Chapter 12:

"Who else?" Adam asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Why?" Dean asked quietly as though he were speaking to skittish horse that could bolt at the slightest provocation.

"Why what?"

It took him a few moments but Dean realized that Adam was being purposefully difficult. He bit back the angry tirade that wanted to break through because Dean knew that Adam had every right to be mad at them. He took a calming breath and answered. "Why would you agree to being possessed by an angel again? You let Michael possess you the last time and how did that turn out? You should have known better by now."

"I should have known better by now?"

"Yes! Getting possessed is a bad experience. Do you know how many people suffer because they get possessed by demons? And here you are agreeing to being possessed! You ungrateful brat! What's dead should stay dead! You got a second chance at life without any of the drawbacks resurrection normally comes with and yet you have the gall to just throw your life away the first chance you get?! Kate would have been so disappointed at you!" John paused maybe to catch his breath or maybe to ramp up the dramatic effect, either way his monologue was met with silence. Mary and Dean were shocked to silence at John's insensitive speech, while Sam looked resigned. Stella and Castiel watched on quietly, not wanting to draw any attention to them. Adam on the other hand watched John with an inscrutable expression and then turned towards Stella and asked "What's your verdict?" He sounded bored.

"Dean's genuinely worried. He's having flash backs to what happened in the Stull Cemetery, the apocalyptic 2014 which Zachariah showed him where Lucifer won and what happened to my last vessel when I had to flee quickly. He's just emotionally stunted. My verdict? He's genuine. As for John Winchester, well, the less said the better."

"Wait a second! Last vessel – your Raphael aren't you?!" Dean asked suddenly worried. They might have survived Gabriel alone – he was the least smite first, ask questions later kind of angel they have ever run into. But now they were in the same room as two archangels and they had trapped both of them in rings of Holy Fire. The situation as far as Dean was concerned went from bad to worse without a moment's notice.

"Do not fear, Dean. We won't harm you or your siblings. I can even vouch for your mother. Your father, not so much. Both Adam and Stella are very upset with your father and insisted that he pay for his sins. And he will, make no mistakes about that. I healed my former vessel about a week after I left him. That was the earliest I could get back to him. He fell in love with his roommate's granddaughter, got married six months later and now they have a four month old son." She paused and then with a slight smile continued "They named the little child Raphael, you know? It wasn't necessary but I admit that it was a nice gesture."

"What?" Dean spluttered.

"I'm sorry, Adam." she said turning to him with a slight frown. "I think I broke your brother."

Adam burst out laughing at that. A few moments later he sobered up and asked "The verdict, Raphael. You promised me that."

Stella – no, Raphael – sighed at that. She answered "He started as a good man but he lost his way during the journey. He's fixated on his views about the world and how it should be and anything that goes against his views will be eliminated or beaten down into submission, be it a complete stranger or his own family, his own son."

"I'm sorry I worried you, Dean. I spent over three hundred years in the Cage with Sam and I've got rather close to him. I didn't know if I could trust you because you reminded me too strongly of John. It was Stella who convinced me to give you a chance; I had originally wanted all of you to pay for what you did. It's odd but for some reason whenever I think of the Winchesters it's always just you and John that popped up into my brain. Sam's just Sam for some odd reason. So was Stella. But Gabriel offered me a different solution. He's the angel of Judgement, he decides the fates of all those who cross his path. If either of you were truly guilty he will do as he must. If the way you acted was because all other choices had been taken away from you, I have no right to criticize you. That's why we went out of our way to bring you here where no one could get hurt if Gabriel had to go all Archangel on your collective asses."

"Wait, what do you mean no one could get in your way?" Dean asked flabbergasted.

It was Sam who answered this time. "There was a fire. The entire town burned down. No survivors. The patients were all bed-ridden and the medical personnel tried to save as many as they can but got trapped in themselves. Someone had called the fire station but they were too late. There were just too many flammable medications in here. All they managed to do was to contain the fire within the town. That's how Stella died actually. More than a decade of being bed-ridden and then her conditioned worsened till she fell into a coma. In the end it was a fire that finally killed her."

"Wait. So all this is –" Mary stopped sharply, unable to put her questions into words.

"Oh yeah, Mama Winchester's never met little old me before. I'm Gabriel, The Messenger, Angel of Judgement, Justice, Vengeance, Water, Death, yadda, yadda, yadda. We Arches have way too many titles than we know what to do with." Gabriel said with an exaggerated bow.

"And this my dearest Madonna, is what your many children have started calling as one of my pocket dimensions."

A/N:

Special thanks to IanAlphaAxel and Karen Winchester.