Chapter 9

Seventh Level of Hell

Upthrust rock and eroded canyons formed the passages through the maze, and from the height of their vantage point, Ellie could see the pattern and the centre. The gate would be at the centre, she thought, most likely another dimensional doorway. She frowned as she peered down to the ground below, trying to make out the details. Castiel had said that the ground in the maze was not ground, exactly, but obsidian, a carpet of stiletto points and sharp edges that sliced through anything that touched it.

Dean followed her gaze and got up, walking to her and extending his hand. She took it, glad for his strength as he pulled to her feet. The tension, physical and mental, she'd felt when they'd reached the top safely had gone with the light nonsense conversation. She wasn't especially hungry or tired, but her muscles were aching and they still had a long way to go.

They walked along the top of the wall and down the roughly built stone staircase. At the bottom, Ellie crouched and picked up a handful of the sand that covered the ground. It sparkled in the odd directionless light, like powdered glass. She looked around, standing again. The sand was everywhere, drifting over the rocks, showing the paths into the labyrinth.

"What is it?" Dean looked at her puzzled expression, at the sand still trickling out from her fingers.

"Guess we caught a break." She turned to him. "Castiel told me that the ground on this level was sharp, impossible to walk over, volcanic glass and rock." She looked down at the sand. "But, for us, it seems it's just sand."

"Good. We could use a break."

"Yeah." She started into the opening she'd seen from the top, walking quickly as she counted off the lefts and rights that were fresh in her memory, holding the pattern as she'd seen it from above.

The sand shifted under their feet, getting deeper and deeper as they got closer to the centre, but still infinitely preferable to razor sharp glass. The air was once again still now that they were below the level of the maze walls, the rock to either side trapping a strange heat that sometimes felt as if it was coming from above them, sometimes felt as if it was rising from below.

Behind her, she could hear Dean's footfalls, and her own, a susurrant whisper that echoed oddly, sometimes loud, sometimes falling to silence, against the pitted black rock walls of the maze. In her mind's eye, the labyrinth seemed to stretch out, then contract and she hoped it wasn't actually doing that.

"What did Cas tell you about coming here?" Dean's voice was low, and she wondered if he was remembering anything about the level.

The gravelly voice of the angel filled her mind again with the recollection of the conversation. The Host of ten battalions, ten thousand angels, had been mainly occupied in fighting on the Second and Third levels, Castiel had said. His charge had been a company of a hundred and fifty angels and they'd worked their way fast through the levels, crossing Adoin Baltim and flying over the Lake, which had been molten and toxic to them in their constructs.

"He said they reached the gates and formed a metaconcert, their…songs…sung in unison," Ellie said. She wasn't sure she had that part right. Castiel had explained it as if the angels had sung together and their songs had broken the locks on the gates. "The gates opened and they entered the maze."

The expression on the angel's face had been a grimace, when he described the next part. "The ground was obsidian, sharp points and edges and their feet were cut to ribbons, healing and being sliced open and healing with every step they took," she told Dean, her expression screwing up in sympathy. "He thought it was because of the constructs they'd used, flesh and bone but made, not like vessels."

Dean frowned. "Everything is made of the same things, isn't it? Why would it change how the laws of physics worked down here?"

"I don't know," Ellie said. "Maybe it's more to do with the mental and emotional states than the physical ones? With or without a soul? With or without a conscience?"

"But what's the point of it? The souls never get out of here. There's no point to punishment if nothing is learned?"

Ellie shook her head. "Since Lucifer was cast down here, since he was given Lilith to punish for her crimes and found out that he could transform the soul from his Father's potential for perfection to the epitome of relentless hunger and pain, I think Hell's only purpose has been making demons."

It was a conclusion she'd come to a long time ago, borne out through the study of the planes, the way the great disasters and atrocities had bred more, exponentially increasing violence and chaos on earth. It wasn't a theory she shared much. It wasn't provable and it didn't matter in the greater scheme of things. But it mattered to the man walking next to her. It was important he understood that Hell—and Lucifer, and the Princes—were only interested in overrunning the earth and taking what they'd wanted for millennia.

"Heaven isn't a reward, exactly. And Hell isn't about rehabilitation. They function as a part of the process for the energy that cycles through the universe, energy that cannot be created or destroyed, though it can change form and purpose."

"The souls are the energy."

"Yeah."

Her foot slid out and she looked down. The sand was deepening, mounded and slippery underfoot. She wiped her arm over her forehead. It was getting hotter, the light brighter and more glary. Glancing at Dean, she could see his sweat running down his neck, dripping from the tips of his hair.

"S'getting hot in here," Dean said. "You want to rest for a while?"

"No." She made a face as she looked at the narrowing walls around them. "I think it'll get progressively worse the closer we get to the centre. Might as well face it."

"Your optimism keeps me young."

"Better than plastic surgery, huh?" She nodded, then gave him a grin. "But enough frivolity… what do you think about something like a gated community for us, when we get back?"

His brows shot up. "What?"

"Well, not an actual gated community, but something like it—not so gung ho as a military compound but something in between?"

"Where would we find something like that?"

"We might think about building it," she said. It'd been something she'd been thinking about for a while, wondering if it would work to keep the hunters together and make a more normal life.

"Building…what? A whole neighbourhood?" Dean's expression was bemused. "You that rich?"

Ellie made a face at him. "Say we bought eighty acres, outside some town, and got everyone together to build some houses on it," she explained, glancing at him sideways as she warmed to the subject. "We could build in steel and stone, build the protection right in, the storage for dangerous items and weapons, exits and panic rooms and safety measures and even the perimeter of the community and each house lot could have barriers, not visible but highly effective? It would be like a neighbourhood, so we could live more normally, at least with each other?"

He shook his head. "How long have you been thinking about this?"

"A while," she admitted. "Since New Orleans, actually. You don't think it'd work?"

"Uh, yeah, I do think it'd work," he said. "I mean, depending on how many others wanted to live there."

"I'm pretty sure Marcus and Twist would be keen," Ellie said. "Laney's been looking for a more permanent place since she had the girls, and she wouldn't mind if her mother moved close by."

Dean stopped dead and looked at her. "You really think this is a good time and place to discuss this?" He waved a hand around. "Here?"

"Well, it's not a bad place or time," Ellie said with a shrug. "We've still got a ways to go and it's not like we're doing anything but walking. Did you want to talk about something else?"

He gave her a wide grin.

"What?"

Shaking his head, he said, "Sorry. Just wondering how to explain to Sam that in the middle of the seventh level of Hell, on the mission to raise an archangel from Lucifer's cage, we were discussing homes and décor."

"Are you chewing up energy worrying about what we're doing?"

He grinned at her. "No."

"There you go," she said.

Dean wiped a hand over his brow, the tremble in his legs more pronounced with every step. Despite the light-hearted conversation of the past few hours, their fatigue was getting more noticeable, rising along with the oppressive heat in the close, tight passages, the increasing depth of the sand that filled them and made their footing treacherous and slow.

No memories had returned to him of this place yet. He wasn't sure if he'd even seen much beyond what Alastair had termed the 'workplace'. Beside him, Ellie staggered on, her hair darkened to mahogany with sweat, her hand reaching out more often to steady herself against the pitted walls.

In spite of the incongruity of the discussion here, he liked her ideas of a hunter community. He thought it could work effectively, even more effectively than Samuel's compound, hiding in plain sight, living close to normal. It would depend a lot on keeping the base inconspicuous but with the quality of Ray's IDs and background documentation, he thought that was possible now, where it hadn't been before.

Keeping their children safe was his highest priority, but not just safe. They needed their childhoods. Needed the nurture of a family environment. He would do that part right, with Ellie and their child.

The light brightened and he looked up, slowing as the rock walls drew back to reveal a large, almost circular arena. He reached out to Ellie, his hand closing around her arm and they stopped at the opening.

"We're here," Ellie said. "This is the centre."

The area was about fifty yards in diameter, floored with the deep fine sand, uniform in colour and consistency save for a single darker patch ahead and to the left of the middle. Ellie walked to it, looking down at the bones and the shape that lay there. The skeleton was black, and not human, she thought, dropping to one knee to examine the sawn edges of the bones that rose from the back of the shoulder joints. The skull leaned to one side, the eye sockets filled with sand.

Moloch. Castiel had told her how the arch-demon had been slain, Uriel and Balthazar fighting together while he went after Dean. Alastair had escaped in the midst of the battle between the angels and demons, not on orders, but another part of the series of coincidences that didn't look like coincidences, the closer one looked. Penemue had asked her why Alastair hadn't been killed, here where the angels had fought. The silver-eyed demon had been more clever than most, she'd thought at the time. Now, the question irritated anew.

Here, in this place, a man who didn't belong in Hell had been tortured and twisted until he had broken the First Seal. Here, he'd been rescued and raised by angels to fulfil the second part of that prophecy. But it wasn't over yet, and she knew Dean had his doubts if it ever would be.

She swung around when she heard his gasp.

Dean walked into the circular arena behind Ellie, glancing around. The walls, made of the same pitted black rock as the labyrinth, rose to a greater height, set in serried rows as if the place were an amphitheatre. Ellie knelt beside a huge skeleton, half-buried in the sand. It rang no bells for him, and he wondered if it had looked very different to the eyes of a soul. Uncomfortably, he looked for the memories, but found very little beyond the feeling he shouldn't stay here long. It was usually a better idea not to look for things he didn't want to find.

What they needed was the doorway to the next level. With that in mind, he turned from the centre, then stopped, the air in his lungs leaving him in a strangled rush as his gaze locked onto the objects that stood on the sand, large as life and twice as ugly.

The long table stood in the partial shadows of the wall, made of slabs of stone and stained in every variation of red and black. Behind the table stood a metal frame, coated in a thick black substance, chains and pulleys hanging from it.

Memory returned, crowded back, close to him, draining life from him; his veins solidifying, his heart slowing, his lungs stop inflating, drowning his senses and filling his mind.

No.

No. I didn't. (You did)

No. I wasn't. (You were)

No. (You loved the feel of the razor slicing through.)

No. (And the screams of agony)

NO. (And the pain that fed you)

"NO!"

Ellie ran, taking in the expression of horror on his face, the still rigidity of his body, and past him, the table with the rack behind it. She cursed herself for not noticing them, not putting two and two together when they entered.

His muscles were bunched, every one contracted and as hard as iron to touch. His eyes weren't seeing her, were looking inwards, to memories he'd spent years burying, hiding from. She pushed at him but it was like pushing at a statue; he wasn't present, and there was nowhere to go even if she could get him to move. He was locked in an internal battle, between memory and who he was now and there was nothing she could to help him, except be there and try to reach him.

Sliding her arms around him, she pressed herself against him, against the unyielding wall of his chest. "Dean. Dean, it's Ellie. Hear me."

She spoke quietly, but insistently, repeating the words over and over, listening to the slow beat of his heart, feeling the barely discernible rise and fall of his chest as he breathed in and out.

"Dean, come back, it's over. Come back."

"You know the reason you were chosen? It's in the line, Dean, in the bloodline. We knew we'd get you, sooner or later." The demon had been carving, the razor's blade flashing in the gray-red light.

"Your mind is the only thing I need to reduce you to nothing, Dean. Such a good imagination. So easy for you to see it all, to feel it all, isn't it?" His skin had been flayed from his muscles and every second was agony.

D e a n.

Dean, come back.

"I knew you'd enjoy their pain, there's a darkness inside you that your brother can't hold a candle to." Alastair had crooned to him, the demon's long tongue sliding over the skin of his neck as he'd sliced and diced.

Dean, it's over. Alastair is dead. Come back. Dean, it's Ellie, come back.

Pain.

So much pain, he couldn't get clear of it, couldn't find any escape, couldn't stand it.

Agony.

Ripping, slicing, carving, shredding … the wink of the razor blade in the flat, dull light.

Torment.

I'm not doing this, this isn't me, this is someone else, I'm not here, not here, not here.

Despair.

"God will never save you, this is your destiny, Dean, for all eternity until entropy takes the last drop of blood and the last beam of light and darkness covers everything. Get used to it, because this is all you'll ever know." The demon had laughed and laughed, the souls crossing the table one by one, ripped apart and put back together and ripped apart anew.

Dean, come back, it's just a memory. Come back to me.

Horror.

The faces kept changing, kept changing to the people he loved, he closed his eyes but he still saw them, saw their agony under his blade.

Terror.

Who was he? Who had he become? He watched himself swing the blade, watched it bite deeply, lift, and couldn't feel himself in the arm that swung, in the fingers that gripped the razor so tightly. Who was he … now?

Desolation.

"Ah Dean, that imagination, all the great ones have it, I know you can see into them, see what they really fear, give it to them. You have real promise, boy." The face of the soul in front of him wavered and changed, widening, eyes turning from blue to hazel, hair flopping over the clear forehead—No. I can't. I can't do this!—"This is the only game in town, Dean, we don't deal the deck down here, we just play the hand." And Alastair had controlled the blade, silver winking in the dim light, and muscle was laid open to bone, blood everywhere, soaking in, staining forever…

"Dean, come on, come back now. It's over. It's over," Ellie murmured

He'd told her what he'd recalled about this, about picking up the tools and torturing the souls, about the sense of losing himself, of seeing his soul shrivelled and black; about the way the faces had changed; and his fear of the demon, Alastair, and the way that, after a while, he'd begun to enjoy the work, seeking out the fears of his victims, using them, drawing more and more pain from them for his master to drink; about the idea that deep down there was a fledgling demon, curled inside of him, waiting, watching.

She didn't believe that. She thought he had recognised that despite the choices, despite what he'd felt about it, he hadn't given up himself to Hell's darkness, he had come out with his soul battered but unbroken.

Under her arms, the iron bands of muscle loosened in his chest, and he struggled to take an extra breath. His heart stuttered as the muscles of his limbs softened, demanding more blood. Ellie was ready when his knees gave way, guiding his fall to the sand, grateful to see his eyes close finally. She knelt beside him, holding him tightly, waiting for the memories and the reactions to dim and let him go.

10:30 pm. August 10, 2012. Jackson, Wyoming.

Tricia moved quietly around the room, checking the salt lines, turning off all but a single lamp. Sam listened to her as he lay on the bed. They hadn't talked about her being here, it had just seemed natural to seek out comfort in each other, the waiting and the aftermath of the fight too hard to face alone.

He looked at her as she stripped off her clothes, tossing them over a chair and walking toward him. She was still too thin, her collarbones and shoulders, elbows and hips and knees sticking out like those of a coltish teenager, ribs too clearly delineated under smooth skin. He shifted to make room, putting his arms around her as she snuggled close against him, her skin cool and silky on his.

"How long do we wait here for, Sam?" her voice was quiet, the mellow contralto timbre soothing.

"Cas will know when they get back. He said he'd come." He buried his face in her hair, his lips grazing her neck. "This is as safe as anywhere else."

She nodded, her arm tightening around him. "But we're not doing anything. Makes people antsy when they can't do something."

He thought about that. She was right. Just waiting gave everyone too much time to think, too much time to wonder if things could have gone differently. He put aside his emotions and arousal, pulling back a little from her as he thought of the possible options.

"We could go back to Oregon. The house Ellie rented is big. And the forest is next to it. We could do some training there." He thought of Baraquiel, the tall Watcher who wanted to help. "The nephilim could be trained there."

We could train each other. Properly, this time. Weapons, explosives, even driving or burglary skills were not that common among the hunters and likely unknown to the Watchers and their children.

Cas didn't know where the cage would open, when Dean used the key. It didn't matter if they were in Wyoming or Oregon—or the Bahamas. The angel would bring Dean and Ellie and Adam to wherever they were.

He would lose these people, his own and the fallen ones, without a plan, without something to do that made sense for the future. Sam shifted onto his elbow, looking down into Tricia's face.

"I'm glad you're here."

She smiled. "Then show me."

He bent to kiss her, shivering at the feel of her hands on his body, desire shutting out thought and worry and doubt.

The Frozen Wastes, Hell

He was still here, still alive.

Dean lifted his head and opened his eyes, careful not to look at the table or the stained rack that stood behind it. The old memories had shifted and wrenched apart, overlaid now by new understanding, new perspective. A colder, more objective view of the time he'd spent here. Not just because he was here in his flesh and bones and blood. He hadn't realised that many of those memories had been examined, had been accepted, had been laid to rest.

When it had come rushing back, it'd been like living two lives simultaneously, he thought, unable to come closer to a clear description of the feelings. Past and present colliding. The demon had convinced him. Topside, he hadn't recognised how well Alastair's lies had been mixed in with the truth.

In front of him, Ellie was peering up at him, her fingers wiping away the sweat and tears from his cheeks. There was a wealth of concern in her eyes and he shook his head, putting a hand down to lever himself to his feet.

"I'm okay." They rose from kneeling together and he rubbed his hand over his face. "You know, what the German dude said."

She smiled uncertainly. "Nietzsche?"

"I guess." He looked around, dropping his gaze to the ground when it got close to the table. "Where's the gate?"

Ellie turned and gestured to the middle of the arena. "It should be here, in the centre."

The rocky walls surrounding them held no doorways or even openings. The only things of note were the table and the rack. Ellie examined them carefully before deciding they were as they seemed, things of torture only. Under her feet, the sand slid, grains rolling toward the centre. The faint slope was more noticeable, the closer she walked to the middle.

Dropping to her knees, she started to dig in the sand, tossing the fine grains out of the fresh hole as far as she could, the sides collapsing under their own weight around her hands. Dean knelt beside her and began to dig as well. The depth of the sand had seemed great, but she felt the raised reliefs under her fingers in a few moments, just twelve inches down, then the smooth coolness of metal.

"I think this is it." She cleared away more sand, using both hands to throw it further out of the shallow dip. When they'd finished clearing the surface, the metal disc was almost two feet in diameter, engraved and polished with the same sigils that had been carved into the gates.

Dean brushed his hand tentatively across the surface. "How do we make it work?"

She shook her head, getting to her feet and offering her hand. "I don't know. We could try standing on it?"

Dean reached out and gripped her hand and they took the step down to the disc at the same time, a vertiginous wrench destroying balance as light and air and sound and weight vanished. Ellie couldn't feel him against her; for the space of a long heartbeat, she was in the blackness alone.

Then they were standing on a vast, mostly flat, utterly empty plain, a bitterly cold wind slicing at them, carrying fine granules of snow or ice that peppered them, rattling against their clothes, stinging against their skin.

"Guess that was it." Dean looked around, his expression sour. "I think I preferred the heat."

Ellie nodded, drawing her coat tightly around her, the cold penetrating easily. The featureless landscape was white and grey, criss-crossed by long shallow humps, loose rock and gravel under their feet. In the distance she could see a faint blue light, reflecting on the edge of the pewter sky.

"That way, I think."

Dean followed her gaze and nodded, pulling his jacket collar up around his ears when they struck out, walking into the teeth of the wind, boots crunching over the thin coating of snow and ice and gravel, across the tundra.

2:00 pm. August 29, 2012. Scotts Mills, Willamette Valley, Oregon

Sam heard the screen door shut and glanced at the house. Tricia crossed the deck and came down the stairs, heading for them. He and Baraquiel sat at the garden table on the lawn, watching the hunters and nephilim that filled the yard.

Twist looked down at the rifle, separated into its components now. He lifted his gaze to the faces surrounding him, their eyes on him or the gun, eager to learn.

"So, now we clean it all out, and then put it back together again." He nodded and five pairs of hands reached for their own rifles, deftly pulling them apart. Watching them, he realised with surprise that a single lesson was going to be enough for these folks, their ability to understand and remember was phenomenal. Make everything go much quicker, he thought in satisfaction.

Marcus was watching two Watchers at single combat, his eye critical. They were fast, and strong —unbelievably strong, he thought —but had no idea of how to use those gifts, not against each other, certainly not against a human opponent. He called to them to stop, and starting explaining about tactics and pressure points and weaknesses.

Tricia sat down next to Sam and Baraquiel. "Well, everyone seems happier."

Baraquiel glanced at her. "Yes. This is good. We can all learn, and we'll be stronger for it."

Sam felt the temperature drop slightly and looked around. He couldn't see Bobby but had a feeling that the ghost wanted to talk in private.

"I'll be back in a minute." He got to his feet and walked back to the house, nodding to Garth and his students as he crossed the living room and climbed the stairs. Bobby's flask stood on the windowsill of the bedroom he shared with Tricia.

"Bobby?"

"Hard to get your attention these days." The room's temperature dropped sharply as Bobby materialised next to the window, and the glass frosted over.

"Yeah, sorry. What's up?"

"Frank still working on the leviathan stuff?"

"Yeah, I think so." Frank's Airstream was parked down behind the garage, out of the way and mostly hidden among the trees. "Why?"

"I remembered the number and it ain't the one he come up with. And I remembered why the damned number was so important."

Sam turned to him slowly. "Spit it out."

"It's a genetic code, for a virus. They ain't building research centres to cure cancer, they're building research centres to wipe out this virus —because it can kill them."

"We better go see Frank."

"Ya think?" Bobby followed Sam out of the room.

The Frozen Wastes, Hell.

Ellie stumbled over the small hump. Dean stepped close beside her, catching her arm before she went down, putting his arm around her and supporting her as they kept walking. The cold was penetrating through to his core as well, but he had the idea she was losing body heat much faster than he was, that her reserves were being tested more severely by her body's need to protect their child. Their faces were red and raw with the sting of the fine dry snow that blew onto them, filling the creases and folds in their clothes, settling over their packs, in their hair and coating their lashes and brows.

He looked up, squinting against the wind and snow. The goddamned blue light seemed as far as ever, as if they were walking endlessly in the one place.

In the world above them, or beneath or beside, wherever it was, he thought irritably, he would be able to do something, build them a shelter or something. Here, there was no place to stop, and no useful outcome if they did. They had no food, very little water, no extra clothing or anything to help to keep the cold off them. They could stop and sit but they would be facing the same thing when they got up again. He pulled her closer to his side and kept on walking.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he looked up again, but the light was definitely closer, much closer. It was better not to question the change, just accept it. He'd already come close to driving himself crazy trying to figure out time and distance here.

Under the curve of his arm, Ellie was constantly shivering now. He could hear her teeth chattering together even over the howl and moaning of the wind. The cold was eating through them. Several times now one or the other of his feet had broken through a sheet of ice, plunging into a shallow pool of freezing water. He didn't hold out much hope for keeping all of his toes when they finally reached the Ninth level.

He felt Ellie sag beside him and stopped, catching her before she hit the ground. As her head tipped back, he saw her eyes were open but rolled back, her skin white and bloodless. He lowered her to the ground and pressed his ear to her chest, listening for a heart beat, for the rise and fall of her breathing. He waited, hearing nothing, his own breath held tightly.

There was a beat, slow and singular. Her hands were like ice, and he tucked them against her chest, stripping off his jacket and wrapping it around her, zipping it up the front to keep it on. He knelt beside her and slid his arms around her shoulders and under her knees to lift her up. The wind cut through the thin button-through shirt and tee shirt he wore like the lash of a whip, and he walked faster, forcing the blood to move through his body, moving sideways and hunching forward a bit to keep Ellie protected from the wind.

His gaze on the ground, he walked doggedly on, ignoring everything but the next step. Even the mountains, when they reared up before him, got barely a glance. He slowed down, eyes searching the base for any kind of doorway or break or crevice or cave. The great slides of gravel scree and inclined slabs of granite seemed impenetrable and he turned right, knowing and not caring he was only following his dominant hand, walking along the mountain base. Far from being sheltered by the towering peak, the wind rushed down it, pressing and pushing at him like an opponent and he leaned hard against it, struggling to walk in a straight line.

He was so used to pushing against the pressure of the wind he almost fell when it ceased, staggering wildly sideways and forward, just catching his balance before her weight could pull him over. When he stabilised, he lifted his head and felt his mouth drop open.

They were in a large room, bare walls, bare floor, an ornate ceiling with an antique candelabra hanging from the centre, the candles lit, shedding a soft buttery light, their flames perfectly straight and steady, the snow and ice melting under his feet.

"The fuck—?" He turned, looking behind him, but the tundra was gone, a wall in its place, no doors or windows, no break at all in the run of cornice, picture rail and skirting boards that decorated the walls.

He walked out of the fresh puddles and lowered Ellie to the floor, resting his fingers against the artery in her neck, feeling the thready pulse gain strength as her body responded to the warmth. Sitting beside her, Dean lifted her head and shoulders onto the curve of his thigh, his hand resting lightly over her breastbone, where he could feel her heartbeat and breathing without having to look. He wriggled his toes slightly in his boots, feeling them against each other, against the thick softness of the sock that covered them. Maybe he'd get to keep them after all.

Ellie came to consciousness warily, relaxing as she registered warmth and silence. Opening her eyes, Dean's face was above her, relief softening his eyes and mouth as he looked down at her.

"Hey."

"Hey." She wriggled up to sit beside him, lifting a hand to touch the reddened, sore skin on her face when it stung. "What happened? Where are we?"

"Yeah, I got nothing." He looked around. "One minute, we were next to the base of the mountain, you were out, no sign of anything—the next, we're in here."

Ellie visualised the scenario and nodded. "Then we must have crossed into the Ninth level."

"This is the Cage?"

"The antechamber, maybe." She shrugged, rolling over into a half-crouch. There had been nothing in the books of the portals between the Eighth and Ninth levels, something that had worried her before they'd entered. But perhaps there'd been nothing because anyone who made it this far didn't need to look for a portal. Perhaps the mountains were the portal, as simple as a doorway into a house. It was interesting, and she would be adding to the knowledgebase when they got home, but it wasn't going to help them this instant. They were close to the Cage, even if not in it. She wanted to keep going.

"No." Dean's hand snapped out and caught her wrist. "Rest first."

Mid-rise, balanced on her knee and foot, she lifted one brow in query. "We can't sleep here, you know that."

"Yeah, I know. But before we go and find out what's behind Door Number Two, let's just stay in one place for a few minutes. Okay?" Behind the flippancy, she could see the entreaty in his eyes.

"Sure." She sank down again.

Dean moved his pack behind them and stretched out on the floor, pulling her close to him, her head pillowed against his chest. When he stopped moving, she lifted her head to look at him.

"Did I scare you?"

"Scared me to death," he admitted, pushing the loose strands of hair from her forehead. "Your heart slowed right down, I couldn't feel a pulse, your lips were blue … it wasn't fun."

Understatement, she thought, repressing a smile. "Sorry, I'll be more careful next time."

"Damned straight." He double-taked, frowning at her. "Not that there'll be a 'next' time, just so's you know."

"Sure, yeah, I can see that."

There would always be a 'next time' and she was pretty sure he knew that too, but there was zero percentage to discussing it now. Without warning, the memory of the arch-demon's words came back to her and she held herself rigid against the shiver that wanted to ripple through her body.

"What is it?" Dean twisted underneath her, the frown deepening.

"Nothing," she said. "Goose walked over my grave."

"You sure?" His arms tightened around her and she rested her cheek against him.

"Yeah." She made a face at him. "Thought you wanted to rest?"

"I do. Shut up."

She smiled, tucking her face against his chest and pushing away the uneasiness. They were in the Ninth Level of Hell, in the antechamber to Lucifer's Cage. Unease was normal.

"Ellie?"

"Mmmm?"

"I've been thinking … about Dad." His voice was low and calm.

Ellie closed her eyes, ignoring the flutter in her stomach. It had been a long in coming. That they would have this conversation here seemed no more surprising than anything else in their lives.

"Yeah?"

"I couldn't accept what he did." He hesitated, and after a moment, she heard his deeply drawn breath. "And I couldn't accept why he did it. For a long time."

Ellie waited, hearing his pulse speed up then slow down beneath her ear.

"After a while, I kept thinking that everything that went wrong, everything … came from that one thing, that he did … to save me." His chest hitched under her cheek. "I kept thinking that if he hadn't made that deal, then none of it would've happened, what happened after …"

His voice broke, and she set her teeth together to stop from speaking, from offering comfort. He wasn't done yet, and the last thing he needed was interruption.

"It wasn't true. Sam … Sam was still—infected, or whatever you call it—he still would have been killed by the other kid of Yellow Eyes—it might have happened in a different way, but it still would have happened—" His voice thinned and he coughed, clearing his throat.

"I blamed him, Ellie, I blamed him for everything. For all the pain we went through, for all the people who died—not because it was real, or true, what he did, what he—it was convenient to blame him, even when I knew that—even when I knew something was my fault, I blamed him. It all got mixed up—in my head—after Hell. After Alastair told me … about the … I couldn't stop thinking about the way he didn't break … and I did."

Ellie shifted against him. That wasn't what happened and Dean had never gotten far enough away from his feelings to understand that. His arm tightened around her, holding her still, and he shook his head, forestalling her.

"I know that was stupid." He seemed to sag, breath and energy running out of him together. "Maybe he was stronger, maybe he had better armour—it doesn't matter. It played out the way it was supposed to and there was nothing anyone could do about it … but it got messed up … in my head … and I couldn't get it straight, couldn't talk about it, couldn't figure it out."

"Until I told you."

Dean moved higher against the pack, looking down at her. Memory cascaded through him, the night he'd told her about Hell, mixed inextricably with his emotion of that night: his certainty she'd leave, his disbelief when she'd kissed him and told him that she loved him instead. He closed his eyes and tried to force them back, away from what he was feeling now.

"That was the first time it felt clear … it was the first time I stopped and saw it in one whole piece, instead of a million splinters."

He was still sure that if things had happened differently the next day, if Raphael hadn't shown up, he might have been able to get a lot more clear. But there was no time, and she'd gone, and working it out on his own had proved impossible.

"It got worse after you left." In his arms, she moved, and he shook his head, not wanting to stop, to explain, hoping she would understand he didn't blame her, it was just the way it had been. "I couldn't keep anything separate after that."

Memories of the Garden, in Heaven and the Gardener, Joshua telling him God felt none of it was his problem. His bitterness at God had somehow gotten mixed together with his bitterness at his father, and it had seemed right to him at the time, both of them disappearing when they were most needed, leaving their sons to cope the best way they could. It had been a strange juxtaposition with a lot of hindsight, but it had fit then. He still couldn't believe how naïve he'd been. How much of a child he'd been, wanting someone else to take his load from him, wanting someone else to fix everything.

"I wanted Dad. I needed someone to help me with what was going on. I … couldn't carry the load on my own, couldn't protect Sam, couldn't protect you, couldn't even hold onto my own hope." In retrospect, and with the prospect of his impending fatherhood, he'd understood things about his father he never would have considered back then. "God, I hated him for not being there. I hated him the way I hated myself, for not being strong enough to deal with it all."

He gave a shaky laugh. "It was weird … I hated him for leaving it all on me, but he'd done it so that I could live. I couldn't make the edges of those two things fit together no matter what I tried. So I stopped thinking about it."

When I found out that you were pregnant, Sam told me to go and think about what that meant to me." He couldn't help the smile as he recalled his brother's advice in Rufus' cabin. "I realised then that Dad had had a really rough ride after Mom's death. Trying to look after us. Not knowing what he was doing. Running scared, without even time to mourn her."

He hadn't known that his father had known about what Mary's deal had done to Sam throughout their childhood until he'd read Jim Murphy's journal, the priest's account of closing the hell gate, and of what they'd learned.

"He found out about the demon not long after she was killed. And, he found out that she'd made a deal and what the deal was in '86, when he and Jim and Bill closed a gate together. I remember that he got drunk a lot after that, and he was angry, all the time … for a long time."

His memories crowded back, the Christmas in Maple Rapids, his feelings even then that Dad had learned something about his mother, something that was eating him alive.

"It … made sense of a lot things, explained a hell of a lot things. But I didn't really understand it until I knew that I was going to be a father as well." Under the side of her face, his chest rose and fell as he sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. "Even then, I couldn't forgive him. Not entirely. Now, I wonder if I'll ever be able to. I know he had fuck-all choice in the things that happened, I know that he did the best he could, tried to keep us safe, to keep us alive and prepared … I know that he didn't want this life for me and Sam, but I … I just keep thinking … he should have tried harder."

Ellie felt the shiver that passed through him.

"Bobby gave us more of himself, more trust and more ... love, than Dad ever did." He straightened against the pack. "He's what I'd want to be … as a father."