A/N: Hello everyone! Where have you all gone? I miss you guys. MaraDixon413: Yeah… Poor Dean didn't get any further than the passcode screen, poor baby. 3 You have to admit, though, he's doing pretty well for a six-year-old from the eighties. Of course, Dean always was completely unadulteratedly awesome, so…
I do not own Supernatural or its characters.
Chapter 34: The Great Escape: Part 1
"John, will you leave off staring at them damn woods and get over here?"
That man didn't move from his position: standing at the edge of camp, just inside the salt line, staring into blackness.
"You know, if you're hoping to get a glimpse of that ghost, you're not gonna make her appear by staring at trees."
John sucked in a breath, "I can try."
Bobby shifted, trying to get a better look at the book in the flickering firelight, "Yeah, well, okay, but if you ever want to stop looking like you got dumped on prom night and actually do some work, I could sure use some help figuring out what this thing is."
John sighed, turning to walk back to the main camp. "Yeah, sure. Sorry, Bobby."
"Okay. Now, what do we know about this thing?"
"Um, it has a lot of power; it can control weather phenomena."
Bobby scratched a note on an extra sheet of paper and nodded, "Yeah, good… anything else?"
"It can-" John's voice threatened to break and he cleared his throat, "It can control spirits."
Bobby paused, "Or something resembling spirits. All you've heard is a voice, and I ain't seen nothing."
John looked down, "Right. Yeah."
Bobby scratched at his head, "Well, it ain't much. Let's see what we can cross off though."
Neither of the men noticed an invisible form, watching them from the shadows.
The vessel glared at the archangel, "I'm done. You need to leave."
Gabriel stared at him, "You wanna break up?"
Felix sighed, "Be serious, please. Look you said it would just be that one thing. Tell the girl she's pregnant, we're done."
"And we did. What's the problem?"
"IT'S BEEN TWO THOUSAND YEARS!"
"Weell… stuff came up. You know how it is. Anyway, I thought you hated being in the army. Thought you wanted to leave."
"To go home, to Rome. To get out of that filthy, rebellious pit called Judea. Not to play around, eat candy and hurt good people!"
Felix rolled his eyes as Gabriel continued talking, "Come on, Felix! It's not that bad!"
"Yes it is."
"Look. I can't leave you even if I wanted to."
"Why the hell not?!"
"It's been two thousand years. There's been too much damage. I'm the only thing keeping you alive."
That angered Felix further, "You said, when I agreed to this, you PROMISED you would clean me up when you were done. You PROMISED. Besides, you said that we were special, that I was your 'soulmate vessel', or whatever. It wouldn't hurt me."
"True vessel, and yeah, it doesn't hurt you as much. You, unlike any other vessel I might take, can hold me indefinitely. No risk of you burning out or exploding. But even so, there is damage. My power has limits, I can only heal so much. And after two thousand years, our souls are too bound together to extricate without it being fatal to at least one of us, even if I could fully heal everything."
Felix stared at him, "Fine."
"What?"
"Fine. Go away, I want to be alone."
"Sure."
A moment later Felix could feel himself once more alone, "Idiot."
Sam slowly became aware of a distinct pounding in his head. Scrunching up his face, he slowly forced his eyes open and slid his head over to study the room. A crying little boy met his eyes, curled on the ground, weeping his heart out, Sam's phone abandoned on the floor nearby. He reached out a hand weakly, "Dean."
The child sidled from his position, rapidly making his way to cling to Sam's torso, still crying, his body racked with sobs, while Sam ran a hand through his hair and shushed him soothingly.
"I thought- I thought you were gone."
"Shhh. It's okay."
"L- Like Mommy, and- and now Daddy and Uncle Bobby, and- and…"
"Shhh. Shhh. I'm here. Everything's gonna be okay." He started to shift, and Dean moved to awkwardly remove himself. Sam stopped him, "No. You're fine. Stay there. I'm just gonna get my phone." Dean wiped at his tearstained face as Sam moved, sniffing and starting to talk, "I didn't tell her anything." Sam noted with relief that the circle of holy oil was still burning.
"That's good, Dean."
The child held himself a little more confidently, "She wanted me to go with her, but I told her to go to hell."
He grabbed the phone and slipped back to his previous position, groaning as a stabbing pain went through his head. Yeah, he definitely had a concussion.
"Did you hear me?"
He looked up, "Yeah, yeah I did. Good job, Dean."
Dean still seemed slightly unsure, "So… are you proud of me?"
Sam stared at him for a second. "Come here." Dean bounded over to his previous position, and Sam continued talking, "Course I'm proud of you. You are the most amazing person that I've ever known. What you did today, facing down that angel, I wouldn't've asked anyone to do that, and at your age… but you pulled through, and you handled it, and here you are, fine."
He hung his head, "I cried after though."
Sam scrunched up his forehead, "So?"
"Dad said I wasn't supposed to cry."
A smile graced the man's lips and he laughed, "Let me tell you a secret about Dad. He cries just as much as you do."
The green eyes went wide with disbelief, "He does?"
"Sure. So does Bobby, and me, and just about anybody else. It's normal, Dean, especially after something really scary like this. So, you stay here, and you cry just as much as you want to."
He thought for a second, "But I don't want to anymore."
"Then don't." They lay for a moment, the child draped across the man, small arms clinging to the well-formed body, blond hair mussed by a calloused hand. A new song came on the intercom, Follow Me by Uncle Kracker.
"You don't know how you met me/You don't know why
You can't turn around and say goodbye
All you know is when I'm with you/I make you free
And swim through your veins like a fish in the sea
I'm singing
Follow me/Everything is all right
I'll be the one to tuck you in at night
And if you want to leave I can guarantee
You won't find nobody else like me…"
Dean shifted to look into his brother's eyes, "Sammy, what're we gonna do? 'Zekiel said she'd be back for me."
Sam spoke, "Don't worry about her. I'm going to get us some help." He lifted up the phone, turning it on, unlocking it, and moving to the contacts list with a few deft touches. Dean watched with fascination as he clicked on a name and it started to ring.
"How did you do that?"
Sam stared at him distractedly, "That? It's just a phone. It doesn't-" He stopped talking as the ringing stopped. A voice drifted through, "…Yeah, well, let's hope so. What is it, Sam?"
That man nearly sighed with relief, "Dean, we've got a problem."
Silence. Sam assumed his grown brother must have noticed the urgency of his tone, "Care to elaborate?"
"An angel. It must've tracked the kids from- what year are you from?"
Little Dean looked down in concentration, "Um… 1985."
"-1985 and gone on the attack once it saw an opening."
"So gank it!"
"It's not that simple, Dean! I kinda-" He sighed, "I left the angel blade in the car."
"Get it out of the car!" He heard the phone forcibly being passed, then Cas's voice came over the line, "Sam, under absolutely no circumstances are you to kill that angel, do you understand me?"
"Yeah Cas."
"The consequences to the timeline could be disastrous. Remember what happened with Henry. The ripple effect of his death in the future and disappearance in the past altered the manner of your interactions with him and changed the entire timeline."
"Cas, she said her name was Ezekiel."
A voice came from the background, and Sam guessed that he was on speaker, "Like Ezekiel? Burn-Keven's-eyes-out-while-possessing-you Ezekiel? Why are we not shanking this guy again?"
Cas spoke, his voice tight, "That was Gadreel, Dean, not Ezekiel, and there was reason he took that alias. Sam, I know Ezekiel well. He was one of my best, and most trusted friends. I am begging you, please don't kill him. He is a good and honorable soldier. He can be reasoned with. I assure you, he is only following orders, he thinks that he is doing the right thing."
Adult Dean scoffed in the background, "Oh yeah, let's just make friends with the guy who is trying to start the end of the world."
That seemed to anger the angel, "Dean, do you honestly think Ezekiel is the only one looking for those children? We have been extraordinarily fortunate thus far, this angel is perhaps the best scenario we have to hope for here. Anything else could be far worse."
Sam could almost hear the sarcastically confused look on Dean's face, "Far worse like what?"
"Far worse like me. For example." Everyone was quiet, digesting this new information.
The child looked up at Sam, whispering fearfully, "Is Cas an angel?"
This was getting them nowhere. Whatever Cas was talking about needed to wait. Sam thought for a second, "What if- what if we found a way to send him back to his own time? Some way that he couldn't cause trouble?"
Cas's tone was dismissing, "He would tell others, probably return with backup."
"Yeah but… You said he could be reasoned with. If we could talk to him, maybe explain the situation…"
"Who could talk to him, Sam? He is unlikely to listen to his target and he certainly won't listen to you."
Sam smiled sardonically, "Yeah, I kinda tried and he slammed me into a wall."
Older Dean spoke, "What about you, Cas? You said he trusts you…"
"We do not want me involved. If the direction I take, my attachment to the humans in my charge is discovered in the past… they would kill me, or worse. I am one angel in the garrison, I am not irreplaceable. I believe you two, of all people, can appreciate the seriousness with which Heaven considers disobedience."
Sam spoke, "Well then what can we do? Sorry, but no one's really offered any options here."
Little Dean broke in, an odd look on his face, "Cas, that symbol that brought me here… is there some way we could reverse it?"
Cas's tone softened, "Forgive me, Dean, but we do not really know the situation Michael rescued you from. Throwing you back in the middle of it-"
"Not for me, for 'Zekiel. Could we send him back?"
There was a pause, "Yes, I believe so."
"Okay. Sammy can put it around the room. I'll talk to 'Zekiel, and if it doesn't work, Sammy can send him back."
His older self spoke, "Dean, we don't know that that's a good idea. He might just come back with backup."
"Yeah, but, all we really need is time. We don't know what Michael's doing, and if we send 'Zekiel back, at the least he has to get the backup and find a way back here. That could buy us enouph time to get back to the bunker."
Sam looked at him, "Where'd you come up with that one?"
Older Dean's voice came over the phone, "Motel cable action movies. That's brilliant, Dean. We'll poke around, text you guys the symbol when we find it."
Sam spoke, "Yeah, sounds good."
A/N: Anyone have any opinions on Felix?
