The first thing they did was call around to everyone and make sure they were all back. Bobby, Charlie and her new girlfriend, Jody and the girls, Donna . . . Eileen. Sam spent over an hour on the phone with her without saying a single word, their faces and fingers saying it all.
A few days later, they all met at the bunker for a catch-up on everything that had happened. And it was a lot.
"Chuck's gone," Dean began, getting right to the point. "He's not dead, but Jack rendered him powerless. By the way, Jack is kind of God now. He fixed everything, and then he-"
"Dean." Sam pointed up to the entryway, where a bright light had suddenly appeared. It floated down to the floor in front of them and took shape. Jack's shape.
"And now I'm back," he said. "Hello."
Everyone was speaking at once, and Jack held his hands up for quiet. "Please. I know you have a lot of questions, but I came here to tell you one thing. I have restored all the other worlds, the ones my grandfather destroyed. Including," he said, looking at Bobby and the other Apocalypse World survivors, "yours."
"What the hell does that mean?" the older man demanded.
"It means you can go home, if you want. I can open the way for you any time I want. Just say the word."
"And what have we got to go back to? A dead world and a bunch of angels who want to kill us? No, thanks. We're here now. We'll stay here."
pJack smiled. "I thought you'd say that. I had to give you the choice. What about the rest of you? Are you all in agreement?"
They all said that they were.
"Okay. That's fine. I'm not like Chuck - I won't make you do anything you don't want to do. What's the point of people having free will if I just force them to do what I want anyway? No, you're free to live wherever you want. Do whatever you want."
"What about Heaven?" asked someone in the back. Dean turned and saw that it was Claire. "What about all the human souls in Heaven?"
"Heaven is safe, for now. My next stop is the Empty. I plan to clear it out and return all the angels and demons to where they belong. If that's what they want, I mean. Once the Empty is, well, empty again, the Entity that lives there can get back to sleep."
"Oh, boy," Dean said. At Sam's questioning look, he said, "Crowley. Crowley's not gonna be happy that Rowena's queen of Hell now."
"I think they might be happy to see each other again," said Jack. "You never know."
"What about all the monsters?" asked Charlie. "Are they back?"
In answer, Jack waved a hand. There was a whine of machinery starting up, and then a ping. A ping that Sam and Dean knew all too well.
"The monster radar!" Dean looked like a kid on Christmas morning.
Jack shrugged. "I didn't want you getting bored. You can run dispatch from here. You have the knowledge, you have the weapons . . . have some fun."
"Will we ever see you again?" asked Donna, her eyes misting up.
In answer, Jack quoted Christ's last words to his disciples: "Know that I am with you always, until the end of the world."
The goodbyes took nearly ten minutes. Everyone gave Jack a hug and a few words of wisdom, while he was still corporeal. He told them that he would be watching, not writing the story. It was up to them to write their own lives now.
"Hey," Dean said, as if he had just remembered. "Cas?"
"I'll send him back to you," Jack said. "I don't know how long he'll be able to stay - restoring Heaven will take a lot of work - but I think you have something to say to him?"
Dean nodded, his face both hopeful and tearful.
"In the meantime," the new God said, nodding toward the control room, "you've got work to do."
Then he was gone.
Wiping his eyes, Dean followed Sam to where everyone was gathered around this strange device they had never seen before.
Sam took charge. "Okay," he said. "This is our monster radar. It tells us what we have and where exactly they are. The rest is up to you. Let's see . . . we've got a werewolf in Bismarck, North Dakota."
Charlie looked at Stevie. "You up for a werewolf hunt, hon?"
"I'm in."
"Good." She smiled, looking forward to spending more time with her hopefully-girlfriend.
"Right. I'll send you the coordinates once you're on the road." Sam looked for the next ping. "Looks like we've got a vamp nest in Orlando . . . who's on that?"
Dean just stood back and watched him doing what he was born to do. This was their life. Always had been. And after all the crap they'd been through, it felt good to get back to basics. Saving people. Hunting things.
There was a flash of light, and he thought that Jack had come back. But it wasn't Jack.
"Dean," said a familiar gravelly voice.
He dared to open his eyes.
"Cas?" It wasn't a dream. It wasn't one of Lucifer's tricks. Cas was really there.
The angel looked at him, and his wings flared out behind him - not the broken things they had been since the fall, but full, strong wings, the way they were the first time Dean had seen him, all those years ago.
He had no words. He ran to Cas and embraced him.