Song Remains the Same

by R. W. Winters

For Alex Winchester, normal has never been in the equation. Mute since the nursery fire, she grew up on the road chasing ghosts with her brothers and father. When her voice is inexplicably restored and the angel Castiel appears claiming to be her guardian, both of their lives change forever in ways that Heaven and Earth never expected. Castiel/OFC. Sisfic - S4-9 - Alternate Ending.

39. House of Gods

Song Remains the Same

Chapter 39 / House of Gods

"All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, giving them the power to pull ours."
- Aldous Huxley

---

Three dripping-wet Winchesters burst into the hotel lobby, catching their breath as they came in out of the pouring rain.

As soon as they made it inside, they could see that the place was nice. No, scratch that, it wasn't just nice—it was downright swanky. The lobby was sleek and modern, artfully lit and immaculately kept. Fluffy white area rugs stood out against expensive looking hardwood floor, the lounge area looked like it was straight out of an ritzy magazine feature. A stone fireplace crackled warmly across from the front desk and adjacent stood a full-service bar. Beside it there was a sign that said Pool & Gym This Way.

Dean made an impressed face, hardly believing their luck. "Wow... nice digs for once."

He looked at his damp siblings who both appeared to be thrown off by how nice.

Lounge music played softly, there were a lot of people milling around. Apparently the storm had drawn quite the crowd in. Dean hefted his bag a little better and then led the way to the desk where the attendant glanced up at them and gave them a quick smile.

"Checking in?" He was a small, pale man with dark hair swept neatly into a side part.

"Yeah," Dean said, leaning a wet elbow onto the counter.

"Just a moment," the attendant—Chet according to his name tag—said. He typed rapidly on the keyboard of his computer, and Dean looked around again, unable to believe how great this place was. Also, how full of people.

"Busy night huh?" he asked.

"Any port in a storm, I guess," Chet replied, chuckling pleasantly as he slid some paperwork over to Dean. "If you could just fill this out, please."

"Yeah." Dean took the form and filled in total lies, laughing at his own inside jokes. Name? Fred Gwynne. Address? 1313 Mockingbird Lane. Beside him, he heard Sam give one of those little huffs and he knew what his brother was thinking: grow up, Dean.

Dean slid the paperwork back across the counter with some cash, and Chet looked at him closely, like he saw something out of order. "Sir, I think you got a little…" he pointed to Dean's neck. "Shaving nick there." He produced a tissue out of nowhere with a flourish, smiling genially, motioning for him to take the tissue. Dean did, a little confused—he hadn't shaved in a day or two, how would he have a nick? But sure enough, the white tissue came away from his neck with a miniscule bright red blood stain. What the hell...?

"Your room key," Chet said, holding out a dangling silver key.

Dean reached out and took it, a little out of sorts. "Oh, uh. Thanks."

Beside him, he felt Alex tensing up—he looked and saw that she was yawning widely. He chuckled briefly, before looking back at Chet. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to have coffee, would you?"

"Buffet," Chet said, indicating left of himself. "All you can eat. Best pie in the tri-state area." Dean felt like the clouds had opened and sunshine was pouring through—this guy was speaking his language! "And coffee, too, of course, for the young lady." Chet said, with a good-natured wink. Grumpy as hell, Alex just gave him a look like bite me.

"Food," Dean said urgently to his two siblings. Need he say more? He led the way into the dining room, too hungry to care about going to their room first to change clothes. What awaited them was better than Dean could have imagined. It was like out of a dream: colorful, fresh food lined the buffet—he saw fried chicken, ribs, chicken-fried steak, burger and hot dog fixings, several kinds of pasta, salad, corn on the cob, rolls, french fries, an assortment of fresh fruits, grilled vegetables—and there was a piled-high dessert bar. He admired the spread almost lovingly, turning his head toward Sam slightly as to not take his eyes off the food. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?" he asked.

Sam of course gave him a look for that one and headed to the salad portion.

Dean piled a plate high for himself, spotted the coffee station, and stopped by it before going to the table Alex had sat down at. She hadn't gotten any food, she was hunched over the table like an old lady. With a thunk, Dean set down a mug of coffee in front of her and she looked up, a little startled. "Your back-to-life elixir, milady," he commanded jokingly, trying to kickstart her. "And sit up straight, would you?" She complied half-heartedly. Dean felt his heart sink a little. He was waiting for her to come back to herself, to start being normal again. But from the look on her face, today didn't seem like the day it was going to happen.

"Hey, you want me to get you something?" Dean asked, motioning toward the buffet. Her eyes slid up to follow the direction he was gesturing towards. "They have mac 'n cheese…" he said suggestively, wiggling his eyebrows at her. It was one of her all-time favorites.

"Not hungry," she muttered, and he could barely hear or understand her. Dean sighed and gave up, not sure if he were frustrated or hopeless or mad. He went to go get himself some water. What was he supposed to do, cram food down her throat? He couldn't force her to eat. Was he supposed to tell her 'stop being depressed or else!'? It was sort of like she was refusing to let herself feel the pain she obviously carried. And sooner or later it was all going to explode out of her and cause some major damage.

Maybe he was a fool, but Dean was hoping that Cas would show back up and everything would just be... okay again. That thought made him do a mental double-take at himself. Like it had ever been okay to begin with. Dean scoffed at himself.

When he came back to the table with two waters—one for him, one for her—Sam sat beside his twin, picking at his plateful of salad, vegetables, and chicken. Alex suddenly had a dinner roll—Sam must have given it to her—she ate it like she couldn't taste it. Dean and Sam exchanged a look, saying nothing. Dean forcefully pushed his thoughts aside and dug into his food, forgetting about everything except how good the gravy slathered chicken-fried steak was. For a minute, the savory, crunchy heaven on his fork helped him ignore he all the things that were wrong with the world.

Sam scrolled around on his phone, trying to figure out about where this storm front had come from. His cell barely got a signal for some reason and he was getting fed up with the unresponsive internet access. He spent several minutes trying to get it to work with no luck. The apps would load halfway or not at all. Sitting across from him, Dean finished inhaling his dinner and got up, gleefully exclaiming something about how many kinds of pie they had here. Sam was a little annoyed. How could Dean think about pie at a time like this?

Beside him, Alex shifted a little, set her half-eaten roll down. "You okay?" Sam asked her. He set his phone down for a second to study his twin. Her hair was damp, sticking to her head. She looked pitiful, but more than that, she looked exhausted, and he knew she could use more sleep—hell, so could he. Glancing at the unfinished roll, he wished she would eat more. He was almost at the point of pulling a Dean and forcefully demanding you finish that roll now, but he held off, knowing that wouldn't end well. "Do you wanna go to the room?" He asked. "I can get the key from Dean if you need to turn in."

She considered, then shook her head no and looked up at the exit where some of the hotel lobby was visible. Her eyes narrowed just a little, and Sam couldn't tell what she was thinking. She had both of her hands in her jacket pockets. They hadn't left her pockets much this past month at all. "No I'm… I think I'll go check out the pool." She said. She stood, her chair scraping the floor loudly.

Sam did a slight double-take, looking up at her. "The pool?" he asked, confused. "To swim?"

"Not to swim," she said vaguely, walking off without her bag.

Something about all this felt... off. "Don't wander off...!" Sam called after her, uneasy for reasons he wasn't sure of. He didn't want to crowd her, but he also wasn't sure if she should be alone right now. He fought with himself for a few seconds. Should he follow? You're being ridiculous, Sam. She doesn't need a babysitter. Anxious, he returned to scrolling through his phone, trying to get the damn weather page to load. He needed to do something, anything useful.

He was going stir crazy, every day that passed he had to fight himself not to give up completely. That, and every day that passed he remembered what Dean had told him in the panic room: that Dad met Alex in Heaven and he'd said something about Azazel's plans… how the danger wasn't past. Total dread filled Sam every time he thought about that. Because all those years ago… there had been these dreams he'd had… and he shuddered. After Yellow-Eyes had died, he'd thought he didn't have to worry anymore. Quickly it flashed across his mind: scorching flames, a soul-shattering scream, the most wretched and vile feeling he'd ever felt. And he suppressed the memories of the dreams fast, too afraid to dwell on them any longer. He didn't want to remember, not even for a second. He didn't want to believe that the dreams Azazel had put inside of him could ever come true. You need to tell Dean, the still, small voice of his conscience said. And then immediately after, you can never tell Dean—you can never tell anyone. Just make sure what you saw never happens. Sam's teeth were grinding together painfully. How?

"She go to the bathroom?" Dean's voice startled Sam, he looked up to see his brother arriving back with a plate full of pie.

"No, uh, the pool," Sam said, distracted, and trying to refocus on his phone.

Dean paused like he'd misheard. "The pool. Okay…" he brushed it off and sat down, noticing his brother's state anew. "Sam, unpucker, man. Eat something, Jesus! Both of you on the air diet or something?"

Sam ignored the comment. "We should hit the road, Dean."

"In this storm?" Dean protested. "What, it's, it's—"

"It's biblical," Sam supplied, setting his phone down a little harder than he needed to. "I-it's friggin' Noah's ark out there, and we're eating pie."

Dean looked at Sam with nerve-wracking perception. "How many hours of sleep did you get this week?" he asked, cutting to the chase. "What? Three? Four? You're tired, you're jumpy, you're not taking care of yourself." He stuffed some pie in, rolling his eyes and talking through a mouthful. "You and Alex, I swear."

That got a salty look and a mumbled, "Yeah like the way you do things is such a good metric to go by."

Dean stopped mid-chew, huffed heavily, then ignored the comment. He tried to be a little more understanding. "Bobby's got his feelers out, okay? We have talked with every hoodoo man and root woman in twelve states—we're doing a lot, of course we're all tired of all this crap. We deserve some pie, bro!"

That might have been true, but Sam wasn't going to be okay until they had answers. "Yeah, well, I'm not giving up." Dean reacted viscerally.

"Nobody's giving up," he retorted, anger flashing across his features. "Especially me." A tense silence stretched between the brothers. "We're gonna find a way to beat the devil, okay? Soon. I can feel it." Dean was getting a little excitable, but almost in an indignant way. "And you know what else? We will find Cas, we'll get Adam back somehow too. But you are no good to me burnt out. I got one sibling making life hard for me right now, I don't need you to pull the woe-is-me crap too." Sam was ready to mouth off—but Dean held up a hand for silence, seeming to regret his choice of words. "I only meant…" he said slowly, softly, "that I need you to be strong, Sammy. Cuz she's falling apart. And some days I think I am too, you know? So… don't you do that shit too." There was a vulnerability there, a deep sad uncertainty that Dean didn't show very often. And Sam was scared by it. But he tried to look supportive and agreeable.

"Yeah," he said, trying a little smile even though he was feeling less sure and stable than ever. "Yeah, okay."

Back to his lofty, good-humored self, Dean spread his hands as a grin grew. "Come on, we've actually got the night off for once. Let's try and enjoy it. There's like twelve kinds of pies up there, I mean, jackpot!" He chuckled and sliced his fork down into his pie, carefree for the moment.

---

The hotel had an Olympic sized indoor swimming pool and a heated spa next to it. Several guests splashed around in the pale blue water—there were some young kids in the shallow end with a woman who must have been their mom, there was an elderly man doing laps across the deep end. The room was warm and humid, it echoed loudly and smelled like chlorine.

She thought it would have been empty in here, and it wasn't. But it was empty enough. Alex checked her phone, pacing along the back edge of the room. She had this insane paranoia that the second she put her phone down or wasn't paying attention, that's when he would call. So she checked obsessively. She called his number several times a day. It went straight to voicemail each time. It had been thirty-two days he had been gone.

She selected his name off of her contacts list, hit call, and her stomach dropped in the most agonizing anticipation she had ever experienced—hope that instead of clicking straight over to voicemail, it would ring this time. That he would answer.

Click. Her heart sank. "You have reached the voicemail box of..." the smooth, robotic voicemail greeting proclaimed. And then the voice Alex loved, missed, and needed to hear speak to her again played: "I don't understand—why do you want me to say my name?" She shut her eyes, the sound of his voice making a pain that was physical ripple through her body. Beep, beep, beeeep—the keypad buttons he'd hit as he'd tried to end the recording. Her face contorted painfully as another, final beep sounded, indicating that she record a message. She hit end and stared at the pool unseeingly, stock still. She heard a kid laughing. Splashing. Someone calling cannonball!

Angels… weren't supposed to die. And all this time, he had been afraid she would be the one to die. Maybe somehow it got switched. She thought about the hollow, broken shell of a man Castiel had been in 2014. She understood now why he'd been so destroyed. She felt that way, too.

She remembered once reading it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. What a fucking bunch of shit. It would be better not to feel this pain. It would be better not to long for something you could never get back. It would be better if Castiel had never met her at all—he'd probably still be alive. It would have been better to have never loved him at all.

And at the same time she thought this, her spirit screamed that knowing him, opening herself up to being loved like he'd loved her… was the best thing that had ever happened to her. She thought of him warm and against her, showing her love in a way words didn't measure—she thought of him protecting her, guarding her, always trying to understand and help her. She loved him then and she loved him still and it ripped her in half.

So why did it have to end like this? Why would she fall so deeply in love only to have it ripped away when it had barely just begun? She realized she was growing short of breath.

The answers didn't come to the questions her entire soul strained for. In her hand, she squeezed her phone so hard that some of the plastic casing cracked.

She couldn't bear to think of him too much or she felt like she would break apart. So she shoved her feelings away, stomping them down before she could really feel them.

Alex looked at the pool again, and was suddenly struck by the utter silence. Everyone was gone. The pool was empty and still, the entire place was abruptly deserted. No one was left. What the hell? Had she spaced out again?

There was a sudden, sharp little sting on the side of her neck and she jumped, startled, a hand clapping to the place where the pain originated. She felt something wet underneath her fingers, drew her hand away—and saw a small amount of blood.

Suddenly feeling a lot more alert than she had for a long time, Alex put her phone away, looked around suspiciously, her heart hammering, her adrenaline picking up. Quickly and quietly, she slipped out of the pool room.

---

Dean and Sam walked down the hallway a couple floors up, scanning room number plaques for Room 102. When they found it, they heard a loud giggle—in front of the doorway to the room next to theirs was a very excited couple was making out—the woman giggled again, loudly, and Dean chuckled, leered, then pointed as the guy pulled his jacket off, bumping the woman up against the door simultaneously.

"What are you, twelve?" Sam asked at Dean's juvenile reaction, but he couldn't hide his little amused smile either.

Dean gave Sam a friendly scoff as he unlocked their room. "I'm young at heart!"

The door swung open and Dean whistled in low awe as the two of them went on in. "Wow," he commented, looking around at the deluxe room, well pleased. "Look at this. We're like Rockefellers!" There were two beds made up with expensive looking red duvets and each bed had a little candy bar nestled on the pillow. "Chocolates! Ooh." Dean picked one up, delighted, then glanced at Sam. "You want yours?"

Sam shook his head—he was looking around in increasing puzzlement. He had a weird feeling. "Knock yourself out… think I'm gonna go find Alex."

Dean's next discovery halted Sam. "Whoa." Dean picked up the little information display that was on the nightstand. It was mounted to a wooden block and Dean held it out to Sam. "'Casa Erotica Thirteen'... on demand." From Dean's excited expression, you'd think he'd discovered a lost treasure. Sam scoffed slightly, then stopped, deep in thought. Dean's smiled faded. "What?"

Sam shrugged, gestured vaguely. "Isn't this place... in the middle of nowhere?"

Dean was unconcerned. "So?"

"So what's a four-star hotel doing on a no-star highway?"

Dean shrugged, obviously thinking don't know, don't care. On the other side of the wall of their hotel room, they could hear the couple again—a high pitched shriek of laughter and then a pleasurable moan—Dean snickered again, ever the mature one—then came a thump, a very, very loud thud—and then the wall shivered, shaking—the flat screen TV almost fell off that wall as it cracked and plaster dust went flying. Sam and Dean looked at each other wordlessly, then rushed of the room and over to the room next door—which, coincidentally, was labelled Honeymoon Suite.

They barged in only to find—nothing. No one. The room was empty. The large king-sized bed had rumpled blankets on it, but other than that, there was no sign that anyone had even been in the room at all.

"...Hello?" Dean called, walking into the room slowly, cautious.

Sam checked the bathroom. "No one," he said as he came back out.

Dean had knelt down at the foot of the bed and was picking something up from the shag throw carpet—a silver engagement ring with a gleaming solitaire diamond. An ominous discovery. "Something's not right here," he muttered as he stood up, scrutinizing the ring with a dark frown.

"You think?" Sam whispered tensely, holding himself like a spring in case of attack.

Dean pocketed the jewelry, his earlier happy-go-lucky mood completely gone. "Okay, you know what? We need to find Alex, pronto."

Sam nodded, swallowed, and then followed Dean out with a bunch of concerned backward glances.

Once they were in the hallway, they saw a familiar face heading toward them.

"Thank God," Dean muttered as Alex approached. Then he frowned even deeper. She looked startlingly alert and present, a total one-eighty from earlier.

"Something weird is happening here," she hissed as she reached them.

"Yeah no shit," Dean retorted.

"Hey, what happened to your neck?" Sam asked, noticing a small diagonal slash of red on the fair skin there.

"Yeah exactly," she said, casting a furtive glance around. "Also, why everyone just… disappeared from the pool all the sudden."

Dean and Sam exchanged a wary glance. "Disappeared, huh?" Dean repeated, then wet his lips, his gaze beginning to flit all over their surroundings in this mysterious hotel. "Yeah, Houston—I think we got a problem."

---

They were in the lobby once more.

"The, uh, the room next to ours—the couple that are, uh, joined at the lips—have you seen them?" Dean asked Chet.

"Mr. and Mrs. Logan—the... honeymooners?" Chet asked. He typed on his keyboard yet again, almost too fast to be humanly possible. The screen was turned too far away for Alex to see what he was typing. He turned back to them, smiled politely. "They checked out. Is something the matter?"

"They... checked out?" Sam repeated dubiously.

"Mm-hmm. Mm, just now."

"Really? It sort of seemed like they were, uh…" he paused for meaning. "...in the middle of something."

Chet shrugged deeply, that courteous smile never leaving his face.

"Yeah, it's kind of weird for honeymooners to, uh, check out without this." Dean held up the engagement ring, and Chet looked mildly surprised.

"Oh, dear," the hotel attendant said, then reached out to take the ring from Dean. "I'll just put that right in the lost and found. Don't you worry. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Dean regarded the guy with thinly veiled mistrust. "Uh, no. No, we're good."

Chet's eyes slid from Dean to Sam to Alex, and his smile was becoming downright unnerving. "Super fantastic!"

All three Winchesters gave him an attempt at you betcha smiles, but as they turned around, put their backs to Chet, each of their expressions became more like what the fuck is going on?

"Creepy," Sam commented in a low voice as soon as they were a few steps off and out of earshot.

"Twilight zone creepy," his sister put in.

"Yeah, just a little bit," Dean agreed under his breath, glancing back at Chet, who was going through some papers with his back to them. "All right, well. I'll scope out the joint, you two keep an eye on Norman Bates over here." Dean was a little annoyed. "I mean, one night off. Is that too much to ask?" He sighed, resigned, then left them with a "watch your backs," as he walked off.

Sam shrugged and Alex sat down on one of the couches. She picked up a magazine and pretended to read it, watching Chet carefully as Sam paced around then leaned against the fireplace, seeming to be really nerve-wracked overall. A couple of hotel guests came and went, about five minutes passed. Chet unexpectedly went out from behind the desk and headed down a hallway. Sam straightened from where he'd been leaned against the fireplace, Alex stood up.

"I'll follow him, you check out the computers," he said, and she nodded. Sam was already off at a brisk pace, following Chet down a side hallway and then around a corner.

Alex made sure no one was watching as she approached the front desk. She went to the main computer and hit the space bar, expecting the screen to wake up. Nothing happened. She looked around at the back of the computer, realizing that it wasn't plugged in to anything. Her eyebrows rose. The hell? There were a few more computers lining the check-in counter, and upon inspection none of those were plugged in, either—like they were just props or something. She picked up one of the phones and listened. No dial tone.

Okay. This was starting to really freak her out. Alex turned, glancing around before she began to page through the files that Chet had been looking through a minute ago. She quickly discovered that they were all blank sheets of paper. Alex halted her work. So this was all fake. For show only. A trick? A trap? Whatever it was, it was creepy as hell, and Alex stuck the files back in the box they'd been in and moved out from behind the counter... then realized that no one else was present. The dining room, which she could see when she craned her head to the left, was now empty. The bar across the way, a moment ago the hangout spot for two patrons, had been deserted.

Something was very, very wrong. Urgent, Alex hurried the way Sam had gone as discreetly as she could. It felt like she was being watched. With rising alarm, Alex dashed around a corner—and crashed into her brother who was especially startled.

"You almost gave me a heart attack!" Sam exclaimed.

"Sorry," Alex apologized breathlessly. "Where's Chet?"

Sam shrugged, shaking his head no multiple times. "I dunno, he disappeared, then I got this." He pointed at a little nick on his neck and Alex looked at him funny. The elevator dinged beside them.

"Yo, bozos," came a familiar voice. Dean swept out of the elevator. "No EMF to speak of, but there were elephants. Well. An elephant. Singular."

The twins looked at each other, then Dean, simultaneously. "What?" they chorused.

He shrugged matter-of-factly. "I was walking past some room, I saw an elephant, I looked again, it was just a dude."

Alex immediately pulled quite the face. "So you're high as fuck right now, is what you're saying."

When he realized the implication, Dean made a face of his own. "I'm not high, dude, there was an elephant!"

He began to stalk back toward the lobby and his siblings stayed hot on his heels.

Alex looked like she thought Dean might have lost his mind. "So… you actually think you saw an elephant."

"I did see an elephant," he insisted.

"An elephant?" Sam repeated doubtfully. "In the hotel."

Dean stopped, whirled, and gave them both growing irritated looks. "Yes an elephant. In the hotel."

Sam's eyes narrowed. "...Like, an elephant elephant?"

With a disgusted sigh, Dean turned back around and kept going. "What, should I say it in Spanish?!" he asked, getting a little more fervent as his footsteps marched quicker. "Yeah, an elephant elephant—like, full-on Babar!"

Sam and Alex exchanged the briefest stumped glance behind Dean's back before Sam decided to just go with it. "Okay. So. Elephant in the hotel. What the hell does…" Sam trailed off as they came into the ghost town lobby. The lounge music was still playing, resulting in an eerie effect. His voice dropped a couple notches, he seemed to think of something. "I haven't seen anyone but us in like, at least ten minutes. Where is everyone?" Sam went over and tried to lobby doors—but they wouldn't open.

"Lemme guess—it's locked." Dean was grim and on edge now. "So what—the roaches check in, they don't check out?"

"Think about how we got here," Sam said slowly, dawning realization in his voice. "That detour on I-Ninety? The friggin' hurricane?"

"You saying we were led here?" Dean asked.

"Like rats in a maze."

"But by who?" Alex asked quietly, a familiar sick worry in her stomach again. "Angels? Demons?"

"At this point, no telling," Dean muttered. "What I wanna know is where'd all the guests go." He looked around, trying to decide what course of action to take next. "Come on. We're gonna check the kitchen. Maybe some staff is still in there."

They went through the empty dining room, noting some tables weren't cleared off, some plates looked unfinished... like the people who had been eating had left in the middle of their meals unexpectedly.

Not good.

The Winchesters found the kitchen deserted, too. There was a huge pot of red liquid bubbling on the stove and Dean went closer to it cautiously. "Please be tomato soup. Please be tomato soup…" he lifted up the ladle and with it came human eyeballs. The three of them all turned away, queasy, making grossed out sounds as Dean declared: "Motel hell."

"That's disgusting!" Alex exclaimed even as Sam was looking with interest at the freezer—it was locked, and he wondered why. He went over, peered into the little glass window, and suddenly jumped back when a hand slapped up against the other side of the glass.

"Help us! Get us out!" a panicked man cried—a hotel guest they had seen earlier in the dining room. Sam yanked on the handle of the freezer, but it was locked tight. He took out his lock picking kit, shakily jamming one of the picks into the lock.

"Hurry up!" Dean urged.

Sam turned to look at his brother. "I'm going as fast as I…" he trailed off. Oh no. "...as I can."

Dean recognized the look on his brother's face and his shoulders fell slightly. "There's somebody behind me, isn't there?"

Dean was grabbed roughly by strong, large hands, and yanked backwards even as a tall Black man darted forward and pulled Sam away from the freezer.

"You're coming with us," said Dean's captor—a short, overweight Asian guy.

Sam was confused, looking around the kitchen for Alex. "Where's—" he started.

"Shh," Dean cut him off sharply, giving him a look. He wasn't sure how, but she must have gotten away or hidden. "Easy, easy!" Dean complained louder as the guy holding him began to shove him forward.

The two brothers were manhandled out of the kitchen, across the dining room, and into the grand ballroom where a roomful of elegantly dressed people looked at the new arrivals curiously. The fancy ballroom was set up for a banquet, two long tables facing each other. An ice sculpture of a dolphin was on a back table, elegant glasses filled with champagne surrounding it.

Sam and Dean stared, not so much at the room but the people in it—the name tags on the people in the room were very familiar: Ganesh, Odin, Kali, Baron Samedi, Baldur, Meili... "Something tells me this isn't a Shriner convention," Dean muttered, breathless.

From back behind a partition, Chet—now wearing a name tag that said Mercury—wheeled a serving platter in. He stopped and lifted up the silver covering from the platter to reveal a severed human head surrounded by entrails and vegetables. "Dinner is served!" Mercury announced, and there was polite applause even as Sam and Dean shrank back in horrified disgust. A sudden blinding spotlight came on, and the brothers squinted, jumping as they threw their arms out to block the beam of light from their eyes.

"Ladies and Gentleman, our guests of honor have arrived," said the man with the name tag Baldur. He was a handsome fellow looking to be in his mid-thirties. He wore an expensive suit; he had dark hair and strong features.

Sam and Dean looked at each other, shocked and unsure what was going on. "If everyone will please take their seats," Baldur continued in his softly accented voice, picking up a flute of champagne and smiling charmingly. "We'll begin."

The men who held Sam and Dean shoved them roughly into chairs at the end of the table. Dean gave Sam the be cool sign and the two of them waited vigilantly as the room descended into a quiet buzz of conversation.

A woman in a striking red dress stared at Dean and Sam with a lofty expression on her face. She looked of Middle Eastern descent—she was very beautiful and young, alluring—but there was something distinctly ominous about her. Her name tag read Kali.

Baldur clicked a fork to his champagne glass, calling for quiet. "Ladies and gentleman, thank you for coming. In all my centuries, I never thought I'd see this." He had a pleased smile on his face. "This many gods under one roof."

"Gods?" Sam repeated in a whisper only Dean could hear.

"Now," Baldur continued, looking around at the occupants of the tables. "before we get down to brass tacks, some ground rules. No slaughtering each other. Curb your wrath." He smiled almost coyly now. "Oh, and uh, keep your hands off the local virgins. We're, trying to keep a low profile here."

Beside Dean, Sam shrunk down in his chair a little as his eyes flickered frantically over the occupants of the room. "Oh, we are so... so screwed."

"We all know why we're here," Baldur said. "The Judeo-Christian apocalypse looms over us. I know we've all had our little disagreements in the past… but the time has come to put those aside and look toward the future. Because if we don't, we won't have one. Now we do have two very valuable bargaining chips." Baldur looked straight down the middle of the table at Dean and Sam, pointed a finger. "Michael and Lucifer's vessels."

Everyone at the tables turned to look at them, and suddenly Sam and Dean understood… these gods meant business.

Baldur paused, suddenly narrowing his eyes at the boys, then looking to Kali as if something were not as he had expected. "I thought there was a sister."

"There is," Kali confirmed in a low, bored voice. "But who cares? She's not important. She's not a vessel."

Mercury stood up halfway. "I can go get her, if you'd like."

"No," Kali said, her voice carrying more commanding this time. "Like I said. She's not important, at least not right now. I only bound her too because I don't want her running away to get help or some nonsense like that."

"Bound her?" Dean asked quietly to Sam, who shook his head, unsure.

But just as soon as Sam had shaken his head I don't know, he grew still in realization. "Our blood," he said, thinking about how they had all gotten little nicks on their necks. "Somehow… our blood."

---

One second she was in the kitchen gagging over the thought of eyeball soup, the next she was suddenly in a random hotel room. She turned around and her eyes went wide in recognition when she saw who stood there smiling at her idiotically.

"Hiya!" Gabriel greeted happily.

"You!" Alex exclaimed accusingly.

He shrugged in false modesty, his arms wide. "Me!"

Alex grabbed the first thing her hand found—a wooden Casa Erotica display piece—and threw it at his head.

Gabriel ducked it easily and laughed. "Hey, easy tiger! You forgetting something?"

"Oh no, I haven't forgotten a damn thing!" she told him angrily, remembering what he'd made her go through the last time she'd seen him.

He rolled his eyes dramatically. "No, no, not that." He looked at her chidingly, told her what she'd forgotten: "I'm an angel... you can't hurt me, silly."

What he said stilled her, she felt a great deal of her anger fade away. "That's not true. Angels can get hurt."

Acknowledging that she had a point, Gabriel pulled a thoughtful face. "Touché." He smiled at her almost sympathetically. "Truce?"

Alex looked offended. "No. Why'd you pull me out of the kitchen?" The second she asked it, a thought struck her; she suddenly felt afraid that she knew exactly what was going on. She scanned the room frantically, trying to figure out if it were real or not. "Is this more of your fucking mind game crap right now? This hotel?" She grabbed him by his jacket demandingly. "What did you do with Sam and Dean?!"

"Whoa, whoa!" Gabriel looked almost insulted and his face wrinkled up in distaste. "I didn't touch them. Uh-uh. I'm not behind this. In fact, just the opposite." He mimed as if he were sounding a horn and even made a cartoony little sound to accompany it. Then he spread his arms out widely with a huge grin and twinkling eyes. "I'm here to rescue you."

Brief surprise was taken over by suspicion and a scowling eye roll. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to say you look a little short for a storm trooper?"

Gabriel put his hands on his hips and gave her a look like he thought she was being cute. "Ah, two nerd points for you." His smile faded. "All joking aside, your brothers are in serious loads of ca-ca right now and the only one who can help any of you is me."

"What are you talking about?" Alex asked, getting more and more frustrated by the second.

"Downstairs, at this very moment," Gabriel said, walking the space in front of her, "a bunch of petty little gods are gathered to sell your brothers, the 'all-important vessels,' to the highest bidder." He paused, shrugged, then made a squinty thoughtful face. "Sell them or kill them."

"Gods?" She repeated.

"Yup! Gods. May have heard of a few of 'em. Odin, Kali, Ganesh, Mercury—the gang's all here!"

"Wait, Ganesh… the god with the elephant head?" So Dean wasn't nuts. "Huh."

"That's the one." Gabriel chuckled. "Down in the ballroom there's pretty much every god a kid could ever hope to meet. All except the one who we'd all really like to see, right?" Gabriel sighed with dramatic, false sadness. "My dad's a no show, as usual."

"So you're saying a bunch of super-powered deities have Sam and Dean and you're… here to save us?" Not buying it, Alex narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

Gabriel chuckled. "Do I need a reason?"

Alex looked at the archangel like he was a moron. "Hmm. Let me think. Yes."

Gabriel threw his hands up in exasperation. "Why do I always have to explain everything?" He complained dramatically.

Alex folded her arms, set her gaze on him condescendingly. "Really?" He had to be some kind of idiot to ask her that.

He rolled his eyes again with a huff. "Okay, you know what, I'm sorry," he said mockingly. "What I did to you was wrong."

Alex gave him a bitch face that would have made Sam proud.

Genuine frustration flickered across the archangel's face. "Look, I did what I did. Okay? And now, I'm here to help you." He shrugged, nonchalant. "I have my reasons, and they're legit, believe it or not." His head canted to the side. "Alex, I grabbed you up outta that kitchen before those pious dickholes could get to you, doesn't that count for something?" She looked at him in suspicion, trying to figure out his angle. In turn, he looked at her with something akin to fascination or maybe that was judgment. She couldn't tell. "You don't trust easy, do you?"

A cold, cynical little smile came across her face. "Mm. Not the best idea in my line of work."

Gabriel became annoyed and blunt. "Look. Here's the deal. Those gods down there, sure, they bound you and your brothers by blood but the punchline is that you—" he poked a finger into her shoulder roughly, "you're not important to them—which, spoiler alert, turns out to be the worst miscalculation they'll ever make but hey—don't knock what get's the job done, right? It's Sam and Dean they want. So right now, you and I have an opportunity."

"You and I?" Alex repeated, spinning a little from everything he'd just said. She didn't even catch his meaning in some parts.

"Yeah!" Gabriel gave her a crazy look. "You gotta be nuts if you think I'm gonna mount this rescue effort by myself!"

Alex leaned a little closer for emphasis. "And you gotta be nuts if you think I'm gonna work with"—she poked him in the shoulder just like he'd done to her a second ago—"you."

Gabriel looked a little surprised. "You're gonna go up against a bunch of gods by yourself then?"

Alex made a face. "Why fucking bother? Everyone keeps telling me this is how it ends. So let it end." She was surprised to hear herself say it out loud, and surprised at how little she felt when she actually said it.

Gabriel looked like he'd never heard so much bullshit in his life. "Oh my dad you're pathetic. Get over yourself! Oh geez boo hoo. What is this, Twilight?! Your sparkly little boyfriend disappears so you fall apart and lose the will to live?! Come on!"

At the mention of him, Alex bristled. "You know what, isn't this kind of what you wanted? Weren't you telling them to… 'play their roles' just a few months back?"

"I've had a change of heart," Gabriel said primly. He came a little closer, intense. "You're in over your head here Alex. You can listen to what I'm trying to tell you and we can get your brothers the hell outta dodge… or you can sit up here feeling sorry for yourself and not doing a damn thing to change it."

She said nothing, trying to control herself. Everything he was saying was making her so frigging mad. She kept her mouth clamped shut and looked away.

Gabriel seemed angry too. "You know, I don't remember thinking the story would end this way, with the heroine just… giving up and pissing away all the hard work she and her family put in!" His fire tapered off in favor of ice. "I thought you were supposed to be a strong lead female character, Al."

She looked at him indignantly. "This isn't a book, this my life and it's hard as hell and you don't know shit about what you're saying to me right now!" She snapped. "What I'm going through!"

"Finally, some emotion! Geez Louise!" Gabriel exclaimed, back to his goofy, stupid personality. But then he reigned it in a little. "Hey, for the record though... that's where you're wrong. I've loved and lost, just like you. My dad? Gone, absent. He doesn't give a shit about me. My brothers? Those two idiots are gonna end the world over their petty disagreements and daddy issues. And the one I love? Ah. Let's not even open that can of worms. So don't tell me I don't know what you're talking about. Because I do."

"Oh good for you, Gabe," Alex muttered rudely.

Gabriel gave her a sort of suggestive look. "By the way? It was high time Cas got laid if you ask me." At the angry look she gave him, he raised his hands as if in surrender. "I'm just saying!" He smiled impishly. "And hey, you know what? He's a tricky little bastard. Maybe even trickier than me. Between you and me, I wouldn't be surprised if he shows back up again."

Alex wanted to punch him in the face, because that's what her brothers kept saying—that Cas would come back—and she couldn't take hearing that false hope much more because every time she heard it, she believed it less. "Don't talk about him to me."

"Hey, sorry," Gabriel said, chuckling now. "Didn't mean to 'overstep my bounds.'"

"Okay, you know what, go away Gabriel!" Alex barked, getting riled up. "I'm not helping you today or ever."

"Come on, Alex," Gabriel said, looking at her in growing condescension. "You're gonna let those gods do whatever to your brothers? I'm disappointed!"

Alex gave him an oh please look. "Like I care about how you feel."

Gabriel sighed with an exaggerated huff, supremely annoyed. "Well, didn't wanna have to do this but…" Gabriel suddenly slapped her across the face—not hard, but it startled and stung. "Snap out of it!"

"Ouch, hey!" Alex exclaimed, a hand on her stinging cheek. And without even thinking, she hauled off and slapped him right back.

He didn't even blink—but it seemed to be the thought that counted. He looked shocked at what she'd done. "What was that for?!" he asked her with innocent, wounded eyes.

"You slapped me!"

He was quite dramatic with his reply. "You're damn right I did, did it work? Did it knock some friggin' sense into you?" Gabriel pointed at her authoritatively when she didn't respond. "Listen, headcase: get yourself together, get over the fact that you don't like me. We're stuck together, ya dig? We got work to do."

Her cheek stung, her blood was pumping fast. And it was one of the first time in weeks that she'd felt anything like life.

"Last chance: do you wanna save your brothers or not?" Gabriel asked.

Alex didn't want to work with this clown, but she also knew it was a crazy idea to face down a bunch of gods alone. So she pushed her pride down reluctantly. Gabe began to smile contentedly as he saw her getting ready to cooperate. Ugh. "Just…" she sighed heavily, couldn't believe she was agreeing to this. "Tell me what to do."

---

"Well I say we kill them!" Zao Shen shouted loudly, banging his fist down on the table, giving Sam and Dean a furious glare.

Ganesh laughed. "Kill 'em? What, so the angels can bring the back again?"

The brothers looked at each other sidelong. This was pretty fucked up, listening to a bunch of gods argue over what to do with you.

"I don't know what everybody's getting so worked up about! It's just a couple of angels having a slap fight!" Odin scoffed, vaguely disinterested. "There's no 'Armageddon.' Everybody knows, when the world comes to an end, the Great Serpent Jörmungandr rises up and I myself will be eaten by a big wolf!" He belly laughed.

Zao Shen rolled his eyes and sighed. "Here we go again…"

"Oh yeah?" Odin asked, looking across the table at the other god with disdain. "And why is that? Because your beliefs are so much more realistic? The whole world's getting carried around on the back of a giant turtle? Ha! Give me a break!"

Zao Shen didn't react well to the insult. "Don't mock my world turtle!" he exclaimed indignantly.

"What are you gonna do about it?" Odin asked, standing suddenly, leaning across the table and staring Zao Shen down menacingly.

"I'm gonna send you packing to Valhalla!" Zao Shen retorted, wagging his finger at the other god.

"You watch your mouth when you talk to me, boy!" Odin said, angrily pointing his finger right back at Zao Shen.

Sam and Dean looked at each other and Dean nodded slightly, they quietly got up.

"Boy?" Zao Shen repeated, clearly insulted. "I'm older than you!"

The brothers moved quietly toward the door, hoping the argument would cover their escape.

"...No one's ever proved that," Odin muttered.

There was a loud crash and Sam and Dean jumped back from the chandelier that had just plummeted down without warning in front of them.

"Stay," Kali said, her low voice ominous and commanding, and the Winchesters turned back around to face her, not seeming to have a choice but to comply. She looked at them a second longer, then turned her attention to the gods and goddesses in the room. "We have to fight. The archangels—the only thing they understand is violence. This ends in blood. There is no other way, it's them, or us."

Sitting at the end of one of the tables, Mercury raised two fingers for attention. "With... all due respect, ma'am, we haven't even tried talking to the archangels." Kali looked at him sharply. Simultaneously, Mercury began to choke up blood. He grabbed his collar, panicking.

"Kali..." Baldur warned, stopping the goddess from killing the other god outright.

Mercury collapsed forward, able to breathe again, and Kali seemed mildly amused, looked at the panting boy cooly. She raised a single eyebrow at him. "Who asked you?"

The two doors of the grand ballroom suddenly swung open with a startling bang and in came Gabriel, arms stretched wide. "Can't we all just get along!" he asked with an air of grand theatre.

Dean and Sam looked at the newcomer in shock. "Ga—" Dean started, but was cut off, unable to say a thing. He looked at Sam, who seemed to be similarly incapable of speech.

Gabriel tsk-tsked. "Sam... Dean..." he smiled almost like he was amused. "It's always wrong place, worst time with you muttonheads, huh?"

"Loki," Baldur said, greeting Gabriel as if he knew him. Sam and Dean looked at each other in complete confusion when Baldur called him by that name.

"Baldur," Gabriel replied, pretending to be glad to see him, but it was clearly facetious. "Good seeing you too." He walked forward past Sam and Dean, making a face. "I guess my invitation got lost in the mail."

"Why are you here?" Baldur asked, ignoring the comment about Gabriel's—Loki's—invitation.

"To talk about the elephant in the room," Gabriel said, and Ganesh began to stand up indignantly. "Not you," Gabriel said. His tone became serious. "The apocalypse. We can't stop it, gang." He held up a finger, smiling brightly. "But first things first." He turned back to Sam and Dean, giving them a pretentious smile. "The adults need to have a little conversation. Check you later!" He held up his hands, snapped his fingers, and the brothers were no longer in the grand ballroom.

"Okay. Wh—did that just—holy crap!" Dean commented, totally beside himself, looking around at the hotel room they were suddenly in.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Sam said, similarly shocked. "By the way, next time I say let's keep driving, uh... let's keep driving!"

"Okay, yeah," Dean said, and put a hand on his head, looked around the room, still a little stunned. "Next time—now where the hell is our damn sister?"

"I'm right here," Alex said. Both of the brothers turned fast as she came into the room, slamming the door behind herself. She looked pretty sullen and was carrying a crowbar.

"What are you doing with that?" Dean asked as she threw it down onto the floor with a loud clatter.

"Gabe had me run a little errand for him but it was a bust." She looked at both of them closely, getting apprehensive. "Is it true? A bunch of gods downstairs?"

"Yup, all arguing over whether to slit our throats or not," Dean said, feigning enthusiasm.

"Oh. Well. That's… just perfect," Alex muttered.

"Our thoughts exactly," Sam said, running a hand through his hair before he looked to Dean. "Alright, so what's our next move?"

Dean seemed a little bit out of his element. "I-I-I... I don't know. Grab those poor saps outta the freezer, I guess? Bust 'em out? Gank a few freaks along the way if we're lucky?"

"And when are you ever lucky?" Gabriel asked. All three Winchesters turned fast to see that the angel was now in the room with them, seated casually in an arm chair, his leg crossed over his knee.

"You know what, bite me, Gabriel," Dean suggested gruffly.

Gabriel's eyebrows wiggled and he uncrossed his legs, standing up. "Maybe later, big boy."

Dean went to him, grabbing him with one hand. "Listen, after that shit you put my sister through, you and I are gonna have words."

"Cool your jets, Hulkster," Gabriel said and took Dean's hand, removing it easily—Dean cringed and shrunk under the strong grip. "We don't have time for the melodrama, and anyway, she and I handled it. We're good, aren't we, Al?" He gave her a sweet, expectant smile.

Dean looked at Alex for confirmation. She just made a face like I guess so. Dean shook his head, looking at Gabriel darkly. "I should've known, man. I mean this thing had your stink all over it from the jump."

Gabriel looked severely let down. "Geez, you too? That's what she said. Look, I'm only gonna say it one more time: I'm not behind this. I'm the Costner to your Houston. I'm here to save your ass."

"You wanna pull us outta the fire?" Dean asked incredulously.

"Bingo!" Gabriel confirmed. "Those guys are either gonna dust you, or use you as bait. Either way, you're uber boned."

"Wow, cuz a couple of months ago you were telling us that we need to 'play our roles.'" Dean said mirthlessly. "You're uber boning us!"

Gabriel shook his head, chuckling. "Ohh... the end is still nigh. Michael and Lucifer are gonna dance the lambada, but not tonight. Not here."

"And why do you care?" Dean asked suspiciously.

Gabriel looked at Alex in annoyance—Dean was asking the exact same things she had. "I don't care," Gabriel said. "But, me and Kali we, uh, had a thing. Chick was all hands. What can I say? I'm sentimental." At the skeptical looks he was getting, Gabriel became exasperated. "I have my reasons, okay?"

"Listen, do those gods have a chance?" Sam asked quietly. "Against Satan?"

"Really, Sam?" Dean asked in surprise, turning to look back at his brother for an explanation. Alex looked startled by Sam's question too.

"You got a better idea, Dean? I mean, we've been looking for options, right? Maybe this is one."

Gabriel shook his head. "It's a bad idea. Trust me, Lucifer's gonna turn them into finger paint. So let's get going while the going's good, hmm?"

He looked at Alex with an expectant smile and she gave him a sullen side eye. "We can't." She shrugged unhappily. "I tried to get into Kali's room like you told me, but she had some kind of spell or warding on it. I couldn't even get to the door, much less get to the blood."

Gabriel looked annoyed.

"Blood?" Dean asked.

"Yours," Gabriel explained. "Kali had one of her little errand boys, probably Mercury, get blood from each of you. Sorry to break it to ya, but you're bound to her until the end of time… or until she decides to let you go."

Dean didn't like to be told that kind of stuff—he stared Gabriel down threateningly. "So what do we do to get outta here?"

"You? You do nothing. Me… I'm gonna lay on a bit of the old black magic." Gabriel produced some mouth spray out of nowhere, spritzed some into his mouth, then wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Dean made a face. "Okay, yeah, whatever you gotta do. But we're gonna take the hors d'oeuvres in the freezer with us, okay?"

Gabriel shot him down immediately. "Uh no. Forget it. It's gonna be hard enough sneaking you mooks outta here."

"They called you Loki, right?" Dean asked, and Alex looked at her brother in confusion. "Which means they don't really know who you are?"

"What? Loki?" Alex asked, and looked at Gabe. He shrugged modestly. "Told you. I'm in witness protection."

Dean smiled cooly. "Okay, well then how about you do what we say, or we tell the, uh, legion of doom about your secret identity?" He asked. "They don't seem like a real pro-angel kinda crowd."

Gabriel's confidence had faded a couple degrees. "I'll take your voices away."

"We'll write it down," Dean countered.

"I'll cut off your hands," Gabriel retorted.

"We'll do an interpretive dance," Alex put in sarcastically, drawing a sharp look from both her brother and the archangel. "Come on Gabe. Do us this one solid, help us save those people. Or... I'll stab you in the chest."

The brothers both looked at Alex sidelong at her casual but sincere threat.

Gabe chuckled. "Like that would…" he started, but trailed off when she pulled her jacket aside to reveal the hilt of an angel blade sticking out from the top of her pants.

"Don't think I won't," she told him, dead serious. And they both knew that maybe she wouldn't be fast enough to actually pull one over on him—but she was crazy enough to try it.

"You kept his blade," Gabriel said in soft surprise, his eyes flickered up to hers, he got one of those stupid smiles on his face. "And you keep it in your pants. Kinky."

At the I'm gonna kill you glare Alex shot at him, Gabe relented. "Fine," he sighed. "I'll help you guys get those saps outta here, but it's a bad idea, and if this goes south—your fault, not mine."

He straightened his jacket smartly and smoothed his hair down for show. "Now. I'm gonna go lay on the charm with Kali, get the blood, then zap us out. You have five minutes to get those chumps outta the freezer."

---

The Winchesters hurried downstairs, then had to duck back when they heard a man screaming—two of the gods—Zao Shen and Odin—were holding down one of the guys from the freezer, a cleaver held high. "No! N-No! No! Please! Gah!" Dean made to move forward, but Sam stopped him abruptly.

"It's too late," Sam whispered frantically, even as they heard the sick sound of flesh being split open. The screams stopped. The lounge music droned on pleasantly.

The gods took the decapitated man into the grand ballroom, presumably to eat him, and the Winchesters slipped across the open space and into the kitchen entrance. All three of them rushed to the freezer, and when those trapped inside saw them, they began to shout and pound the door. Sam again began to pick the lock—Dean and Alex were suddenly grabbed from behind in tandem and sent flying backwards across the kitchen and into some metal shelves by Zao Shen, who had blood on his mouth.

He grabbed Sam by the neck, pinning him against the freezer door. Sam struggled, protesting in painful groans as the god lifted him high until his feet dangled off of the ground. Dean was trying to get up even as Alex, a little faster to get on her feet, was whipping out Castiel's blade.

"No, Alex!" Dean protested, holding a hand out uselessly. But she took the angel blade in both hands and stabbed it hard into Zao Shen's back—the god let go of Sam, screaming in pain as Alex yanked the blade back out. He fell over dead and Sam nodded a brief thanks to his sister before working on the lock again, rushing as Dean and Alex stood side by side tensely.

Dean stared at his sister in surprise, then the blade in her hand. "That thing can kill gods?"

She seemed as surprised as he did, staring at the gleaming metal length. "Well apparently it can kill that one."

Good to know. But something else was pressing urgently on his mind: "Where the hell is Gabriel?"

"Not coming," replied a deep voice. There stood Baron Samedi, Meili, and Ganesh.

Dean had whirled and was blocking their view of Alex—and subsequently the view of the blade in her hand. He made a big show of standing there with his hands on his hips as he put a grin on his face and said, "Hi, guys."

Alex knew enough to take the opportunity he was purposefully giving her to put the blade away before it was seen. So she did, discreetly shoving it back into the waistband of her jeans just in time. Ganesh grabbed her and pushed her out of the kitchen. Sam and Dean were being forced along right in front of her. They were taken into the grand ballroom where Gabriel sat, Kali staring down at him. Great. Foiled again—his romantic conquest seemed to have failed.

"How's the rescue going?" Dean asked sarcastically as he and his siblings were shoved down into chairs at the table. Gabriel gave him a dirty look. On either side of Dean, his siblings looked at him like what are we gonna do? He just shrugged helplessly, feeling cornered. They were outnumbered, and bad.

"Well, surprise, surprise," Kali said, addressing the occupants of the room. "The Trickster has tricked us."

"Kali, don't," Gabriel begged softly, so quietly that Alex could barely make out the words.

"You're mine now," she said to him softly, then sat on his lap seductively. "And you have something I want." She ran her hand down his chest sensually... reached into his jacket... and pulled out his angel's blade. "An archangel's blade," she said loudly. "From the archangel... Gabriel."

She stood up even as all of the gods in the room looked at Gabriel with new levels of mistrust. Gabriel seemed to realize he needed to head off his impending execution and he nervously raised his hands in mock-surrender. "Okay, okay! So I got wings, like Kotex. But that doesn't make me any less right about Lucifer."

"He's lying," Kali said. "He's a spy."

"I'm not a spy. I'm a runaway. I'm an outcast. The freak of my family. I'm here trying to save you." He leaned forward, serious and intense. "I know my brother, Kali. He should scare the living crap out of you. You can't beat him. I've skipped ahead and seen how this story ends."

"Your story," Kali said. There was a quiet anger underneath her placid exterior. "Not ours." She shook her head. "Westerners, I swear. The sheer arrogance." She looked at Gabriel with loathing. "You think you're the only ones on earth? You pillage and you butcher in your god's name. But you're not the only religion, and he's not the only god. And now you think you can just rip the planet apart? You're wrong. There are billions of us." She leaned closer to him. She still held his blade. "And we were here first. If anyone gets to end this world…" she put a seemingly tender hand against Gabriel's face, holding his gaze. "It's me." The blade glinted as she moved it back slightly. Her voice and face softened inexplicably. "I'm sorry."

Gabriel's face filled with shocked betrayal as she stabbed him with his own sword—and maybe Alex imagined it, but it looked like the goddess had tears in her eyes. Gabriel screamed and blue light exploded from behind his eyes and out of his mouth, his entire body jolted, and he went limp, slumped in the chair. Dead.

The Winchesters looked at each other in doubled horror, realizing things were getting out of hand and fast.

"This is crazy…" Mercury said softly even as the other gods looked on, seeming to be thinking the same thing.

Sam and Alex frantically looked at Dean, who sat between them, freaking out—his knee was jumping up and down in nervous energy, his eyes were darting back and forth across the room. The twins looked at each other, the same we're screwed expressions on their faces.

Kali straightened away from Gabriel's limp body, her expression like stone again. "They can die," she said, looking around the room meaningfully. "We can kill Lucifer."

Beside Alex, Dean stood up without warning. "All right you primitive screwheads, listen up."

In unison, Sam and Alex gaped. "Are you outta your mind?" Sam whispered through the side of his mouth.

"What are you—" Alex started in a whisper through clenched teeth.

"I'm outta options," Dean cut her off, speaking low enough for only his brother and sister to hear. He looked at them both very briefly as if to tell them just trust me on this one.

Dean looked up at the gods who were all waiting resentfully. He smiled cockily, took in a deep breath, then began to talk in a confident, commanding voice as his siblings both watched with slack jaws, no idea what their big brother was up to.

"Now on any other given day, I'd be doing my damndest to, uh, kill you," Dean said as he swaggered over a few steps to the right, looking the gods in the eye in turn, his demeanor filled with condescending smugness. "You filthy... murdering... chumps," he added in for good measure and chuckled, turning on his heel to casually amble up toward where the drinks were. "But, uh, hey, desperate times." He turned, sweeping the room with a leisurely and cynical smile. Very angry faces stared back at him. "So even though I'd love nothing better than to slit your throats... you dicks…" he pointed at them with both index fingers like it was their lucky day. "I'm gonna help you!" He turned around and grabbed a decanter of some dark liquor, beginning to pour it even as the twins looked at each other in complete, utter bafflement. Alex shrunk down into her seat, wishing she could just disappear. Dean finished pouring his drink. "I'm going to help you ice the devil." He turned around, liquor in hand, that false smile still plastered across his face. "And then we can all get back to ganking each other like normal. You want Lucifer, well, dude's not in the Yellow Pages. But me and Sam, we can get him here."

"How?" Kali challenged.

"First you let those main courses go," Dean told her. "Then we talk. We can either take on the devil together... or you lame-ass bitches can eat me." His smile wavered slightly. "Literally." He took a huge gulp of the dark liquid in his glass.

Kali looked at him closely, assessing him, trying to decide whether or not to do what he'd said. Finally, she smiled just slightly. "Fine," she consented. "I can always get more. Go let them out. But... your brother and sister stay with me."

Dean set his drink down, gave his brother and sister a be cool look, and marched out of the room, a man on a mission.

Kali watched him go, then turned and looked at Sam, her dark eyes not seeming to miss anything. Alex watched out of the corner of her eye as Mercury slunk out of the room, looking shaken up and shifty.

"So, Lucifer's vessel," Kali said, then her eyes slid over to look at Alex. "And... you." She studied Alex disdainfully. "We have no further use for you."

She raised her hand, snapped her fingers, and Alex was gone.

---

In the lobby, a hand hit against the service bell. Mercury turned around to greet the new guest—he was startled momentarily to see how fast his call had been answered.

"Checking in," said the newcomer. His face was worn, pale, peeling off in places.

Mercury smiled politely, but there was an apprehensiveness behind the expression. "Lucifer. Thanks for coming."

Lucifer smiled mildly. "Oh, you did right calling me."

"It's just…" Mercury looked to his side, speaking in a hushed tone. "The way the talk is heading in there, it's... it's insane." He chuckled nervously.

Lucifer nodded understandingly. "You know, I never understood you pagans, you're such…" he wrinkled his nose up, his smile became more of a loathing expression, "petty little things." Mercury's little smile fell in confusion as Lucifer continued. "Always fighting, always happy to sell out your own kind. No wonder you forfeited this planet to us." Lucifer pointed a finger at the god. "You are worse than humans. You're worse than demons. And yet you claim to be gods." He smiled again as if in amusement, even as Mercury faltered, regretting his choice to summon Lucifer. At the same moment that Mercury realized his mistake, Lucifer's smile faded, the finger he was pointing at Mercury twisted with sudden and violent speed. Mercury's neck snapped, he fell over dead before he even knew what had happened.

Lucifer looked down at the dead god apathetically. "And they call me prideful."

---

The lights flickered in the moving elevator, and Alex looked up, frowning. That was never a good sign. Impatiently she mentally urged the elevator to go faster, wishing she'd taken the stairs. Kali had sent her away to a locked room on the top floor, but Alex had broken her way out using a nightstand to destroy the door hinges enough that she could kick the door down. She had no idea what she was going to do once she got downstairs again, but she wasn't leaving her brothers alone.

The elevator dinged pleasantly, the doors slid open, Alex stepped out and looked up—and was met with a horrifying sight that made her stop mid-step. The hallway in front of the elevator was a bloodbath—dead gods lined the floor, their blood spattered the walls—and in front of her, as if he'd been waiting, Lucifer, covered head to toe in the blood of the ones he'd slain.

"Hello, Alex," he said pleasantly even as she stumbled back. The elevator doors had closed and her back pressed into them as she stared at him in horror. "It's been awhile," he remarked conversationally, looking at her with a soft, pleasant smile. "You been doing all right?" He looked even worse than he had last time she'd seen him, like he was diseased to his core. He took in her horrified expression.

"Is it my face?" he asked her in what seemed like genuine concern. He was dreadfully close now. "I know... it's a little frightful to look at. I promise you... I'm the same sweet-hearted guy deep down."

He cupped her chin in one of his bloody hands and she tensed, thinking of her angel blade. He was staring at her deeply as if he could see her thoughts. "You look like there's something you're dying to ask me," he said coaxingly. "...I'm all ears."

She found her voice, even though she could barely breathe, asking the first thing she could think of, even if it was just to buy time. "Are you here to take Sam?"

Lucifer smiled, his eyes crinkled up, he let go of her face and gave her an amused look. "Well he'd have to say yes for that to happen now wouldn't he?" He sighed, folding his arms and putting a thoughtful finger on his chin. "I just don't know what I'll do if I can't get him to comply..."

There was a note of implication in his voice that spurred Alex to look at him closely, and she thought of how Adam was now Michael's vessel… she swallowed, trying to remain detached and not let him see through her. "Is he... your only vessel?"

Satan almost smirked. "Why? Are you offering?"

"No, I—" Alex halted mid-sentence. She'd answered before she'd even heard his question. Her stomach churned. "Would that work?" she asked slowly.

Lucifer raised a single eyebrow, came a bit closer to her. Too close. "Would you like to try it and see?" he asked her teasingly, and his smile was unnerving. His eyes flickered up and down her inappropriately. "I'm not against... experimentation." He leaned a little closer to whisper in her ear. "But how would Castiel feel about another angel being inside of you?"

He drew back and chuckled at the look on her face. She was disturbed on every level, barely able to keep herself from shaking in the revulsion and anger she felt. And looking Satan in the eye, she saw how smug he looked, how sure of himself, and she felt herself getting brave and stupid. "You can't have Sam," she told him, some of her fire returning, some of her anger. "Not now, not ever."

She grabbed the hilt of the angel blade, but Lucifer's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist hard, painfully hard, stopping her. He looked at her cooly. "Loyalty. I can respect that. You love him very much." He seemed pleased, looking at her in a way that made her feel completely intimidated. "Enough to do anything for him, I'd imagine..." he smiled, his chapped, discolored lips stretching across his peeling face ghoulishly. His hand still held her wrist tightly. "I have a previous engagement—I think I'm being rude, keeping them waiting. Care to join me?"

Alex wasn't sure if it were a real question or not. "No thanks."

Lucifer's head tilted slightly to the side, he looked at her in dark amusement. "I was just being polite, of course. I'm afraid I have to insist."

And never letting go of her wrist, Lucifer pulled her along with himself down the hall, over the bloody ripped remains of three or four gods and goddesses. Alex cursed herself, knowing she couldn't reach the handle with her left hand fast enough or well enough to have a chance to do what she'd wanted to do: stab him through the heart.

Lucifer dragged her around a corner and into the grand ballroom, where four people turned to look at the newcomers.

"Alex!" Sam exclaimed in horrified surprise, moving toward her by instinct—but beside him Dean grabbed him by the jacket, rooting him to the spot.

Baldur and Kali stood together next to the brothers, shocked to see Lucifer who smiled ominously. "Sam, Dean, good to see you again. Alex, dear, be a good little girl and go to your brothers. Go on."

She looked at him in disbelief—he was just… gonna let her go? He did just that, but before she could grab for her angel blade, she found herself sliding across the floor like she was on ice, bowling into Sam and Dean, who caught her, righting her. The three of them, grabbing onto each other, looked at the devil in disbelief.

He raised his arms slightly, cringing apologetically. "So sorry about the mess, everyone," he said, dusting his hands off for show.

Baldur's fury blazed on his face. He stepped forward toward Lucifer even as Kali protested, telling him "Baldur, don't."

He ignored her. "You think you own the planet?" He asked angrily. "What gives you the right?" He rushed toward Lucifer, who abruptly stabbed his arm and hand through Baldur's chest completely. Gasping in shock and pain as he died, Baldur looked at Lucifer with wide, horrified eyes.

"No one gives us the right, we take it," Lucifer murmured softly, then yanked his arm out of Baldur and threw him to the ground.

Enraged, Kali's stared at Lucifer as her arms suddenly bristled in flames. Lucifer smiled at her coyly and she raised an arm, lobbing fire at him—and the Winchesters threw themselves over the edge of an overturned table for cover while fire filled the room. Flames shot over their heads, blistering heat making it hard to breathe.

When the flames faded, Lucifer smiled at Kali. He was unaffected. He advanced onto her, hitting her and sending her flying. Above and behind the devil, part of the ceiling and wall had caught fire.

Behind the overturned table, Sam ducked his head back down to check on his sister. "You okay?" he asked. Suddenly Gabriel appeared next to Dean.

"Not really," Gabriel said. "Better late then never, huh?" He slapped a Casa Erotica DVD up against Dean's chest. "Guard this with your life."

"How the hell are you alive?!" Alex demanded, looking at the archangel in shock.

He smiled at her charmingly, shrugging humbly. "They don't call me the Trickster for nothin'!" He stood up, his angel blade in hand, and Lucifer, who was about to stomp on Kali, was blown back through the grand ballroom doors.

The devil collapsed down onto the ground and looked up at Gabriel, an unreadable expression upon his face. Gabriel stared at him challengingly, walking toward him and staring him down. "Lucy! I'm home."

Lucifer stood, rolled his neck, then advanced into the room. Gabriel held his blade high, stopping Lucifer in his tracks.

Realizing that his brother stood against him, Lucifer fell back a little, his expression growing cold. Gabriel backed up, holding his blade high, offering his other hand to Kali to help her up. "Guys!" Gabriel called, not taking his eyes off Lucifer. "Get her outta here."

Taking the cue, Sam, Dean, and Alex jumped up and hurried over. Dean grabbed onto Kali, escorting her out as Gabriel covered their exit. A few embers fell from the ceiling above. The fire Kali had started was spreading.

"Over a girl," Lucifer commented lowly as Kali and the Winchesters disappeared through the ballroom door behind Gabriel, who blocked Lucifer from pursuing. "Gabriel, really? I mean I knew you were slumming, but…" Lucifer made a disgusted face. "I hope you didn't catch anything."

Gabriel smiled and shrugged. "Hey, I'm not the first angel to throw it all away for a girl, now am I," he replied, leveling his brother with a stilted smile. "Lucifer, you're my brother. And I love you. But you are a great big bag of dicks."

"...What did you just say to me?" Lucifer asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Look at yourself! Boo hoo! Daddy was mean to me, so I'm gonna smash up all his toys," Gabriel said derisively.

"Watch your tone," Lucifer warned softly, dangerously.

Gabriel ignored his brother's command. "Play the victim all you want. But you and me? We know the truth. Dad loved you best. More than Michael, more than me. Then he brought the new baby home and you couldn't handle it. So this is all just one big temper tantrum." Gabriel's face grew serious, he pointed his blade at Lucifer. "Time to grow up."

Beside them, the wall was catching fire.

---

"We're just leaving?" Alex demanded, stopping just a few feet outside of the lobby doorway. Ahead of her, Dean, Sam and Kali turned around. The Impala was a few feet off in the dark parking lot.

Dean seemed to think she was crazy. "Yes, what, you wanna hang around for happy hour or something?! We gotta get out of here, now."

Alex looked at him like he was the crazy one and she pulled out Castiel's blade, gesturing to it. "Lucifer is in there right now, I have this, we can kill him!" she practically shouted.

"Uh, no, I don't think so, get in the car!" Dean said, his tone indicating it was final.

She thought about it a second, turned back around, and headed back toward the hotel. Behind her, Dean grabbed her by the jacket, whirling her around. "What the hell are you doing!?" he demanded, aghast.

"I am gonna go in there and kill Lucifer!" she snapped, angrier than he'd thought possible.

"It's suicide!" Dean almost shouted.

"I don't care!" she roared, pushing at him and fighting him, trying to get away. Out of nowhere, Kali reached over and touched Alex, who slumped forward in Dean's arms, unconscious. He looked at the goddess in a mixture of appreciation and disbelief.

The goddess just gave him a contemptuous look. "Bitch at me later, let's go."

---

Inside the grand ballroom, embers fell down like lazy snow flurries and the two angels faced each other down. "Gabriel, if you're doing this for Michael…" Lucifer said in a gentle, reasoning tone.

"Screw him," Gabriel retorted. "If he were standing here, I'd shiv his ass too."

Dismay and then loathing filtered across Lucifer's face. "You disloyal—"

"Oh, I'm loyal," Gabriel said. "To them."

"Who?" Lucifer questioned. "These so called gods?"

"To people, Lucifer. People."

Lucifer looked at his brother in disbelief. "People?" he asked, the word laced with disdain.

"Yes. Determined, stubborn, pain-in-the-ass... imperfect people." Gabriel spread his arms out a little. "The scenery around here is great, but human nature? Beats everything I've seen here or anywhere else."

Lucifer began to pace, slowly, back and forth in front of Gabriel. The fire was growing—three walls were licked by flames now, and the roof was beginning to char. Parts fell off onto the floor below. "So you're willing to die for a pile of cockroaches," Lucifer said. "Why?"

"Because Dad was right," Gabriel said. "They're better than us."

Lucifer took that as personal offense. "They are broken. Flawed! Abortions." He spat. "Our father failed when he created humans."

"Failed? No. Damn right they're flawed. That's what I like," Gabriel said. "And a lot of them try. To do better, to forgive." A playful smirk played on his lips. "And you should see the Spearmint Rhino!" Lucifer was growing quiet, looking at his brother in utter devastation. "I've been riding the pine a long time," Gabriel said. "But I'm in the game now, and I'm not on your side, or Michael's. I've decided I'm on theirs."

"You fool," Lucifer said in soft sadness. "You strange, sentimental, lonely fool." He sighed wearily. "It's not too late," he coaxed. "You can join me. Because I'm going to win, Gabriel. You know I am. Be part of the new earth I'll create. Be part of the splendor of what's to come when I fix what our father destroyed."

Flippant, Gabriel made a face. "Mm, yeah, how about no."

Lucifer's expression was filled with pain, and around them, parts of the flaming ceiling began to fall more rapidly. "Brother, don't make me do this," Lucifer asked softly, a final chance for his brother.

"No one makes us do anything," was Gabriel's reply.

Lucifer, knowing what was to come, knowing his brother's tricks and style, looked at Gabriel, dispirited. "I know you think you're doing the right thing, Gabriel… but I also know where your heart truly lies." He smiled sadly at his brother—and then whirled, catching Gabriel—the real Gabriel, who had been sneaking up behind him—by the wrist, stabbing Gabriel's blade down into his own chest.

"Here," Lucifer said, and Gabriel's expression was shocked, betrayed as he gasped in pain. Behind him, the illusion Gabriel had cast of himself disappeared, vanishing into thin air. "Amateur hocus pocus..." Lucifer whispered. "Don't forget, you learned all your tricks from me, little brother." He drove the blade as deep as it would go, and Gabriel screamed, exploded in blue light, falling down to the ground. This time, it was not a trick. Black wing marks spread across the ground that was littered with flaming debris.

Lucifer stood over Gabriel's body for a long moment, a bitter expression on his face. Around him, the room collapsed in parts, flames consuming the structure. Lucifer turned slightly toward the back of the room, addressing a corner that was covered by a thick, flaming partition. "You know, it's rude to stare," he said softly.

A tall, pale man with dark hair and fierce, brooding features came out from behind the flaming structure to look at Lucifer without a word. He wore faded jeans, a black leather jacket, and a hard to read expression.

"Hezion," Lucifer greeted curiously. "The angel of shadows and night... are you here to try and kill me, too?"

Hezion came forward slowly, his eyes dropping to Gabriel and then coming back up to Lucifer. "No. I'm here to offer my services."

"Offer your services," Lucifer repeated, then paused cynically. "It's kind of a bad time."

Hezion ignored the comment. "Michael's obtained a vessel, I'm sure you've heard." Lucifer just raised his eyebrows slightly, indicating Hezion get to his point. "Adam Milligan is small. Weak. Incapable. Against you, against Sam Winchester… he's sure to fail."

"The point, Hezion."

Hezion's expression didn't waver. "I'm here to sign up for the winning team."

Lucifer looked at his much younger brother without bothering to hide his repugnance. "You've always been like this, Hezion. Disloyal, apostate." His lip curled up slightly. "Do you know how I find those qualities to be?"

"I'm not disloyal," Hezion said, matter-of-fact. "I'm like you. I'm an opportunist. I do what's best for me."

Lucifer looked him up and down. "And you think that siding with me, Heaven's number one enemy, is what's best for you."

"Yes. Because I know Michael doesn't stand a chance."

Lucifer studied Hezion silently. The other angel was looking at him closely, taking in the peeling skin, the sores. "Your vessel is weak," Hezion observed. "You're probably finding yourself a little incapable of doing things you really need done." He stepped closer, raising his chin slightly, his mouth curving upwards just slightly on one side. "I can help you get your true vessel, Lucifer. And in return, you'll give me a place in your new world."

His eyes narrowed slightly and Lucifer almost smirked. "You're an odd one, Hezion. Always have been." Lucifer paused, thinking back. "Though I don't suppose you remember all of it... so many things do tend to get lost in the mix..."

Hezion's expression faltered slightly as if in puzzlement and Lucifer smiled elusively. "There is something I need a little help with, actually," he said thoughtfully, then wagged his finger at Hezion with a small smile. "You might be just the angel for the job." He felt himself smiling slowly as he thought about it and looked at Hezion thoroughly. He didn't trust Hezion and he never would. But he wouldn't hesitate to use him. Lucifer held out his cracked and peeling hand, indicating the other angel take it.

Hezion put his in and the angels shook hands. Lucifer smiled ominously. Around them, the grand ballroom began to collapse in flames, beams breaking in half and snapping like twigs.

"It won't be long now," the devil said softly. "Not long at all."

---

As soon as his sister woke up again, Dean yanked the car over to the side of the road and he got out, pulling Alex's door open. "Get out, now!"

She looked at him reluctantly, but got out slowly. She looked like she was shutting down again. Sam got out at the same time that she did, worried about what was happening. Kali sat still, watching silently.

"What the hell was that back there huh?!" Dean demanded, clearly scared and pissed alike. "You fucking crazy?!"

"Leave me alone, I'm fine," Alex said hollowly, avoiding his gaze.

"You—are not—fine!" Dean bellowed, his chest heaving in distress and anger. "I mean all the nuthouse crap you've been pulling this past month and then tonight you just decide to waltz in and kill the devil, get yourself killed? Have you lost your mind?" He stared her down, emphasizing his words with his hands. He wet his lips, attempting to calm himself. He was angry, but he attempted to speak to her understandingly. "Listen, if this is about Cas—"

A switch flipped at the mention of Cas, total enraged grief suddenly struck Alex's features like lightning. "Cas isn't coming back!" She practically screamed. "Stop telling me he is!" And there it was: all of the horrified grief and fear and sadness that she'd been hiding or pushing away for the past four weeks—it was written across her face clearly. She was shaking. Sam now stood beside Dean, and Alex looked between both of them with shining, tear-filled eyes. "I am not letting either of you get taken from me, ever!" she raged, seeming to be overwhelmed to the point of near insanity. "If I have to die trying to save you I don't care! I can't live like this anymore, do you understand?!"

She hit the side of the Impala with the palm of her hand, teeth gritted, pained tears leaking out of her eyes, and a wretched sob tore out of her throat. "He's dead," she said, and shook her head, shoulders slumped in defeat. A hand came up to cover her face. "He's dead." She practically wailed at that point in painful misery, and Dean moved toward her, attempting to comfort her, but she reacted like an angry, caged animal, shoved him away. "Get away from me!"

The brothers looked at each other briefly, neither knowing what to do. She looked like she were in physical pain, she wrapped her arms around her middle and bent forward—and she was pitiful, helpless. She choked on her sobs, groaning as she screwed her eyes shut and took horrible quaking breaths. "It hurts, it hurts, it fucking hurts so bad I can't breathe or think anymore!" She shrank back against the Impala, and she didn't seem to see them or anything else, she just stared blank and unblinking with wide eyes at somewhere near Sam and Dean's knees. Her voice had gone faint. "I am in hell every day thinking about what happened, thinking about who else I'm gonna lose—I can't stand the things I think—" her voice suddenly raised to a panicked shout—"I can't DO THIS anymore!"

Sam tried reaching out for her arm but she yanked herself out of the range of his grasp, backing up, shaking her head, eyes squeezed shut again, sobs wracking her body. She was becoming hysterical. "It's too much, it's too much! All of it!" She looked up at them, and her expression was full of some wild and ominous quality, like she was about to do something crazy—she was livid on a level they'd never seen. "I don't want this!"

And with a shriek of rage or grief, it was hard to tell which, she threw herself down to the ground. Blind to everything except the red she was seeing, Alex wildly bashed one of her fists into the pavement repeatedly, screaming in pain and anger alike even as her brothers sprung forward and grabbed her up, struggling to physically restrain her.

Her wailing screams echoed through the foggy night.

---

That Same Moment
Saint Bernard Parish Hospital
Chalmette, Louisana

It was dark. There was nothing but endless drifting.

But he was aware of himself again. And aware of something else, too. It wasn't physical pain that he sensed, it was despair and hopelessness screaming through the thick silence. And somehow he knew it was hers. Immediately, he tried to reach up, to pull himself out of the darkness and to her, but he was unable.

He fought harder, panic squeezing a fist around him—he needed to wake up now. He was needed—and nothing was more important in the universe than rising out of the darkness and finding her—but his will was overpowered by his body which was weak and powerless.

There was a vague memory of her hand beside his, and he tried to reach out and take it, because maybe if he could do that he could reach her. But he felt darkness darker than night closing in again, and even though he resisted, he still faded out, slipping away into the place where he had no thoughts at all.

Nurse Katie Cooper paused, squinting at the vitals monitor—she thought she'd heard a sound indicating a spike. Sure enough, brain activity was up—way up. John Doe's finger twitched, his eyebrows moved together for a second—a worried kind of expression. And just as quickly as it had happened, it ceased. The brain activity died down again, his face went still and calm.

Katie's shoulders sank down from where she didn't realize she'd been holding them. For a second, she thought the guy was going to come out of the coma.

She sighed softly and looked at him sadly.

Not yet.