a chance, but when he continued to say nothing, the Winchester's eyes flicked up to Castiel.
Castiel's own eyes lit up with power and he placed both hands on either side of the man's face, holding his head.
The man screamed in pain, psychic energy attacking his brain, his memories, his psyche. It lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough.
Castiel let go of the man just as suddenly as he had grabbed him, and he was left shaking and shuddering in the chair.
"You wanna try that again?" Dean asked, calmly.
###
The man had given up his information easily after that one bout of mental torture, and the time it took to reach the place where Charlie and Ketch were being held had given Brooke and Castiel enough time to reconnect properly. She was glad, later, that they'd had that time, because without it, she might have gone completely insane upon discovering what she'd discovered.
There were plenty of angels guarding the place, all dispatched easily enough. But, from pretty far back, Brooke had begun to feel a strange pulling at her mind, one so familiar that she had no idea how to take it.
Cass, there's… there's another you here, she said, as they marched closer.
I know, he replied. I can feel him, too.
Brooke could feel bile rising in her throat. He's… he's wrong, she said, and began to tremble as they got closer to the building where Charlie and Ketch were being held.
I know, Castiel said again, and though he did not show outward signs of distress, his mind was tripping all over itself at the horrible thought of having to meet this… Other Him. Even from back here, they could both sense that something was terribly off about this version Castiel. Even his true form was… broken, somehow, twisted and ugly, almost like a demon. And there was pain—psychic pain—pulsing from him, stronger the closer they got.
Sam, Dean and Mary broke off to go and save Charlie and Ketch, which left Brooke, Castiel, and Jack to take care of the guards outside. Brooke was relieved, at first, because Other Castiel was inside. He'd be dealt with by one of the Winchesters. But then… he escaped. He was walking towards them, quickly. Brooke felt her legs turn to jelly. But he didn't see them, and turned suddenly, towards a jeep parked nearby.
We can't let him escape, Castiel—her Castiel—growled, and ran after him.
Brooke wanted to grab at his coat, beg him not to go anywhere near his evil twin, but it was too late. As she watched her husband touch the Other Castiel, she flinched, half-expecting the universe to implode or something. Instead, she was bowled over with pain. She dropped to her knees in the dirt, holding her head. He was wrong. Everything was wrong.
This Other Castiel was stapled together impossibly, by the most tenuous hold on his own sanity. If he edged even a hair's breadth off that ledge, he'd go completely insane. Something had happened to him. Something… terrible, too terrible to speak of. Too terrible for her mind to comprehend. Someone had broken him, torn him down until he had forgotten himself, and then built him back up as this awful… thing.
Someone had taken all the goodness in Brooke's husband and ripped it out of him; they had tortured him so completely that his only way forward had been through acceptance of the pain. Because the pain had not stopped just because he had agreed to go along with their plans—whoever they were. No. Whoever had done this to him had needed complete obedience.
The torture had lasted… lifetimes. They had carved a new Castiel from the old one's flesh, ripped his own mind from him and put it back after it had shattered into a million pieces. And then they put all the pieces back together again as painfully, and slowly, as possible. They had destroyed him, and left him destroyed, gluing only the pieces they needed for him to function back onto him—
Everything went dark. Brooke's fell forward, slamming her face into the dirt, and passed out.
###
Brooke awoke slowly, and was confused upon doing so. She was moving, swaying. She woke up a little more. Castiel was carrying her. For one horrid second, she thought that the Other Castiel was stealing her away somewhere, but she realized immediately that it was her own Castiel. The feel of his mind brushing against hers was nothing but comforting. She lifted her head, smiling at him in the dark. And then she started to cry.
I know, he said, gently setting her down.
I'm sorry, she began as her feet touched the ground, and she put a hand over her mouth.
You don't need to apologize. I… I almost cried, earlier.
It was so awful. He was awful…
I know, Castiel said, again, and held her closely against him, stroking her hair.
What… what happened? D-Did you…? Brooke could not even finish that question in her own head. The idea that Castiel had just had to kill himself was…
Yes, he said.
I'm so sorry, she said, and hugged him tighter.
It's… It's all right, he murmured. I… have a feeling that I did him a service.
Yeah, you put him out of his misery. She took a breath. Kinda makes me wanna stay here and find whoever did that to him… Someone hurt my baby, and if I had time, I would kick the shit out of them…
Castiel blinked, somewhat rapidly. I… I'm not your child…?
He sounded so genuinely confused that she laughed, a welcome sound after everything that had just happened. You've been on Earth how long? You understand the concept of a pet name, right? Or the feeling that someone you love, who is very close to you, can be more than just, say, a wife? You've babied me plenty of times, carrying me, washing me, bringing me food.
Ah, he said, as they walked along, back to base. I understand now.
You know, she mused, I just realized we don't have any pet names for each other. We never have. I think you've called me 'my love' twice, ever, but that's it.
Castiel fell silent, though he was thinking of the very specific name he called her in bed, the one she'd tattooed to herself.
That is not a pet name, Brooke told him, laughing again. If you can't say it in front of company, it's not a pet name.
He squinted. But you could call me 'Commander' in front of company. It's not a dirty word.
No, but people would look at me funny.
I suppose that's true, considering I'm not actually a commander anymore.
Oh, you still are, she said, with a smile in her voice. But only to me.
###
The good news: They'd rescued Charlie and Ketch. And when they'd gotten back to base, Bobby had told them that he and everyone else here wanted to go with them back to their world, to rest, recuperate, stock up on supplies, and then come back and kick Apocalypse World Michael's ass. This was good. This was what they had been hoping for—that the others would agree to leave with them.
The bad news: Figuring out how in the hell to get around thirty people through the portal without running out of time or attracting the attention of Michael and his squad.
It was Dean's idea to use the bus. Brooke didn't feel comfortable with Lucifer driving, but no one felt comfortable with it. At least, this way, she and Cass could keep an eye on him. They sat right up front, and Castiel stayed directly behind Lucifer as he drove, just in case he randomly decided to turn evil again—which was very possible.
But, somehow… things turned out well.
Everyone made it through the portal, even as it slowly began closing. When Brooke stepped through, back into the bunker, she saw Rowena muttering the spell to keep it open, over and over again. Brooke stared at the witch, simultaneously sympathetic and impressed. Rowena had had to stay awake for over twenty-four hours, muttering the spell, to keep the portal open this whole time.
"Rowena," Castiel said, staring at her, and worried that she'd pass out at any second.
"About bloody time," she snapped, and then focused once more on the portal.
Brooke felt like she was watching a tennis match, her head swiveling back and forth between Rowena and the portal as more and more people came through. Finally, they were just waiting for Sam, Dean, Gabriel, and Lucifer. But none of them showed. Not for a full minute.
"Cass," Brooke said, dragging his name out in a worried tone. Were they really about to step back through to save the Winchesters?
Castiel's own anxiety rose as more time elapsed. Rowena looked ready to black out—or possibly die.
Finally, Dean came through, and about thirty seconds after him, Sam.
Rowena immediately released the spell and fell face-first onto the table she was sitting at, huffing with exhaustion.
Brooke was relieved… and then worried. "Where are Gabriel and Lucifer?" she asked.
Sam and Dean stared at the floor.