Dark was the wrong word to use when describing the Empty, the place that angels went when they died. Empty was another word for it, a very apt word, but it didn't feel so empty at the moment, not with Billie the Reaper there with Jack. She was Death, he'd learned. And they had had a lot to talk about.
They weren't done with all the talking either.
But Jack was growing impatient. He was pacing the Empty, and that's when he realized what it was: nothing.
This was just nothing, and Jack realized he must be some great being to exist in it.
A great being who'd been killed by God.
"I don't know why I have to wait," Jack said.
"We have to wait till God is no longer on Earth. We don't want him sensing your return."
Jack scowled, moving at a quicker pace now: back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. If it truly was a floor he was standing on he'd be wearing lines into it.
"I can take him," Jack argued.
"No, you can't." Jack just glared, and Billie went on, "But you will. Soon. You'll have to do what we discussed."
Jack waved a hand, annoyed, impatient. "Yeah, yeah, the Grigori hearts, I know."
"Jack, this isn't something you should just wave away. You will kill God, and I will reap him."
"Then why haven't we done it already? He— The longer he's out there, the more he could be hurting my family."
Jack sat down, pulling his knees up to his chest and ran his hands through his hair, over the sides of his head.
"Your family who locked you up, wanted you dead?"
"You wouldn't understand."
Jack hadn't understood at first, but now he did. In the Empty he was a lot more clear-headed, though he still wasn't sure about the fate of his soul. Maybe he didn't need it. He just needed power.
But underneath that there was still love for his dads.
Castiel hadn't interfered at all. He'd tried to save Jack. In the end, Sam had too. And Dean had been able to carry through. They'd all screamed when Jack was dying.
They cared.
As for locking him up, Sam and Dean hadn't wanted to do that. Jack just knew it. It was something they thought they'd had to do.
And waiting here was something Jack had to, though he greatly hated it.
"Billie, I want to see them."
She held out her hand towards Jack, assuring it was a power he already had within him.
Jack placed his hand against what he registered as the floor (though it really wasn't one) in the Empty, and he closed his eyes, thinking of his Dad's. It was natural using his powers, even here.
When he opened them again, after a spark of power had flurried from his hand, he could see his dads, like he was looking through a window. With minor curls and bends of his fingers he could even change which angle he looked at them from, how close he was.
They were in a room in the bunker he hadn't been in before. There were a lot of dials, readouts, and wires. And they were mad.
That much was obvious. Their shoulders were raised, tense, and Dean and Castiel kept glaring at each other, something that broke Jack's heart. Sam seemed to be a little less angered, but he was concentrating hard, sleeves rolled up, some sort of tool in his hand.
Jack couldn't hear them, hadn't willed that to happen. In a way, he didn't want to hear them. It wouldn't be real. Well, it would be, but it'd be like he was actually there, which he wasn't. Already he wanted to reach out his hand to them, open his arms, hug them, feel it as they hugged him back. Jack missed their sturdiness, missed what he'd ended up associating as "dad smell," though it differed with each one. He missed their warmth, he missed their voices, their smiles.
But there was none of that now.
They were cold with each other, no warmth there at all. And they seemed desperate.
"Are they save in there?" Jack asked, knowing that Billie must know what he was referring to.
"In a way."
Jack turned from watching his dads, looking back at Death.
"In a way?" he repeated, asking it as a question.
"They survived the zombies." Jack smiled at this information, but it fell as Billie went on. "But now they're trapped in the bunker. It thinks they're in danger — which they are — so it's put them on lockdown to protect them."
"Can God get in?"
"He has before."
Jack stood up in a flash. "Then we have to do something!"
"Not yet. Chuck believes he's finished with them. He won't do anything just yet."
"But…" Jack trailed off when he realized he didn't have an argument for Death. To her, love wasn't a strong enough argument. He'd learned since the time he'd been there with her that she had no love. There was only her job, a wish for balance. And there was no balance, not with the universe ending. Jack looked down at his dad's again. Sam had a sling. Another sling rested on one of the control panels, and Dean seemed to be favoring his right arm. Jack could see a swath of heavy bandages on it. "They're hurt," he eventually argued.
"And they have been hurt before. They will get through this."
"How do you know?"
Billie didn't smile, but it was in her voice as she said, "They've looked worse, particularly when they've died. And they avoided the permanence of that many a time. Some injuries aren't going to knock them down."
Jack screwed up his face, almost pouted. He didn't really like it, but maybe Billie was right.
His dads were tough, strong.
Jack sat back down on the floor, watching as it seemed like they started arguing. He buried his head against his legs. He missed them.
Jack wondered if they missed him.
Billie seemed to know his thoughts and now she came over and waved her hand over the images on the floor. What Jack saw were metal lockers of some sort, a wall of them, like there was in the infirmary.
"They took your body with them," Billie told him. "They haven't forgotten you."
"But what if with new power I forget them?"
Death had no answer. Jack watched and waited.