BOBBY'S PLACE - NIGHT

Dean sat outside, staring at the sky. Two timelines were about to be destroyed. They could only save one. And he was the one who had to choose. It was an easier choice a few days ago, that was for damn sure. And now he had to go inside and tell everyone what he saw, the tear in the sky. Tell them how this all was supposed to end. Or else lie to everyone and ask them to fight the devil without knowing what would happen to their world if they won.

But if they didn't stop Crowley soon, who knew what would happen to this world anyway. Right? And this place... It couldn't be all it was cracked up to be. That would mean everyone they loved was better off with-. And anyway, the only way they knew of to save this place was to cack themselves. No. There was no way this was the best of all possible worlds. Dean's timeline wasn't perfect, but at least Crowley wasn't stealing souls at the mall and laughing about it on TV. And if they set things right, would anyone here know the difference? Yeah, they could Back to the Future II this place away and everyone would be fine. Probably.

Dean couldn't feel his face anymore, he'd been standing in the cold so long. Putting off going inside and telling everyone. Finally, he just made himself put one foot in front of the other and headed back inside. He'd figure out what to say when he got there.

Meanwhile, the hunting party had been glued to the tv watching Inferno for a while now. Sam hung back from them, sitting on the stairs. Thinking about the pistol in his jacket. If he told Dean he had the Colt, he was sure he knew exactly what would happen: Dean would take it from him. Take away any decision he had in the matter and put a bullet in it. And this world - and everyone in it - would be destroyed.

This world without Leviathans. Without the need for pulling AP prophets out of high school. Where Bobby was alive, and Cas was safe and sane. This world where Lucifer, Michael, and Raphael were gone for good, and Sam and Dean Winchester had died heroes... Where all the mistakes Sam had made over the last three years hadn't happened.

Sure, Crowley and Balthazar were consolidating power here, but... was it really that bad? Like, what were they even doing, anyway? Well, besides killing all the angels. And buying up tons of souls. Okay, it was a lot of scary stuff, but! They killed Raphael, right? They didn't seem to know where Purgatory was, either. And just because Sam and Dean couldn't kill Crowley without bringing the universe down, didn't mean someone else couldn't eventually, right?

Maybe... maybe if they didn't kill anyone, nothing would happen and they could just kinda... stay there. After all, Crowley was the one who told them one of the timelines had to go. Are they just trusting Crowley now? No. It couldn't be that simple. They couldn't have all the information. Sam made up his mind to be unconvinced.

Meanwhile-. Mean yet another while, Castiel stood in the kitchen, stirring his spaghetti sauce. Glum over the whole situation. On the one hand, he'd had a hard time adjusting to Sam and Dean coming back to break up the life he'd made for himself. It had only been a few years, but the people he'd bonded with and the place he'd won in their hearts meant so much to him. It was a comfort and an honor and it would break his heart to lose it. But on the other hand... he knew Dean was right about him. No matter how hard he tried, he wasn't "N. Cassidy," the weird, risk-averse librarian.

He could cope with being mortal. And he didn't mind the fact that he had, at most, only a few decades left to live. But he couldn't bear the indignity of living them in fear and shame. If he had to die in this vessel, why not go out like an angel? But he knew why not. He owed Bobby his life, in every sense of the word "owed" he knew. Taking Dean's side in all this, against Bobby, felt wrong.

"Boys!?" Jody hollered from the couch. Sam came back downstairs just as Dean rushed back to the living room, the two of them so heavy with the weight of literally two worlds on their shoulders, any distraction was welcome. Castiel came in from the kitchen to join them.

There was something happening on the tv and Jody was pointing at it. "He's dead, right?" she asked, sounding panicked that the answer might be 'no'. But without context, it just looked like tv show crap. Xena-type stuff. The audience was into it, though. Cheers and screams and concerned awe. Crowley was standing on a devil's trap-.

Well. A toothless, tv-version of a devil's trap. Translating the symbols would roughly warn you: 'proximity enough to read this sigil bids you service the king's-.' Never mind. It's funnier in Enochian.

But Crowley was still emoting like he was trapped. And Balthazar was on the other side of the set, threatening someone with all the powers of Hell at his disposal. Someone standing between him and Crowley, brandishing a flashy sword. 'Archangel,' Balthazar called him. And the camera jumped back to this Archangel, giving orders, holding court. Demanded the weapons Balthazar had stolen from Heaven...

It looked like Raphael.