Song Remains the Same
Chapter 134 / Heaven On Earth
"The treachery of demons is nothing compared to the betrayal of an angel."
- Brenna Yovanoff
It was a grim scene in that hospital room.
Sam Winchester laid lifelessly on a bed that looked small underneath his hulking figure. His skin was clammy and discolored, marred by injuries. With a maze of tubes and IVs snaking around him, he looked like he could have already been dead. The steady beeping of his heart rate monitor was the only evidence that he still breathed.
Beside his brother Dean sat anxiously, rubbing his hands together over and over endlessly as he drowned in powerless worry. On the other side of the bed at the window, Alex paced a small back and forth, alternated between searching the sky with desperate eyes and sending her twin distraught glances. Barely having said anything to each other since getting to the emergency room, Dean and Alex remained in terrible limbo, waiting for the inevitable. That's what it felt like anyway.
Dean yet again studied Sam's deathly wan face with a churning stomach. It didn't look good. It didn't look good at all.
Pull through little brother. I'm begging you.
The medical team that had rushed Sam in hadn't looked optimistic as they'd worked quickly to get him stable. The steady stream of doctors and specialists had been vague at Dean's badgering questions, just saying they didn't know anything yet, let us run these tests first—etc. But there was a sinking feeling. And every time Dean's eyes met Alex's, he knew she felt it too.
The high-speed, panicked drive here in the Impala had been the most terrifying shit Dean had experienced in recent memory. Sam screaming and seizing out of his mind in pain and begging his siblings for help neither could give. Alex in the back seat, trying valiantly to hold her twin steady as she freaked out, unable to do anything. Then the terrible ominous silence when Sam lost consciousness. Alex begging him to wake up. Dean shouting, "he still breathing?!"
All while above and around them soft streaks of plummeting light rained. The falling angels.
Dean briefly glanced at the muted television in the room and his stomach sank anew. Coverage of what the media was calling a 'global meteor shower' was playing. It made his thoughts turn to Cas again. Their calls for help to the angel had gone unanswered for the past eight or so hours since this all happened. The radio silence might have pissed Dean off on a different day. But today, knowing what he knew… it scared him shitless instead.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Dean dragged his despairing eyes back to Sam and pushed down another huge wave of all-consuming hopelessness. He'd been running it on the line too long and hard now without rest, without a break, without wins to equal out the losses. It was too much. It was all too fucking much. Every failure he'd ever caused sat square on his shoulders, crushing him. Was the universe out to destroy him? It felt that way more than ever, like some personal vendetta.
A quick gallery of his most recent round of trauma played:
Jamie's miscarriage of their child while Dean was trapped in Purgatory—then her death, the one Dean had promised to stop. Her soul cast down into the eternal damnation of Hell where he was helpless to rescue her no matter how much he wanted to.
Alex thought dead (when she'd actually been Naomi's hostage). Mourning her with his entire heart and soul. Her unexpected reappearance, followed directly by her being taken straight to Hell.
Dean's mistake of thinking Sam had abandoned his family, treating him like shit for it, then finding out only yesterday that Sam had never done such a thing.
…And now Sam might be dying. All because Dean had allowed his little brother to do these Hell trials despite his best instincts.
Shaking his head shallowly, unable to keep silent any longer and let these thoughts rot him away, Dean finally found his voice. "I wish to god I hadn't let him do this, Alex," he managed so softly it was barely audible.
But she heard him, and her pained eyes came to him sidelong. She said nothing, struggling wordlessly and shaking her head hollowly like she didn't know what to say.
The lack of response triggered something in Dean. "We are so fucking screwed," he said, standing up because he honestly couldn't hold still anymore. Grief and helplessness made him want to slam his fist into something. He began to pace back and forth. "Do the hits ever fucking stop coming?!" he demanded, then stared up at the ceiling. "Cas, where are you man?!" Silence. Nothing. And Dean's energy lapsed into bleak exhaustion. Lost, he looked at his sister for something. Anything. "Have you called him again?" Cas would come to her, they both knew it. And he hadn't.
"A thousand times, Dean," she managed hoarsely, glancing out the window again with eyes that found nothing and no one. Deep fear colored her voice. "Something's wrong. M-maybe he got trapped up there somehow. Maybe Metatron…"
No, she wasn't gonna put that thought into either of their heads. Dean marched over toward her like a storm. "Now you listen to me." He pointed a lecturing finger. "Don't decide what's what til we know more, this is Cas we're talking about! He always comes back!" He glared around the room with eyes that softened from angry to fearful. There was a strong possibility that the angel was dead, and they both knew it.
Alex didn't get a chance to respond. A knocking sound on the door frame caused both of the emotionally compromised siblings to turn. A Black doctor in his forties smiled tightly, clipboard in hand. "Apologies for the lengthy wait," he said, then proceeded to clip MRI scans to a lit wall display just inside the room.
Dean was already halfway there, wetting his lips nervously as frenzied eyes ran over the scans for anything he could derive an immediate answer from, a clue to Sam's fate. Nothing in the monochrome images meant a thing to him or gave him any idea of what was going on. "Just be straight with us, Doc," Dean pleaded, unwilling to wait a second longer to know. He steeled himself for the worst but hoped against hope he was wrong to do so. "How bad is it?"
The doctor—Abrams his ID said—regarded Dean and then Alex heavily. He made Dean's stomach drop out of his body with his gentle question: "Would you two like to have a seat?"
Dean's ability to breathe was suddenly gone. Please no. He could read between the lines. He knew what that meant. And it was like the ground itself was gone from under his feet.
Doctor Abrams was respectful and every bit as sensitive as he had no doubt been trained to be. "I'm sorry, Sarah and John," he said heavily to each in turn, addressing them by the fake names they'd given. "Your brother Max's condition is very unfortunate. The MRI shows massive internal burns affecting many of the major organs—and failure is likely. Oxygen to the brain has been severely deprived—there's close to no activity left. Irreversible damage has been done. The coma is the result of the body doing everything in its limited power to protect itself from further harm, but as far as recovery… there likely won't be one."
Beside Dean, having come there at a time he didn't notice in his shocked numbness, Alex shook her head no as if in a trance, denial making her young features haggard and aged. "There… there has to be something you can do…" she managed, but the doctor gave the faintest, apologetic shake of the head. Alex's incredulous expression grew, tempered with horrified heartbreak and disbelief. "You're… you're not saying this is it for him?"
Doctor Abrams's expression confirmed the worst. "I'm so sorry," he offered sincerely, crushing the Winchesters to dust with those three words. "But unfortunately and realistically, the chances of your brother recovering… they're close to zero. We can keep him alive on these machines, but as far as ever having him back the way he was before…" he trailed off and fixed them with a significant, sympathetic look. "Let me be totally transparent. This coma is permanent. You'll need to prepare to make some tough decisions regarding life support. I'd call the rest of your family to come in, if I were you." And the world went dark for Dean and Alex. They barely heard him say, "I'll let you two process, and be back in a bit."
He left, his footsteps clicking hollowly, leaving Dean and Alex shell-shocked in silence punctuated by the steady beep beep beep testifying to Sam's waning life.
I'll let you two process. I'll let you two process?! What the fuck was Dean supposed to do with this information? This couldn't be the end, there was just no fucking way!
Alex was the first to speak. "This can't be happening," she whispered, voice tight with pain and oncoming tears. "Not like this," she begged no one, her eyes on Sam as her chest began to rise and fall more quickly. "Not after everything."
And Dean lost it. "You listen to me, do not give up, you hear me?!" he all but shouted, shocking both of them at how quickly he went from zero to a hundred. "We've been through tougher and we've been through worse, we are finding a way to save him, got it?!" He was breathing so hard he was practically heaving. "I don't care what we have to do—we haven't come this far to lose him to some fucking… demon trial crap! You didn't sell your goddamn soul for him to just—peace out like this!" And by God, Satan, angels and demons… Dean fucking meant that.
Alex's eyes were red and shining. Her voice weak. "But what do we do?" Her features worked, her eyes scanned, she visibly was coming up with nothing. "Dean, the doctor made it sound like he's already gone…"
"Well he's not!" Dean practically shouted, jamming a hand across his face before grief shipwrecked him at the vast unfairness of it all. "Why is it always such fucking bullshit with us?!" he lamented, begging no one and everyone for an answer. "What, we get Bobby and Dad back but lose Sam? Lose Cas too, maybe?!" His temper was rising again and he could only see the red of intense rage. "I've had enough of this shit! Haven't we lost enough?! Given enough over and over and over again to try and save this godforsaken planet from all the shit constantly coming at it?!" Then, the facade of anger started to crack, and his truest emotion—despair—began to get the better of him. He could barely speak for the pain in his throat. His eyes stung, his lungs ached, he was about to break down completely. "I can't keep doing this, man, I can't. No one's supposed to carry this much on their shoulders," he declared, "no one!" He soldiered through the threat of tears to admit what he was feeling most acutely of all: "It should've been me." A quiet confession that struck horror into his sister's face. "I should be the one in that bed right now." Alex's pained expression and the way she came toward him caused Dean to back off and harden, shake his head no and avoid her gaze. He couldn't be here right now, he wasn't going to cry—because crying meant admitting defeat, and he wasn't gonna do that shit. "I—I need a minute," he managed. And before he could lose his grip, he turned and all but fled.
"Dean—" Alex protested, taking a couple steps after him then stopping short. She knew enough to recognize that he wasn't thinking straight right now. Harrowed and stressed to the brink herself, Alex was both angry and afraid. "Don't do anything stupid!" she called after him, not sure what else to do. All she did know was that she wasn't going to leave Sam alone in here. The steadfast beep of the heart rate monitor called her attention to her twin's still form and slowly, she let herself look at him again. It was so hard to see him this way. His screams of pain from the church and the car were haunting her. But this was worse. She shuddered, drifting over to him and slowly taking the seat Dean had been in a moment ago.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Careful and worried, she slowly reached out and took his limp hand in both of hers, searching his familiar features for any sign that he was fighting fate. That the doctor was wrong.
"Can you hear me, Sammy?" she chanced in whisper, feeling her eyes fill with the tears she hadn't let herself cry yet. Wretched silence endured, testing her remaining faith. "Don't give up," Alex pleaded, hoping against hope that her twin could hear her. Her eyes raised to the ceiling helplessly. "Cas, if you're out there… please." Her entire being begged to know he was okay. That he would be back, that he could somehow save them. But her prayer yielded silence. Alex's chest grew heavier and thicker with anguish. "We need you," she whispered to Castiel, clenching Sam's hand anew and worrying herself sick over Dean. "All of us need you."
When nothing happened, she bowed her head to the hands that held her brother's, and her shoulders shook as the tears finally came.
Even as Dean visited the hospital chapel and out of desperation made the mistake of praying to any listening angel for help for his brother, Alex remained at Sam's side, in the dark to her oldest brother's regrettable deeds.
This isn't how it ends. It just can't be.
A thought that repeated through her mind over and over, followed by maybe it is.
She sat. She stood. She paced. She prayed. She searched the sky over and over again, feeling like she could find an answer or hope there.
All of this while she fought waves of intense nausea and yes even threw up once in the trash can—a reminder of what she'd just found out a day ago. Pregnant. A thought that sent her spiraling all over again. That was why she couldn't for one second truly believe Castiel was gone. It just didn't make sense, she couldn't accept it, she wouldn't believe it. He wouldn't make her a mother and then die, it just couldn't end this way. But… the chance that it might terrified her to the point of tears.
Ten minutes turned into twenty, then into thirty, then into forty-five. No sign of Dean returning, and he didn't reply to her numerous texts or few calls, which only served to piss her off and worry her vastly. She paced again, biting at a fingernail as she watching Sam vigilantly. Very hard questions were starting to surface. Where would Sam go if he did die? Heaven, right? A reward for all the years spent here in torment—surely that was the best case scenario if this did have to happen. Everyone did have to die someday… was this Sam's time? How could it be though? I only just got back, she lamented inside, wanting to sob at the thought. I need more time with him. She'd spent what felt like ten years in Hell—apart from everything good, beautiful, and familiar. And now this.
Alex wrestled with herself if she could accept Sam passing if it truly came to that, or if she should keep hoping for the seemingly impossible. This was the curse of being a Winchester… never knowing if death were final or not. Never believing fully that it all really was over.
Frustration grew larger with every passing minute. What do I do? A question that eroded her slowly and made her feel close to insane. She needed to do something. The only small comfort she managed was that she finally got a hold of Bobby on the phone and begged him to come quickly. He said he was about five hours away in his RV and would be there as soon as possible. I wish Dad were awake, she thought briefly after hanging up, a strange thought. Who had ever known there would be a day she longed to know his thoughts and hear his voice? But after their stay in Hell and their mutual escape… things had changed.
Alex also used her time to get Sam's phone from his pocket, dial Kevin, and tell him to get his ass over the the Bunker already where he could be safer. She promised they would meet him sooner rather than later and let him know what was happening with Sam, the angels falling, and Metatron's trickery. She gave him the address to the bunker and some details of how to get in, then proceeded to pace some more. He said he could probably be there in a day or two before they ended the call.
Even as Alex pressed a hand to her stomach and swallowed down a sick feeling and fought against intense hunger pangs, there was motion at the door and she looked over, expecting to see Dean or a hospital staff member. Instead, it was a man who appeared to be a street food vendor—greasy apron and all. He stood in the doorway seething. Immediately straightening, alert to a threat, Alex put herself between the stranger and her brother. "Who are you?" she demanded.
In a flash of unmistakable silver, he whipped an angel blade out and declared: "Your executioner!"
He charged, barely giving Alex enough time to react. Even as he was barreling toward her, she was responding—despite how the time in Hell recently had left her unpracticed, it was an instinct her body hadn't forgotten: her hand flashed up into her jacket and her angel blade came out like a strike of lightning. She took the offensive in a microsecond, already meeting him halfway aggressively, blocking the blow that he tried to swing downward with a strong grip to his wrist. And just like when she'd faced off with Abaddon last night, Alex found her strength was shockingly equal or perhaps even greater than her opponent's. Surprise registered in the attacker's face, even as with a guttural yell, Alex's blade found squelching purchase through the side of her attacker's skull. He screamed, flickering white-hot in his eyes and mouth, and Alex yanked the blade out of him with a grunt, watching as he fell to the ground at her feet, dead. Adrenaline pumping, breath racing, sense of danger on high alert, she darted to the door and slammed it shut, whirling to look at the dead guy on the ground.
"Fuck, more rogue angels?!" she managed through short breath to herself. Only there were no wings burnt across the space below the dead body. Was there more than one? Why would they be here? Were they after Sam? After Dean? After her? Had they already gotten to Dean? And then a terrifying theory dawned over Alex: the baby. A word Castiel had taught her recently went through her mind. Nephilim. Was that why she'd just been attacked? As horrific a thought it was, she didn't dwell on the question. She needed to secure the space. Alex looked around the room wildly, spotting what she was looking for in a few seconds. She snatched the dry-erase marker up and began drawing every angel ward she knew of as quickly as possible all over the walls.
She was on the last one when the door opened behind her. She whirled, blade ready to slay another enemy. But thank goodness, it was only Dean, and he had his hands up in front of him. "Whoa, Nelly, it's just me!" he exclaimed, then saw the dead guy. "Shit, you too?" he asked incredulously.
"What do you mean me too?" Alex demanded. With Dean, there was a stranger who quietly shut the door behind them, then glanced around uncomfortably at all the angel warding and grimaced as if he had a headache. "Where the hell have you been?!" Alex asked accusingly, then indicated the strange man. "And who the hell is this?"
The stranger regarded her with a physically pained expression. "My name is Ezekiel," he said in a voice that was dignified, measured, and formal. "I am one of the fallen."
Alex's fire faltered. Fallen as in angels? And hadn't Cas mentioned a solider who fought for him named Ezekiel, once upon a time? She couldn't quite remember and looked at Dean for answers, now. Mollified, Dean tried to play it down. "Listen, so… I might have prayed for help to anyone who'd come."
Eyes gone big as planets, Alex thought surely to god he couldn't be for real. "You what?!"
"Then I got attacked by one in the garage when I went out to check on Crowley," Dean said, not giving her enough time to react to any of what he'd just said. "Listen, longshots!" he defended. "I dunno!" He looked at his companion sidelong. "Zeke here… he helped out." Astounded at her brother's move that had put them all in danger, Alex questioned Dean's sanity and didn't hide it from her expression, either.
"I mean no ill will," Ezekiel said quietly, portraying himself as humble and meek, even. "I only wish to help."
A likely story. "We've heard that one before," Alex muttered mistrustfully, sizing the guy up for real now. Tall, fair, built well, a plain but strong face with a prominent jaw. But he had the look of someone who was quite ill. Sweaty, pale, gaunt, uncomfortable. What was wrong with him? "You… don't look so good."
Ezekiel shook his head. "Damaged in the fall," he said dismissively, fixing her with a hopeful look and shocking her with his next words. "I know Castiel."
For a brief minute Alex didn't know what to say or if she should fully believe him or not. "Well then where is he? What happened?"
The angel looked down regretfully. "That, I do not know." Not what she had hoped to hear.
"Al, this might be our only lifeline," Dean said. "He jumped in to save me, I know that much. The angel who attacked me, he said almost every wingless fallen mook out there's gunning for Cas. Revenge, I guess, for getting 'em kicked out of the pearly gates club."
"…So he's alive?" Alex deduced, clutching to hope.
Ezekiel remained drawn. "I certainly hope so," he said. "I'm here to offer my help in the meantime."
Alex studied him for a couple of doubtful seconds before her instincts told her no. No fucking way. "Dean we don't know this guy."
Emotionally gaunt, Dean didn't listen. He'd obviously already made up his mind. "Desperate times."
Even as Alex gaped at the response, Ezekiel approached Sam carefully, laid a hand onto his forehead, then made a face like he wasn't so sure. Alex had to hold herself back from yanking his hand off her brother. "He's so weak…" the angel said softly.
"So what, you can't fix him after all?" Dean asked, gutted. From that, Alex could tell well enough that these two had spoken at length and come to some sort of agreement already. She did not feel happy to be excluded from this decision making and watched Ezekiel hawkishly as she crossed the room and retrieved the blade from the angel she'd killed, handing it to Dean and giving him a meaningful look. He was going to need this. And she didn't mind letting Ezekiel know with her eyes alone that she did not approve of him being in the room right now.
Suddenly, her phone began to ring, a jarring sound. The second the electronic little notification began to chime, her heart flew into her throat. With a fumbling hand, she pulled her mobile out and saw a number not stored in her phone. It said Location: Longmont, Colorado.
"Cas, hello?!" she answered in a rush, because there was no one else it could possibly be.
And it was. "Alex—!"
"Cas!" Alex became overjoyed by staggering relief even as Dean's expression showed the same. "Oh my god—where are you?! What happened?! Are you okay?!" Neither Winchester noticed the apprehension that briefly crossed Ezekiel's face.
"I'm alive—disoriented, tired, hungry, thirsty but… alive," Cas answered, even as Dean was crowding in and mouthing 'speakerphone, speakerphone!' to a shaking Alex. "Somewhere in Colorado, I think," Cas continued. "Metatron tricked me," he said sorrowfully even as Alex managed to hit the speakerphone button. "Are you three all right?"
Alex ran a shaking hand through her hair briefly. "Me and Dean are okay. Sam's…"
Dean interjected when his sister went quiet. "Cas, we think he's dying."
"What?" Castiel's surprise and horror was audible. "Oh no, Alex, Dean…"
Alex dashed a tear away—her emotions were unmanageable at this specific point. "Please, just come here, now," she begged, knowing everything would be all right if he could just be there with them.
There was a heavy pause. "I can't… Metatron. He took my Grace. I'm utterly powerless."
Another earth-shattering revelation. Dean and Alex were clearly thinking the same thing, but only Alex managed the breathe the word out loud: "Fuck."
After a shocked beat of silence, Dean leaned closer in, looking at Ezekiel when he asked the following: "Cas, buddy—you know an angel named Ezekiel?"
"Yes I do… why?"
"'Cause he's here, and he says he can help Sam."
Dean and Alex missed the brief look of fear to be discovered that flashed across 'Ezekiel's' face. They only heard Cas's eased-of-mind response. "Oh, what a relief—yes, Ezekiel is a loyal ally. A good angel. He'll be able to help until I get there."
"Thank god," Dean said, shoulders sagging before he wet his lips and refocused. "Cas, listen—there's angels out there, okay, and they're looking for you. Sounds like the majority's pissed. Watch your back, you hear me?"
Cas sounded every bit as sorrowful as Alex knew he would. So many implications there. But Castiel was brave in the face of his guilt. "I will, Dean, thank you."
"Just get your ass back to the Bunker, pronto—" Dean continued, "we'll figure this out with Sam and meet you there ASAP."
"All right," Cas agreed readily. "I'll meet you there." There was an awkward pause. "Um—but just to warn you. Losing my Grace has left some… significant effects on me." Was that a note of fear in his voice? "I… I bleed now. Without being able to fix myself. And I feel… I think it's hunger." Alex and Dean exchanged a glance as Castiel's tone took a distinctly grouchy turn. "I don't like it." His voice softened and lowered further. "I… I also had to urinate earlier. Very embarrassing."
While Dean took the information in stride, Alex gaped. When he'd been powerless at the time of the apocalypse, he'd never had to do that. "Well if you think peeing's bad, wait for number two," Dean said, getting a sour side eye from his sister at his sense of timing.
Cas's squint was audible. "I fail to understand your meaning."
"Oh you will, buddy," Dean said, somehow taking small enjoyment from the interaction before he got an elbow in his side and he sobered up. "Cas, we'll figure this all out," he said, giving Alex a petulant glance for the jab. "We will. Glad you're okay."
"Are you gonna be able to find your way?" Alex asked, vastly worried about his safety and cursing the distance between them. Colorado was a twenty-four hour drive away, at least. And if Cas couldn't zap himself around like he used to, that would be an entirely new challenge for him to tackle.
"I think so," Cas said, then paused, smiling ever so slightly. She could hear it. "I've picked up a few tricks from my family I think I can use."
Relieved but still worried, stewing in apprehensive theories privately, Alex let Dean talk. "You got this, Cas, I know you do."
Understanding it was time to say goodbye, Cas responded in kind. "Be careful, you two. Take care of Sam, and each other. I'll see you soon." He paused, and Alex knew these next words were especially for her: "Just not soon enough." And oh, how she longed for him and worried over him in that moment. "I love you all."
Alex nodded as her throat grew tight. "We love you too," she said waveringly. "Be careful Cas."
"I will be."
And nothing was left but to end the call. Softly, Alex did. "Bye."
As soon as she hit the end call button, Dean turned his attention to Ezekiel. "All right, so—"
Without warning, the hospital began to shake, a low rumble emitting. Startled, the Winchesters caught their balance. "What's that?" Dean asked, eyes wild on the ceiling and then the floor.
"Angels," Ezekiel said grimly.
Alex gave Dean a supremely bitchy face. "Huh, I wonder who alerted them to our location." A sour look came her way for that one, but was she wrong? Suddenly an ear-shattering, high-pitched ringing resounded, making Dean and Alex clap hands over their ears and shout in surprised pain. In Alex's hand, her phone screen cracked and broke, as did other small electronics and things made of glass in the room. Just as abruptly as it had happened, the piercing sound ended, leaving the Winchesters disoriented with ringing ears, shocked expressions, and busted phones.
"We need to move," Ezekiel said grimly and urgently as the low rumbling continued. That earned him a harsh glance from Dean. "If we move him, he dies."
Ezekiel's expression was challenging. "If we stay, we could all die."
Dean took a second to glower. "Plan B, then," he abruptly muttered, already marching toward the door.
"Where are you going?!" Alex asked dubiously, hands still hovering at her ears.
"To get these civilian saps clear!" Dean retorted, gesturing vaguely before pointing at her. "Stay here and watch Sam! Do not open this door for anybody but me—" then he pointed at Ezekiel commandingly. "And save my brother, you hear me?!"
He left, slamming the door behind himself. Alex turned her frazzled and tense attention to Ezekiel, who regarded her hesitantly and took in the unfriendly quality her stare had to it. Then he attempted to bridge the gap. "You need not fear me, Alex Winchester."
Alex had her blade in her hand again and pointed it at him. "Do I look afraid?" she fired back, then indicated Sam followed by the door. "I need you to either fix my brother or get the hell outta here!" The soft, steady rumbling continued like an earthquake.
Ezekiel took a second, looking at her unnervingly. "I do not mean to be an intrusion, but… it's important that you know. I can clearly see," he said softly. "You are expecting." Alex's expression fell. "Castiel's child," Ezekiel continued gently. "Nephilim. Half angel. Half human." He took a small step toward her, his sickly face unreadable. Alex stiffened, resisting the urge to back up. She clenched her blade harder. "Do you yet know that they gestate much faster and more intensely than a human child would?" Ezekiel asked. "No two Nephilim pregnancies are exactly alike, but I do know this: When you give birth in a handful of months… you will die."
Those last three words stunned completely. Alex's voice was soft and breathless as her blade fell fractionally lower. "...What?"
The angel looked almost sad about it. "Humans cannot bear the seed of Heaven without consequence," he said heavily. "Your body will become dependent on the fetus, growing stronger. Healthier. Almost superhuman, I suppose you could say. But when you give birth, your body will assume it has lost a vital organ and perish…" he hesitated, then looked at her meaningfully. "Unless, perhaps, you have an angel there to heal you and stop this terrible thing from happening."
It was like being hit by bricks right after she'd just been run over by a truck. The hospital fire alarms began to sound then, amping up the feeling of urgency.
Ezekiel was grim. "You need to find Castiel as quickly as possible—he's Heaven's most hunted angel, Alex Winchester—and he is vulnerable, we both heard how much so. He'll need to regain his Grace, or this will end in very unfortunately indeed. He needs you now more than ever right now." He shook his head briefly and looked up and around, seeing things she perhaps could not. "The other angels will not save you. Only he can."
Confused, terrified, and aware of how much higher the stakes were than ever, it simultaneously dawned on Alex that she was being made to choose right now between brother and husband, she shook her head no. "I can't just—"
"Every second spent here puts Castiel at risk!" Ezekiel suddenly shouted, shocking Alex. He forcefully regrouped himself. "You are not the only one with brothers, Alex Winchester," he said beseechingly. "He is mine." Alex's mind raced. Cas had said Ezekiel was trustworthy. So why did her instincts say that she couldn't trust this angel in front of her? Fixing her with the most deadly serious look, Ezekiel took another step toward her. "I know your story," he said carefully. "Your mother died when you were just a babe." Alex withered at the comparison she realized he was making. "Is the Winchester legacy going to continue onward this way?"
Even if he had a point, it was offensive, it was obscene, and Alex was equal parts enraged, alarmed, and terrified. She had just found out she was going to be a mother, now she might not even live to be one at all? She was going to have a child who would be cursed to live the same motherless life she had? No. No. Helpless and scared tears rose into her eyes. The hospital shook again, and backed into a proverbial corner, panicking past the point of comprehension at the thought of losing Cas, of her child losing her, Alex made a split decision despite every misgiving she had. She wordlessly rushed out of the room, then took off down the hall at a run toward the parking deck entrance, without a clear plan or cognizant thought. Only getting to Castiel before the rogue angels could. At a sprint, she passed Dean, who was running back toward the room. "Where the hell you goin'?!" he demanded, skidding to a stop even as she left him in the dust.
"To get Cas!" Alex threw over her shoulder.
She heard a grudging, "Well be careful, dammit!" as she turned to run down a hall with other evacuating staff, patients, and visitors.
Even as this exchange took place, Ezekiel breathed a small sigh of relief that he was able to run off Sam Winchester's younger sister. For he was not Ezekiel at all but Gadreel, the angel that all of Heaven called The Traitor for letting Lucifer into the Garden of Eden so many centuries ago. After spending most of creation in Heaven's prison, Gadreel was now a fugitive—his fellow angels would want him dead, and Gadreel could not abide this. He wanted to survive. He wanted to live. And while Dean could be manipulated and used, Gadreel had recognized that Alex would not be the same. Thankfully, her attachment to Castiel and her pregnancy had proven to be a convenient way to send her away. And once Dean was back, all the fugitive angel who called himself Ezekiel had to do was play on the desperation Dean possessed to present his plan for 'healing Sam…'
Meanwhile
Longmont, Colorado
Thanks to the kindness of an old woman at a gas station who gave Castiel a few coins, the fallen angel hung up the payphone he'd just used then breathed out tensely.
The news of Sam's condition weighed heavily and worried him to his core. He hoped so intensely that Ezekiel could indeed help. Cas trudged away from the payphone, contemplating his next move and trying not to feel overwhelmed. The distance between himself and Alex increased his feeling of anxiety a hundredfold. It would be bad enough to be separated from her in normal circumstances, but these were not normal. She was newly pregnant—she needed him more than ever. So did Sam. And Dean too. Even though he did have to wonder… was he any good to anyone without his angelic abilities?
In whatever case, he needed to get to the Bunker as soon as possible, and for that, he needed transportation. To go from Colorado to Kansas would cost money he did not have. Could he find another kindly elderly person to help him? What would Alex do in this situation, he wondered? Steal a vehicle, most likely. Or, steal money to pay her way by public transit. Things Castiel wasn't sure how to do, and felt wary of. What kind of angel am I? It was a forlorn, lonely thought. His stomach gurgled, reminding him… he was hungry. So much so that his body felt weak. His throat and mouth were dry. Thirst, he thought. An alien feeling that was very uncomfortable. The air was uncomfortable too. Hot and sticky, making him feel clammy. Sweaty, maybe. This is very inconvenient indeed.
The wingless angel stopped in the middle of the gas station lot, becoming consumed in thoughts and sensations plaguing him. I'm to blame. He knew that. He'd known it as soon as Metatron's true angle was revealed. He'd known it when he crashed to earth Graceless and saw the angels raining like meteors across the deep blue sky above. He'd known it as in total darkness he found his way through thick woods to a road that he walked miles on through the night and into dawn, not knowing where he was nor where he was heading. His muscles ached. His feet ached. Everything hurt. And his wings were gone.
And he wasn't the only one. From what he could tell, the entire Host was cast out of Heaven to walk the earth without their wings… and for what? For Metatron's own personal amusement, it seemed. The Scribe was the villain in this situation… but Cas was the tool that had been used. Another defeating blow in his resumé of mistake after mistake.
Does my foolishness ever end? I just want to go home. Then, maybe my family can help me find a way to fix what I've done…
A sudden young, female voice cut through his thoughts. "Castiel."
Turning quickly as surprise and even fear rocketed through his veins, Cas was faced with a fair, dark-haired girl perhaps in her late teens. She wore a blue dress with a sunny yellow cardigan. Her expression was lost. Pained.
"It's me," she said at his lack of recognition. "Hael."
Cas was stunned indeed. "…Hael!" he said, stunned to see the younger angel who he hadn't glimpsed in years.
"Yes," she said, studying him apprehensively, urgently. "Heaven cast us out. All of us." Dean's warning flitted through his mind even as Hael said, without giving away her exact feelings on the matter: "They're saying it's because of you."
"You still hear the angels?" he asked, surprised because he did not hear their voices. Not since he first fell.
"You don't?" Hael asked, then looked at him more closely, noticing what she hadn't. "Your Grace…"
Castiel supposed he had already revealed it, so he sighed heavily and just came out with it. "Gone." Leaving him vulnerable. Mortal. Human, almost.
Hael's questioning, haunted eyes searched his. "You did this, didn't you?"
This was a delicate situation that could perhaps become negative. Castiel decided to tell the truth, and hope that his angel sister could somehow understand that it hadn't been maliciously done. "Metatron tricked me," he said, ashamed of himself, and deeply so. "I thought I was shutting Heaven's exit, so to speak. No more angels on earth."
Hael's nostrils flared slightly. "Well it seems you've achieved the opposite. And now we can't go home. Now we've lost our wings. All of us."
Full of regret, Cas empathized. "You're angry."
"We're trapped on a plane of existence we weren't meant for. Stripped of our abilities and the things that make us us. You think we should be happy about that?" Her delicate features were twisted spitefully.
Castiel saw this interaction going poorly, and tried to figure out a way to exit it. "I understand. Believe me, I understand." And he did. "But I can't help right now—" He left out the specifics, but said it as clearly as he knew how. "I have to get back to my family."
"Your family?" Hael challenged. "Castiel, we are family. You and I."
It was true that angels all viewed each other as brothers and sisters. Because God had created them to be that. But for Castiel, the angel who had walked earth for years now and had bonded to the ones inhabiting this place, one in particular—he no longer felt that blind allegiance most other angels did to each other. He leveled Hael with a quiet, steadfast, understanding gaze. "Hael… I may be an angel. And a fallen one at that. But my family is—"
"The Winchesters," she said sourly, cutting him. Her eyes flashed displeasure. "I didn't know if I believed the things they said about you…" She shook her head bitterly. "But now I'm seeing it for myself." Still, she tried to convince him: "Castiel, you owe it to your kind to help reverse the problem you caused."
And he agreed. Of course he agreed. "I understand why you feel this way," he answered. "And I'll make it right somehow, I swear to you. But I can't help right now Hael. I'm so sorry." He backed up a couple of steps, because he couldn't waste any more time. He needed to go back to Alex, Dean, Sam.
She made no reply and merely looked at him in disbelief. Cas gave her a sad parting smile, then walked past, deciding to go into the gas station and see if he could explain his need for money to a willing listener. Then maybe he could get enough funds to make it to at least the next town. But the second he turned his back to Hael, her true anger leapt to life on her face, she cast around for any type of weapon, and found a length of discarded wood. She seized it and knocked him across the head, rendering him unconscious. She stared contemptuously down at him, then concentrated her mind into the channel of communication where angels spoke to each other.
"I have Castiel," she said lowly, then grabbed him by the shoulders of his trench coat and began to drag him across the rough cement ground.
His first cognizant sensation was pain, a dull, throbbing hammering sensation in his head at the back of his skull. Even as he groaned and realized he heard the low rumble of a car's engine and felt the telltale jostling of being in a moving vehicle, Castiel opened his eyes, which seemed to flinch at the brief brightness of the world. Ahead through a windshield, verdant Colorado wilderness passed quickly as the car followed a winding, quiet road. In the driver's seat, Hael.
"Hello, Castiel," she greeted evenly, not looking at him as she drove.
Realizing what had happened, panic and alarm pooled in Cas's veins. Where were they? How long had he been unconscious? She had attacked him…! It sent ice through his veins and grief plummeting into his stone. "What are you doing?" he asked in disbelief. "Where are we going?"
She gave him a brief, ominous flick of the eyes. "To the other angels." She seemed calm and determined, if a bit disdainful. "We are going to remind you of who you are, Castiel. By force, if we have to." Again, Cas cursed himself for being a fool. For allowing this to happen to himself. I am far too trusting. But if nothing else, he had just learned something. The angels who had fallen had to move around as humans did. "This is all your fault, take some responsibility," Hael continued in lecture. "First you went against the Archangels and stopped the apocalypse, then you started that war in Heaven, then you desecrated the Host, then you abandoned us… now you cast us out of our home and it's not your problem?" She shook her head. Apparently, she had been stewing in between the time since she attacked him and now. "You are lost, Castiel, you're insane. It's time to end this once and for all."
It was then that Cas noticed: on the skin of her neck, grayish veins crawled out of what her collar could not hide. "…What's wrong with your vessel?" he questioned softly.
"Weak. Unprepared. It won't hold me much longer." Hael glanced at him significantly. "But I've already found another one, so you needn't worry yourself."
It didn't take much to make the logical leap to what she was inferring. "You… want to possess me," he said, unable to believe it. Perhaps she was the insane one.
Hael's bright eyes stayed on the road, her derisive expression staying hard. "I think once you realize what you've done to the Host and feel appropriately remorseful, you'll be more than happy to give what little you can offer as a solution. Together, we can fix what you broke."
It was an odd moment to smile, and yet, Castiel felt a cynical tug at his lips. "A recurring theme of my life," he muttered almost unto himself. "Breaking things. Attempting to fix them." In whatever case, he didn't have time for this. He contemplated the speed they were driving, and knew it was too fast for him to exit without injuring himself badly. So he made his demand, leveling her with the first dark look he'd given her yet. "Let me out, Hael."
She ignored his command. "They say you defied the Will of God for them. This family of humans. This girl you call your wife. That you've torn apart everything that held in place for millenniums." She gave him a brief, entreating look despite her disapproval. "Why? For what end, Castiel? These mortals cannot compare to the ones you truly belong with. Us."
Cas stared ahead out of the windshield, his plan forming in his mind. He didn't want to cause more harm, especially not to a fellow angel who had been loyal to him during the Apocalypse. But all he could see in his mind was the one he needed to get back to. And if she was going to make her choice, he would make his. "Clearly, you don't know me like you think," he said lowly.
"…What do you mean?" Hael asked, brow furrowing.
He didn't answer her. "Are you going to let me leave?"
"No."
So be it. With purpose, measure, and calm, he buckled himself in, steeling his nerves for what he was about to do. "If I would do all those things to earth, Heaven, and Hell for the one I love, for my family…" he said, finally leveling her with a fiery stare, "what do you think I would do to you?"
Cas saw the way her expression fell, but it was too late. He'd already grabbed the wheel of the car and yanked hard, sending the fast-moving car skidding and veering off the road down a grassy embankment. In barely the span of a second, even as Hael tried to wrestle the wheel away from Cas, the vehicle impacted painfully hard against a tree, coming to a whiplashing stop. Not wearing her seat belt, Hael's vessel went flying through the windshield and glass shattered then rained, cutting Castiel's face and exposed hands as he winced away. Shocking pain rippled through his body from the force of the crash.
Stillness fell. Ding, ding, ding, ding! The car's airbags had deployed, the engine was hissing.
Dazed and in even more pain than before, Cas took inventory of his body. All of his joints, especially his back, were shocked and throbbing—his face stung and burned from the debris that had scratched him—his hands were the same. With great effort, he removed his seat belt and stumbled out of the car, then staggered over toward Hael. He thought faintly that he was probably experiencing physical shock in this moment.
Hael's injuries had left her unable to stand or move, and she was on her back, propped on elbows. One of her legs was bent at ninety degrees in a direction it was not meant to go. Her face and body were bloody and gashed. Glass had sunk itself into tender skin all over. And despite everything, compassion, sadness, and guilt settled over Cas anew. Her blade, a few feet off from her, glinted in the mid day sunlight. He bent and picked it up hesitantly, regarding Hael's furious expression with a sad one of his own. It wasn't worth much, but he did feel regret. "I'm sorry, Sister. I didn't want to hurt you."
"All you've ever done is hurt us!" she retorted in an acidic bellow. "Betray your own kind, again and again!"
Standing over her, Castiel couldn't help but remember all the other angels he had betrayed. Balthazar. Samandriel. Rachel. Countless others. Some had deserved it, others had been innocent. And others still… they were gray matter. "I don't deny what I've done," Castiel said softly. Again, he thought of the fall of the angels. Perhaps Naomi was right about him: he had always been a defect. In either case, he knew the extent of his sins. The things he had done. He would carry it all with him forevermore. "I didn't mean for this to happen."
"But it did!" Hael shot back, her teeth gritted in fury. "And someone has to pay. Give me your vessel! Pay the amends that are owed, Castiel! Give yourself over, die for all I care!" She was so vitriolic that spittle flew out of her mouth as she screamed at him.
Cas shook his head somberly, saddened at the place this road had led. "None of us are the angels they think us to be, Hael," he lamented, wondering what happened to the angels who had held humanity dear and sought to protect, guide, and watch over them. Instead, many angels spat upon God's most precious creation, betraying them. And with nothing else to say, only pain to bear, Cas turned to leave.
"Castiel!" Hael screamed. "If you leave me here in this broken girl—!" He stopped in his steps, his breath catching. "I swear it, Castiel—I'll tell them where you are," she threatened, and he turned slowly to look at her reluctantly. "And they will hunt you down until their last breath, they will seek revenge on the angel that did this, the angel who destroyed Heaven!"
"Stop," Cas asked softly, shutting his eyes as his face showed his emotions. He saw where this was going. He just wanted it to end.
"No!" she spat. "Redeem yourself, or I will never stop until I kill you and every human you hold dear, especially her!"
And Castiel's eyes snapped open. His wavering feelings ceased their journey of questioning. Hael would never live to make her threats come true, and whatever misgivings he had were gone. Without hesitation, he strode forward and stabbed her in the chest with the angel knife—she screamed as white light flared from her mouth, eyes, and knife wound. Then all went silent once more as the body of whatever human Hael had possessed crumpled.
Even though it had to be done, Cas stumbled back a bit as he pulled the blade out. Yet another angel and human dead because of him. How many more must die because of me? Because of my choices and actions? He looked up at the wide, innocent blue sky above, reeling, tears stinging his eyes abruptly. No Winchesters at his side. No Host left, for all he could tell, who would see things his way. In fact, they were his enemies it seemed.
Alone, in a way like never before. And not only alone. Lost. Injured. Afraid. Hungry. Tired. Thirsty. Hot. No way to communicate with anyone. But he refused to give up or succumb to his anguish. As long as there was breath in his lungs, he would carry on. And with the thought of Alex, their child, and the men he viewed as brothers… Cas stowed Hael's blade and began to limp toward the road, determined to make it home no matter what.