WARNING(S): This chapter contains spoilers for the season 13 finale, "Let the Good Times Roll".

This chapter has (literally) been on my mind since I wrote my first season 13 fic, "When Angels Fall" and I saw the clip from that episode. There are no spoilers for this fic trilogy. Just the episode. Honestly, this chapter had been planned from the moment I made the chapter list, but I wasn't sure what to do with it until season 13 happened.

Hope you like it!

At night, whether it was while she slept either on some dingy motel bed or her memory foam mattress back in her room at the bunker, Aline had dreams.

Most of the time, they were regular, run of the mill dreams related to her and Dean. AKA chick flick ones where they lived normal lives, complete with some rom-com bull and the two of them getting married (of course, her dreams also gave Sam a girlfriend, looks changing every so often), having a couple of kids and a two-story house with a garage fit for Baby. There were no monsters to worry about (she was fully human. Not that she didn't mind the perks that came with being Amaterasu's half-human daughter), John and Mary were alive, her mom was alive and divorced from her father. Everything was perfect...until she'd wake up and reality hit her like a monster truck at a demolition derby.

The other dreams, however, were strange and confusing, but she never remembered them when she woke up, only remembering how she felt during them.

Tonight would be no different.

She was in the bunker, helping Castiel up off the ground. Dean was there, along with another man she didn't recognize, but her body definitely did. Sam wasn't there, neither was another person.

Her nose (it didn't seem like hers, yet it was) caught Sam's fading scent (blood, musk, libraries, and garden roses), beach roses (who that belonged to, she didn't know, but part of her did), and white roses.

She also caught the stronger scents of Dean (whiskey, gunpowder, leather, and gladiolus), Cas (hibiscus), and vanilla.

The fact that she could smell white roses and vanilla made her freeze and her heart stop.

How had Michael and Lucifer get out of the cage? She'd last seen them back in the graveyard years ago, when Sam dragged himself, the two archangels, and Adam down to Hell, to the cage. How had they gotten out?

The stranger leaning against the same wall Kevin died on was where Michael's scent was the strongest, mixed with blood, holy fire, and gunpowder. But this man didn't look like Adam. He didn't even smell like the Michael she remembered from before Sam said "yes."

But something told her that he was Michael. He was what Dean would've become if he, like Sam, had said "yes" instead of a resounding "no." If he'd won against Lucifer.

"What just happened?" Dean inquired, interrupting Aline's train of thought.

"I don't know," Cas answered truthfully.

Michael grunted as he shifted positions before saying grimly, "The Devil won. That's what happened."

"How do we stop him?" Aline asked the archangel. She sounded different, like she'd been fighting some kind of darkness in herself for four years.

"You don't. After consuming the Nephilim's grace, Lucifer's all juiced up. He's super-charged. He'll kill the boy, your brother. Hell, he could end the whole universe if he put his mind to it. And you thought I was bad. You can't even stop him."

Aline's fists clenched. She knew she felt stronger than she had been before, all powered up. She felt herself reach for something, but Dean grabbed her hand, shaking his head.

"No," he denied. "No, you beat him. We saw you."

"When he was weaker, and I was stronger. Believe me, I'd love to rip my brother apart. But now in this banged up meatsuit...not happening. This is the end of everything."

She looked over at Dean, fist clenched even tighter than before, and she saw a very familiar looking expression on his face.

The look that said "Forgive me, but I have to do this". The "there's no other option" expression.

She rapidly shook her head with wide eyes, but that look never disappeared until Dean looked Michael's way.

"No. What if...what if you had your sword?"

The moment he said that, gladiolus began to overpower whiskey, gunpowder, and leather. Out of the corner of her eye, Cas looked at Dean wide-eyed.

"Dean, no," he begged, but the hunter ignored him and took a step toward the archangel, gladiolus mixing with vanilla. Dean was just far enough away from her to only be touching her fingertips with his own.

"I am your sword. Your perfect vessel. With me, you'd be stronger than you'd ever been."

"Oh, I know what you are."

"If we work together, can we beat Lucifer?"

"Dean..." Cas called out, and Aline ran toward the older Winchester, giving his hand a squeeze when she was right next to him.

Together or not at all. That was the promise they'd made to each other two days after Dean got the mark.

And she fully intended to keep it even if it killed her.

"Can we?"

Michael glanced between hunter and demigod before answering, "We'd have a chance."

"Dean, you can't."

"Lucifer has Sam. He has Jack. Cas, I don't have a choice!" Dean shouted, not even looking Cas's way.

"We could ask..."

"Mom's not answering me, Cas!" Aline interrupted. "I don't agree with this either, but there's no other option!"

Dean looked at Michael, a determined expression on his face. "If we do this, it's a onetime deal. I'm in charge. You're the engine, but I'm behind the wheel. Understand?"

There was something in Michael's eyes, the same something that had been in Rao's eyes before she brought up the Fox Rods.

And it left Aline with an uneasy feeling that remained even as she woke up.