Author's Note: I haven't changed a whole lot from canon in the general plotline, but in this chapter I changed something major and I hope I'll be able to compensate for it later. I like this better, later, anyway. I hate Billie. She annoys me, and Death is way cooler. I also think Ember, as powerful as she is, plays a backseat role sometimes just so that I can stick by canon, so that something can happen later that I depend on canon to make happen, etc. But in this chapter Ember gets a chance to truly shine.

***Ember POV***

July 14, Early Morning

When Ember awakened, Castiel was kneeling over her. There was no longer blood on his face, but his trenchcoat was covered in it. Ember could only assume that he had healed himself. She felt the tingling she associated with magical healing, and assumed Castiel had healed her as well.

"Ember, are you okay?" Castiel asked.

"No!" she exclaimed. "What the absolute fuck!" She looked around. "Where's Dean?"

"Gone," Castiel said seriously.

"What happened?" Ember said, though she thought she knew.

"Dean sent you flying," Castiel said with what Ember recognized as poorly contained fury. "And then he ran back over to you, and I thought he was going to hit you again. But then he ran away."

And then, with sudden finality, Ember realized. "My ring's gone," she told Castiel.

"Your – what?"

"My engagement ring," she said fiercely. "He took it back.."

"Oh," said Castiel.

With that, Ember burst into tears.

***Castiel POV***

July 14, Early Morning

Damn it. Ember was crying, again. He hated it when she cried. It was the worst thing he had ever experienced, he thought. He had only seen her cry a few times – when she had prayed to him after she killed her client, when she and Dean had broken up, when they had broken up. Each time, it was like an arrow piercing his heart.

Deftly, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her. His attraction to her was so strong it was overwhelming. There was her supernatural powers of attraction, of course, but it was amplified by the familiarity of hugging someone you haven't hugged in a very long time, but used to know very intimately. She smelled divine, and with her smell Castiel was flooded with memories of their time together.

And then she was looking up at him, her eyes round and full of tears, but also full of… longing? Was she feeling the same way as him? Surely not. Surely she had gotten over him ages ago…

She didn't let go, and he didn't let go either. Her face moved infinitesimally closer, and so did his, as if they could no longer control it. Was this really about to happen?

Then they were kissing, and it had been so long, and Castiel was no longer sure where he ended and Ember began. All he could feel was Ember, and she was everything, and why had it been so long-

Dean. With horror, Castiel wrenched himself away from her. She moved back as well, stumbling backward in her hurry to get away from him. "I'm so sorry, I just-…"

"No, no, it's my fault, it's just-…"

"'Been a long night, I wasn't thinking straight-…"

"No, it was me, I shouldn't have taken advantage," Castiel insisted.

"You didn't," Ember said, leveling him with a challenging glare. "And there were two of us kissing."

Castiel flinched back, understanding what she was implying. "There shouldn't have been," he said. "It was a mistake." And he left the bunker before he could say or do anything else, wincing at the sound as the large metal door shut behind him.

***Ember POV***

August 20, Daytime

ONE MONTH LATER

It had been the worst summer Ember could remember. At least when she'd broken up with Dean (the first time), she'd been mad at him rather than upset with the situation as a whole. And, Sam had been around a lot, as he had been dealing with the whole "Lucifer visions" issue at the time. At least when she'd broken up with Dean the second time, it had been her first summer with the children, and the beginnings of her relationship with Castiel.

This time, Dean had taken the engagement ring and was who knows where, making mischief and being sociopathic beyond his control. Castiel avoided her whenever possible after the kiss they'd shared. Sam was a man on a mission, willing to risk everything they had worked for all of these years to keep Dean out of trouble. Josephine had remained at away college for most of the summer. Krissy and Aidan were extremely disappointed in Dean's choice to "go demon again", but, as Aidan was preparing for college and Krissy was going into her senior year, they were both too busy with summer jobs, friends, and boyfriends or girlfriends to pay too much attention to the situation either way.

There were several good parts of the summer, spersed throughout a monotony of boredom. Ember, Krissy, Josie, and Aidan put aside enough money for a trip to Hawaii. Aidan brought his girlfriend along, and Josephine brought along a new boyfriend from college. Ember enjoyed herself, but she couldn't help remembering Dean's words a few months previously, right before they had gotten involved with the Book of the Damned and the Stynes. "We're due for a win, okay? Overdue. I'll tell you another thing, if this actually does work, we're gonna take some time off. And I'm not talking just like a weekend in Vegas or sitting in some crap motel watching pay-per-porn. No, I'm talking about a beach. Drinking cervezas, go for a swim, mingle with the local wildlife. When was the last time any of us was on a beach?"

Working with Charlie was also definitely a high point of the summer. The two had become close, and when Charlie needed a break from decoding the "Book of the Damned", they often spent time at Charlie's new apartment, which was about 45 minutes away from Sam and Dean.

"Cas was around for most of the day today," Charlie said.

"I figured," Ember said. Now that all of the Stynes were dead, Charlie could come and go as she pleased from the abandoned warehouse where Rowena was stationed and the "Book of the Damned" was being held. The spell needed to remove the Mark of Cain had been decoded, but Charlie was still attempting to decode other parts of the book in hopes that there would be some indication of what would happen when the curse was removed. Meanwhile, the group was currently waiting on Crowley to bring the ingredients for the spell to remove the Mark of Cain, which were more complicated than any spell any of them had ever seen before.

Typically Sam, Castiel, or Ember stayed at the warehouse with Rowena 24/7, because otherwise she was prone to attempting to escape, attempting to sneak looks at other parts of the book, or attempting to pick fights with Charlie if she was there. Lately, however, in an effort to avoid Ember, Castiel had been leaving his shift a few minutes early and leaving Charlie in charge, knowing that Charlie would at least tattle on Rowena if she got out of hand.

"You know it's only because he loves you, right?" Charlie asked.

"I don't know that," Ember said. "He won't even look at me."

"He's embarrassed," Charlie said. "He kissed another man's woman."

Ember shook her head sarcastically, holding up her now ringless finger. "You mean the man who threw me across the room and left to go do who knows what with who knows who?" she said, rolling her eyes.

Charlie sighed. "When was the last time he actually talked to you?" Charlie asked.

Ember sighed too. "When we kissed," she admitted. It was good to talk to Charlie, who was the only person, aside from Ember's mother (and Castiel, of course) who knew about the kiss.

Charlie sighed. "He can't avoid you forever," she encouraged.

Despite the fact that Castiel refused to stay in a room with Ember for more than three seconds at a time, the foursome (Castiel, Ember, Charlie, and Sam) still managed to have an awful lot of discussions about what to do next regarding Dean. Of the four of them, Ember had always been the most adamant that no matter what, they needed to learn the consequences of casting the spell to cure Dean of the Mark before they did so. More recently, Ember was ashamed to admit that she was continuing to help Sam's crew as much because she feared whatever horrible thing their spell might release as because she feared for Dean's life and soul with the Mark of Cain. She hoped she could keep control of them, and remind them that Dean wouldn't thank them for opening Pandora's box to save him without making a plan on how to close it later.

Recently, however, she was ashamed to admit that she was losing. Sam became more desperate with each day that passed. Charlie and Castiel were more inclined to follow the strongest voice in the room, which normally was Sam's. Castiel (according to Charlie, anyway) was easy to for Sam to manipulate thanks to his guilt over kissing Ember, not to mention his guilt over still being in love with her in the first place. Charlie agreed with Ember, but didn't have enough power, strength, or clout in the group to put her foot down effectively. Ember had tried, but secretly she was honestly as desperate as Sam.

Suddenly, the phone rang. "Hey Ember," said Sam. "I found Dean. He's in Superior."

-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-

Ember teleported to the bunker, and an hour later she and Sam arrived in Superior, NE. It was difficult to believe that Dean had been so close to home, and yet so far away. He'd trashed his motel room, and left Sam the keys to the Impala, but he was nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, he had gotten a hunter friend of theirs, Rudy, killed on a case. From what Ember could find out, he had been drinking two or three times as much as he had been recently, and had probably spent most of the last month and a half on a drunken bender.

Suddenly, Sam's phone rang. "Dean," he said, telling Ember to shush. "Listen to me – whatever you're doing, whatever you've done, please…" Ember waited with hesitation. It was the first time Dean had contacted either of them in a month, and neither of them wanted Dean to hang up if he found out that she was listening and didn't want her to.

"I saw," Sam was saying into the receiver. "I saw Rudy… No, that wasn't you… No." Sam's face was alarmed now. "No, you're not, Dean." Sam grabbed a pen out of his pocket, and whipped out a card from his wallet. Ember could tell he was writing down an address. Then he hung up. "Dean gave me an address," he said. "He says… he says it's time to say goodbye."

-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-

Ember knew as soon as she and Sam pulled up to the address Dean had provided (an abandoned Mexican restaurant) that something was wrong. "Sam, I – I think he summoned Death," she said.

"Like – the Head Reaper, Death?" Sam asked, aghast.

"Judging by all the reapers standing around… yeah," said Ember. Then something occurred to her. "Wait, Sam… when was the last time you saw Death?"

Sam knew immediately. "When he came to reap me, personally, after the Trials, and Dean talked him out of it."

"And before that?" Ember asked.

"When-…" he stopped, the same thought occurring to him. "When Dean and I bound him in hopes that he would kill Castiel."

"Great," said Ember. "No point going invisible, then. We're surrounded by reapers, Death can see right through me, and for all we know, Dean can as well these days."

Dean was in the restaurant, with Death, as Ember and Sam had expected. He looked different, somehow – older, rougher… crueler. His eyes flicked toward Ember, and for a second she thought she saw a hint of light, of happiness, when he recognized her… but then it was gone.

"Hey," said Sam.

"Sam," Dean greeted him. "Ember."

"What is this?" asked Sam.

"We need to talk."

"Whatever you are thinking of doing, don't," Sam begged. "There is another way. You don't need to go with him. You don't need to die!

Dean shrugged. "Funny you say that. Truth is, when I left, I thought the only way out was my death. Well, I was wrong, Sam. It's yours."

"What?" said Sam.

"Whoa!" said Ember. "Back the fuck up!" She placed herself squarely between Dean and Sam, and demanded, "Start from the beginning."

Death began to explain. "Dean has obtained the Mark of Cain, the First Curse. Nothing can kill him. But there's a reason. Before there was light, before there was God and the archangels, there was the Darkness, a horribly destructive, amoral force that was beaten back by God and his archangels in a terrible war. God locked the Darkness away where it could do no harm. And he created a Mark that would serve as both lock and key, which he entrusted to his most valued Lieutenant, Lucifer. But the Mark began to assert its own will, revealed itself as a curse, and began to corrupt. Lucifer became jealous of man. God banished Lucifer to Hell. Lucifer passed the Mark to Cain, who passed the Mark to you, the proverbial finger in the dike. Dean, here, refuses to share it with another. But he has agreed to allow me to send him to another world, where he can no longer be a danger to himself or others."

"Wait," said Sam. "He's gonna... Gonna send you into outer space?"

"No," said Dean. "Well, he didn't say outer space."

"This is madness, Dean!"

"Far from it, I'm afraid," said Death.

"No one's asking you," said Sam.

"Hear him out!" yelled Dean.

"Our conundrum is simple, Sam. Your brother cannot be killed," said Death. "And the Mark cannot be destroyed, not without inciting a far greater evil than any of us have ever known. And even if I remove Dean from the playing field, we're still left with you, loyal, dogged Sam, who I suspect will never rest until he sets his brother free of the Mark, which simply cannot happen, lest the Darkness be set free."

Ember and Sam looked at each other in horror. "You traded my life," said Sam.

"I'm willing to live with this thing forever, as long as I know that I and it will never hurt another living thing," Dean said.

"This isn't you," Sam said. "This doesn't make any sense."

"No, it makes perfect sense if you stop thinking about yourself for one damn minute!" screamed Dean.

"It's for the greater good," said Death calmly. "Once you consider that, this makes all the sense in the world."

Ember wanted to smack him, but her mind was busy frantically scrabbling for an idea that would save Dean. She felt as though she had had the idea, but it had flown out of her head as quickly as it had come…

"Remember when we were in that church, making Crowley human, about to close the Gates of Hell?" Dean said. "Well, you sure as hell were ready to die for the greater good then."

"Yeah, and, Dean, you pulled me back," said Sam.

"And I was wrong," said Dean. "You were right, Sam. You knew that this world would be better without us in it."

"No, no, no, wait a second. You're twisting my words here, Dean."

"Why?" Dean asked. "Because we - we track evil and kill it? The family business? Is that it? Look at the tape, Sam. Evil tracks us. And it nukes everything in our vicinity - our family, our friends. It's time we put a proper name to what we really are and we deal with it."

"Wait a second," said Sam. "We are not evil. Listen... We're far from perfect, but we are good. That thing on your arm is evil, but not you, not me."

"I let Rudy die," Dean said. "How was that not evil? I know what I am, Sam. But who were you when you -when you drove that man to sell his soul... When you put everyone we know in danger? And to what end? A-a good end? A just end? To remove the Mark no matter what the consequences? Sam, how is that not evil? I have this thing on my arm, and you're willing to let the Darkness into the world."

Ember was silent. There was an idea taking shape, if she could just pin it down…

"You were also willing to summon Death to make sure you could never do any more harm," Sam said. "You summoned me because you knew I would do anything to protect you. That's not evil, Dean. That's not an evil man. That is a good man crying to be heard, searching for... some other way."

That's it! "Wait a minute," Ember said, and both men, and Death, stopped to look at her. "Why are we being such frigging idiots? Build a prison, made of metal. An indestructible prison. Titanium, or something, I don't know, with some major Devil's Trap magic. Find some criminal, some rapist, the worst man on Earth, who deserves nothing but torture. Put him in the prison, and throw him some food every once in awhile if you feel bad for him. Trade off prisoners every few years, or sooner if needed, if one of the prisoners grows powerful quickly, or if we feel bad for them, or if one of them starts to die off and go demon."

Sam and Dean were staring at Ember in earnest, and Death was looking at her as though he'd never seen anything quite like her. "We could throw a bunch of spells around it," said Ember. "Cas and I could maintain it after you two pass on. We'd have to watch it closely, and carefully, but it's got to be better than… better than this…"

"Who would you damn to that life?" Dean challenged her immediately.

At the same time, however, Death said thoughtfully, "The plan has merit."

"It beats this plan," Sam said.

"Wait," Dean said, looking at Death with surprise. "It – it does?"

"I can't deny," said Death, "This would allow me to reap both of you, in the end, and not just one of you. And that is something I sorely desire. I did tell you earlier, Dean, that you had the option of passing it on to another."

"But-"

"I never told you that 'other' needn't be a man on Death Row, for instance," Death continued. He looked at Sam and Dean. "Don't ever let her go," he told them. "She's clearly the only one of the three of you with any higher intelligence." He turned to Ember. "Not that I dabble in your affairs," he said to her in his drawling voice. "But the angel was a much better choice."

Then Death was gone.

"What the hell!" Dean screamed. "You sent him away! We had a plan!"

"It sucked!" screamed Sam. "It ended with you on…" he seemed lost for words. "On freaking Mars for the rest of your life, and me dead!"

"You wanted to be dead, only two years ago!" Dean screamed. "You were the one who said-…"

"I was wrong!" screamed Sam.

They began to charge at each other then, but Ember hit both of them with a blast of force power. Ember had directed most of her force power at Dean, but it made no difference: Sam was blasted upward and skidded back several feet, while Dean remained standing, the Mark of Cain protecting him. They would have to imprison the bearer of the Mark in an incredible sort of cage, Ember thought. Still, she was fairly certain they could do it, with the right resources and people assembled.

They just had to convince the Mark's current bearer.

Fortunately, as ineffective as the blast of force power had been against him, at least now he was paying attention. "Dean Winchester," Ember said seriously. "Are you actually telling me, that as much as you've done – after saving the world, how many times – that you deserve to walk around on Mars for the rest of your life more than some murdering rapist deserves to be imprisoned in a box for 40 years? I never took you for a masochist, but maybe you are."

Sam's mouth dropped open.

Dean looked at Ember with rage-filled eyes, and he started toward her as though he might strike her… but something else got this attention first. From outside, there was a horrible rumbling. Then, suddenly, the Mark on his arm began to glow red and crackle… until it disappeared. A bolt of red lightning blasted from Dean's arm through the roof of the abandoned Mexican restaurant. "Aah!" he screamed.

The three of them watched in horror as the Mark of Cain faded away. There was a beat of silence. Sam and Ember both looked at Dean warily. Dean stared back at Sam, his eyes wide and fearful.

Sam broke the silence first. "This is good. Dean, this is good. The - the Mark is off your arm. Nothing crazy happened." He held up the keys to the Impala. "You get your baby back."

Ember gave Sam a "what have you done?" look.

"Yeah," said Dean sarcastically. "I'm sure everything's perfectly fine."

Together, the three of them piled out of the abandoned restaurant. A loud crackling sound made them all look up toward the sky.

"What the h-…" said Sam. The sky was glowing dark red, and several red lightning strikes shot through the air. Suddenly, the red lightning from the sky began to hit the ground all around where Sam, Dean, and Ember were standing. Ember automatically grasped Dean in fear, and he held her closely. She caught his eye, and in it she saw her own emotions reflected – her happiness at the fact that he was rid of the Mark, her anger at whatever Sam had done, because she knew that the group back home was responsible for this – and, more than anything, sheer terror.

"What did death call this?" asked Sam.

"The Darkness," Ember and Dean whispered together.

The ground began to rumble, and columns of black smoke erupted from the spots where the red lightning had struck. They converged on one spot, across a field from where the brothers and Ember were standing, into a huge rolling cloud of black smoke. Ember, Dean, and Sam looked at each other in fear.

"Get in the car!" yelled Dean.

Ember, Sam, and Dean dove into the Impala just as the black smoke rose over them.