Several days later, Piper was slicing a turkey to make sandwiches for Dean and Bobby when Sam finally woke up.
She smiled brilliantly, but since she was covered in gunk, didn't move from where she was. "Sammy!"
He smiled, running a hand through his hair. "Uh, yeah. Hi."
"You're up walking around with the living. How are you feeling?"
"Yeah," he said, leaning against the counter next to her. "Put my own socks on and everything. I feel fine, honestly." At her cocked eyebrow, he shrugged. "I'm as surprised as you are, but I really do feel all right."
She smiled again. "Well, good. Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth, then." She bumped him with her shoulder. "But if that changes, you'll let me know, yeah?"
He smiled and leaned over to press a kiss to the side of her head. "Sure thing, Pipe."
She beamed and turned back to make a sandwich for Sam, too. For a few minutes she just enjoyed the silence between them. It was comfortable, known. She had been friends with Sam for a long, long time, and just then, with nothing specific hovering over their heads like a dark cloud, it was nice to just be with her brother-in-law for a while.
"So," he said gently, "what happened with Cass?"
She sighed. Peacefulness broken. "Well, if you'll hand me that lettuce from the fridge, I'll fill you in while I make lunch."
Piper watched the news in horror, one hand covering her mouth. Dean had an arm wrapped around her, but she was a bit numb to everything.
Cass. They're talking about Cass.
"The sudden deaths of some two hundred religious leaders are currently under investigation. The Vatican has yet to issue a statement, but some are already calling this an act of god."
The camera switched to a woman being interviewed.
"We all saw him. No beard, no robe. He was young, and… and… Sexy. And he had a raincoat."
Dean leaned forward and switched it off harshly.
Piper was in the front yard doing yoga while Dean worked on the Impala. She was balanced on her left foot, arms outstretched, eyes closed. She'd done a good job of tuning out the radio so far, but there was only so long she could go without something sinking in.
"-believed to be target hits high up in white-supremacy organizations. The FBI now believes the Ku Klux Klan has been forced to disband."
Dean snorted. "Can't argue with that one."
Piper sighed and accepted that yoga and peace weren't really going to be an option today.
Two evenings later, Piper sat with Sam on the trunk of an old junker, watching Dean work under the Impala's hood. The infernal radio was still speaking.
"A freak lightning strike on the heels of the fire that burned down the Center for Vibrational Enlightenment earlier today. Said the spokesman, 'This tragedy represents the largest loss in New Age motivational speaker history.'"
Sam snorted. "Motivational speakers?"
Dean turned to grin at them. "Yeah, I'm not sure new Cass gets irony any better than old Cass."
Piper sighed, rolling her beer bottle between her hands restlessly. "Of course, old Cass wouldn't smite Madison Square garden just to prove a point."
"He's off the deep end," Dean grunted, face turned back into the engine, muffling his voice. "Off the deep end of the deep end, and there's no slowing down."
Sam was frowning. "So, what? Try to talk to him again?"
Dean rolled his eyes. "Sam."
"Dean, all we can do is talk to the guy."
"He's not a guy," Dean snapped. "He's god, and he's pissed. And when god gets righteous, you get the hell out of the way. Haven't you read the Bible?"
"I guess…"
Dean turned to look at both of them. "Cass is never coming back," he said harshly. Piper winced, but he kept going. "He lied to us, he used us, he cracked Sam's gourd like it was nothing. No more talk. We've spent enough time on him."
It made Piper's chest ache to think of her friend out there, trying to fix the world all by himself. She knew very well what he'd done, but it still made her hurt.
"Okay," she said softly, tears in her eyes. "You're right."
Dean came forward and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tight. She buried her face in his shoulder, soaking in the comfort he always offered.
When he released her, he pressed a hard kiss to her forehead and held a hand out to Sam.
"We're done. Hand me that socket wrench."
Sam was reading at the kitchen table that night, although he wasn't really paying attention to the book in front of him.
He understood where Dean was coming from, he really did. He was obviously just as upset with Cass as Dean was, and for good reason. Cass had fucked up pretty royally.
On the other hand… Hadn't all of them?
Dean opening the first seal, Sam releasing Lucifer, Cass cracking open purgatory… It all seemed too similar for Sam to ignore. Was he pissed? Sure he was, Cass had broken his head open and rooted around in there for no good reason. Of course he was pissed, but they'd all messed up in one way or another over the years and they'd been forgiven. After everything they'd all been through, Sam really didn't see how forgiving Cass was out of the realm of possibility.
His musings were interrupted by the sound of the ceiling panel crackling. Sam's head jerked up just in time to see a long chain fall down through the new hole and wrap itself around his neck. He immediately started to thrash, but to no avail as it dragged him up toward the ceiling. A dark voice was pouring from the hole, laughing as Sam strangled to death.
With a jerk, Sam sat up at the kitchen table. Looking around, adrenaline flowing and heart pumping hard, he realized that it had been some sort of… Dream?
"Dean?" he asked. "Bobby? Piper?"
There was no one.
Piper was so tired of having this argument.
"Well," Sam said evenly, "a publishing house literally exploded about an hour ago. Look, Cass has a body count that's really getting up there. We've gotta do something."
"What we've gotta do is hunt the son of a bitch," Bobby grunted. "Unfortunately, I seem to have lost my god guns."
Piper pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers, trying to hold off the headache she felt brewing. "Is there some sort of heavenly weapon we can use?" Even thinking about using a weapon on their friend made her upset, but she was trying to be responsible about it. "Maybe something out of the angel arsenal that Balthazar stole? There's gotta be something that can… Uh, something that can stop him."
Dean's eyes were sympathetic, but firm. "He's god, Pipes. There's nothing." He blinked. "But there might be someone."
"This is an absolutely fucking awful idea," Piper said again without heat. Her arguments were falling on deaf ears, but by god, they would be voiced, anyway.
Bobby shrugged. "It's kinda all we got, Pi," he said, almost apologetic as he dropped a match into the bowl in front of him. The flames jumped a few feet into the air, brushing lovingly against the ceiling of the basement they were in as Crowley appeared inside the devil's trap painted on the floor.
"Still a bad plan," she muttered as she eyed the whiskey in Crowley's hand, envy curling in her heart.
The demon, for his part, was scowling. "No, no, no! Come on!"
"I agree," Piper said wistfully.
Bobby rolled his eyes. "Don't act so surprised."
"My new boss is going to kill me for even talking to you people," Crowley lamented.
Dean sneered. "Well, you're lucky we're not stabbing you in your scuzzy face, you piece of shit."
Sam was sitting up. "Woah, wait! What new boss?"
"Castiel, you giraffe."
Bobby's eyebrows went up. "Is your boss?"
Crowley scoffed. "Is everybody's boss. What do you think he's going to do if he finds out we've been conspiring?" He paused. "You do want to conspire, don't you?"
Bobby rolled his eyes. "No. We want you to stand there and look pretty."
Crowley made a face at him, but sobered quickly. "I'm listening."
Dean took a deep breath. "We need a spell to bind Death."
There was a beat of incredulous silence before Crowley turned to meet Piper's eyes. "Bind? Enslave Death? You having a laugh at me, peach?"
She held her hands up. "Don't look at me, I don't like this plan."
"It's not even a plan!" Crowley snarled.
"Hey, Lucifer did it," Dean protested.
Crowley nodded. "That's Lucifer."
Sam shrugged. "A spell's a spell."
Crowley glared at him. "You really believe you can handle that kind of horsepower? You're delusional!"
Dean shook his head. "Death is the only player on the board left that has the kind of juice to take on Cas."
"They'll both mash us like peas. Why should I help with a suicide mission?"
"It won't be a suicide mission," Dean insisted.
"How do you expect bringing Death and god together in the same room to fight to be anything but a suicide mission?" Crowley shrieked.
"Well, Death likes Piper."
Piper blinked and stared at her husband. "What?!"
He blinked. "Well he does."
"You want to bind Death, and your whole back up plan is that he likes me?!" Piper was panicking. Is this panic? Yes. I'm panicking. She looked at Sam. "How are you even remotely okay with this?"
He shrugged. "I mean, it's a better plan than nothing."
"Is it?" she hissed.
"Why do you think Death even likes her?" Crowley asked, although his voice had lost some of the frantic fury it had had before.
"We don't!" Piper insisted.
"I mean, he didn't turn her into a bloody smear in Chicago," Dean offered.
Crowley nodded. "True."
"He needed me! I was just useful!"
"Now now, peach, he could have given the ring to your squirrel of a husband instead, couldn't he have? No, there must be a reason he chose to speak with you instead."
Piper blinked. "What's happening right now? What's happening right now?"
"I think Crowley is agreeing to work with us," Sam said with a smile.
The demon sighed. "I suppose if I had to bet on anything, I'd bet on you, Mrs. Winchester."
Dean grinned. "Preach."
That night, there was a fight.
"This is stupid," Piper snapped, pacing in the kitchen. "This is a terrible idea."
Dean sighed. He understood where Piper was coming from, he did, it was just that this was their only hope. Not to mention he really believed that Death would never hurt Piper. He wasn't sure why, but it was a bone-deep feeling, and he was willing to bet on it.
"It's the only idea we have," he said, trying to keep his voice gentle.
She whirled and pointed at him. "Isn't this exactly what we were fighting about a week ago? Being reckless and stupid?"
"Well, not-"
"Dean!" she said, her voice pleading. "Dean, baby, please. This is crazy. There has to be another way."
"What other way?" he asked harshly. "Piper, if you can find another way to take Cass down, I'm all ears. But remember that he's god, his power is unlimited, and we're not his favorite people anymore. So if you have another plan, I'm more than willing to hear you out. Until then, this is what we're doing."
He hated yelling at Piper, he really did, but she had to see. She had to see that sometimes, yes, he was a little reckless, a little stupid, but never with Piper's life. Never with Piper.
This was a good plan. Sort of.
Her fiery hazel eyes stared into his for a few more tense moments before they seemed to dull, and her pretty face crumpled. "I hate this," she whispered.
Dean was at her side in an instant, wrapping her up tight and cradling her head as she buried her face in his neck. "I know, kitten, I know."
"How could he do this to us?" she whimpered. "He's our best friend."
Dean didn't have an answer for her, so he just rocked her back and forth.
The next morning, Piper was making breakfast when a piece of paper was slipped under the door. She blatantly ignored it while Bobby picked it up.
She still hated the plan. She thought it was stupid to just wager all of their lives on the off-chance that Death actually even remembered her, much less liked her at all. Dean had joked for years about everyone being nice to her, about every being they met being enamored with her. She let the teasing happen, mostly because she thought she was probably just easier to be nice to than either of the Winchesters or Bobby.
This, though, this was nuts. Even if they hadn't had her, the plan was nuts.
Bobby was looking at the paper. "It's from Crowley."
Dean, sitting at the kitchen table, clapped his hands together. "Well, who feels like hog-tying Death tonight?"
Bobby sighed. "Old age is overrated anyhow."
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