Author's Note: There will be an epilogue after this chapter.
Chapter Seventeen: The Second Garden
The door to Heaven is in a playground.
Lucifer is surprised but when he thinks about who is currently ruling Heaven, it isn't that surprising at all. He has taken a couple days to get acclimated to Addison as a vessel. He needs to make sure that she's able to withstand the power he is going to have to use to break open the door. She's not Sam but she's more than capable to containing his power.
She is also strangely cooperative, staying quiet and silent in the corner of her own mind. He offered to create a utopia for her but she turned him down flat. The only reason she is being so reasonable is he hasn't gone on a killing spree. Not yet, at least. He's prepared to sideline her ass as soon as the blood starts falling but until then, she remains a slightly angry buzz at the base of his neck.
He crosses the dark playground using his grace to make up for the uneven ground beneath the Jimmy Choo stilettos. When Addison had shown up in Denver she had been dressed in jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt. There is no way he is going to return home and kick Metatron off the throne in a pair of Converses. White Armani suit, red silk blouse and shoes that are worth more than Addison's first car. It isn't prom worthy but it certainly is fitting for a homecoming.
The door back home is actually a spell drawn in the sandbox. He only had to kill eight angels to get the information before taking Addison as his vessel. He stands beside the box and lifts his hands, shifting the grains until the spell can be seen. How the scribe ever got to be the new God is something he will never comprehend. It doesn't matter anyway. Heaven is about to get a new leader. The tumblers of the spell shift and lock, and soon the door is open.
"Time to go home."
He steps into the sandbox and feels the familiar tug and pull of entering a different dimension. He hasn't seen Heaven in thousands of years and the thought of returning brings a giddy excitement. This is his right that he has been long denied. Heaven forms around him in the shape of an elevator, complete with muzak. He had been gone for a while. The doors slide open and his angel blade drops neatly into his hand.
There's a room filled with desks and phones and bare walls. A variety of angels are milling around, a steady buzz of communication that drops to complete silence at his appearance. No one makes a move towards him. If this is a trap, it's a very poorly laid out one. And with extremely weak angels if he's recognizing a few faces in the stunned crowd. An angel in a female vessel straightens her jacket and clears her throat quietly.
"Metatron is expecting you," she greets. There is a slight waver of fear on the edge of her voice. "Please, follow me. I will take you to him."
Lucifer keeps hold of his angel blade but follows the angel in front of him until she stops at a set of cherry doors. "What's your name?"
"Hannah."
She was one of the younger angels, that is why she's not familiar to him. "I was led to believe Heaven was empty."
"There are some angels who have pledged their loyalty to Metatron. He has allowed them to return home."
Her nervousness is starting to fade and it assures him that perhaps this isn't the trap he was afraid it was going to be. "How...gracious of him."
A brief fluttering of nervousness rises again. "If you so wish, I am certain he would extend the same offer to you."
Lucifer laughs in her face. "I am so happy to see my siblings are still the mindless sheep they've always been, blinding following whoever's sitting in Father's chair." It certainly will work to his advantage when he ousts the current seat warmer. He motions to the set of doors and they swing open. Just like everything else in this new Heaven, the scene in front of him leaves him unsettled.
Metatron is sitting behind a desk with a typewriter. It looks like the set from Masterpiece Theater. There are no other angels in the room. There is no sign of duplicity once more so he slowly steps across the threshold into the office and tightens his grip on the blade. Metatron stands quickly and backs even further into the room as the doors close behind the archangel.
"Lucifer."
"Scribe."
It happens so quickly. The office drops away to reveal white washed walls and Addison comes screaming to the forefront of his mind. He shoves her back as savagely as possible. A quick rummage through her mind reveals she knows nothing of this trap but Lucifer reminds her, none too kindly, that if he's trapped, she's trapped with him. He will exact his pound of flesh from her, multiple times since they had eternity. The threat falls flat and as he turns, he sees why.
The once empty office has disappeared to reveal a massive group of angels surrounding him. There is a thin veil separating them from him. Protective spells from the stinging feel of it when he stalks closer to them. Too many are faceless minions but there are some who he knows very well. Anna. Balthazar. Uriel, that is slightly surprising. Naomi. Castiel, though he looks less like himself.
He stops in front of Gabriel and Michael. "So no to the Apocalypse then, brother?"
"I've spent some time on the earth now," Michael answered. "Destruction doesn't seem to be the way to do things."
"Little different speech than what we had in that graveyard."
"Apparently angels can change. Besides," Michael frowns, "isn't this what you wanted? For me to walk off the chessboard?"
"Together!" Lucifer shouts. "We were suppose to walk off the chessboard together! Rebel, together!"
"And do what, exactly?" Gabriel asks. "The last conversation we had, you referred to the humans as flawed abortions. Not exactly the words of a benevolent ruler of humanity."
"Humans are the reason we are fighting in the first place." Lucifer paces in front of the other angels, addressing them. "We were made by our Father to be more than babysitters to humans. We were created to praise our Father and His works. We were created to have rule over the planets and the stars. We were made for so much more than what we have become, my brothers and sisters. Humans have poisoned us like a disease that festers and eats our grace alive!"
"You're wrong."
Lucifer turns to see an angel that has stepped out from the thin veil of protection. He can't figure out who's more incensed at the sight of Gadreel, him or Addison. This could be fun, teach the little double-crosser a lesson. True, she didn't know there was a new cage being constructed but she must have known something was being planned.
"Gadreel! How wonderful to see you again, old friend."
The former guard's mouth twists. "We are not friends, Lucifer. You deceived me."
Lucifer shrugs. "It's kind of what I do. Father of Lies. The Great Deceiver. They're not just empty names. What's your point? Or is that it? After all these years, you need me to admit that I lied to you and that ruined the world for everyone?" Lucifer walks right up to Gadreel and makes direct eye contact. "Will that hurry along your redemption?"
"I have already been redeemed. I don't need anything from you."
"But you do," Lucifer sneers. "You need her back, don't you? Great lover of humanity that you are. Your rotten fingerprints are still imbedded in her skin and it's disgusting. Humans were made to be ruled not screwed. That's what you're really doing here, isn't it? You think you can help her get rid of me."
Addison is scratching at his brain, clawing for any purchase that she can use to eject him. Her determination is surprising and leaves him slightly uneasy. She's much stronger than he initially thought. And the presence of Gadreel is only seeming to strengthen her. There is a bond between them that he can't explain and doesn't really care to understand. But it needs to be severed before Addison gains any more power.
He lifts his blade but Gadreel is ready and deflects the blow. They spar but Lucifer finds Gadreel's movements lack malice. He is merely defending himself, not attacking. It's most likely due to the fact that he was so used to protecting this body that he is now struggling to cause it harm. It would be a fatal mistake and would serve to prove a very important point.
With Addison screaming in his ear and tearing at his hold on her body, he twists and brings his blade from a low angle, imbedding it in the center of the former guardian's chest. He keeps it there, still and unmoving so he can draw this moment out, teach the little bitch who really is in control now. But when he gloats over the blow, Gadreel's face is anything but shocked and defeated.
"Wha-"
Gadreel's hand comes up and lays over top Lucifer's, the one that is gripping the angel blade. He's pale, sweaty and dying but there is a determination in his eyes.
"I let you in the first garden," he rasps, "but I will cast you out of the second one."
To Lucifer's shock, Gadreel's hand tightens on his and with a quick twist, turns the blade. He watches the grace burn out of the former guardian until the vessel falls lifeless to the floor. Silence descends over the cage. Lucifer can hear spells piling up on each other, reinforcing the locks and bindings but he can't move. Why can't he move?
"Addison! Cast him out!" Michael shouts.
He turns his head feeling suddenly disconnected from his vessel. No, this couldn't be happening. He can't even really feel Addison anymore, he can't find her anywhere in his mind. Rage burns through him at this deception. Of all things to give her enough power to wrestle control from him it was love.
The moorings are snapping, his control is slipping. Addison is ejecting him, spitting him back into another cage. Well, he isn't out yet and so he does one final act of retribution and tries to burn through his vessel as much as possible before he's launched into his new prison. And if he takes out a few of the angels with his vessel, so be it.
The bunker has been in lockdown for five days.
They were warned this would happen when Lucifer took Addison as a vessel. They were told it would be a few days to sort out when it happened but that someone would come open the door for them when it was over and time for them to help. To do what, Dean, Sam and Jael had no idea.
Day five is almost at an end and the three of them are sitting at the kitchen table trying to teach Jael how to play poker when the door unlocks and opens again. They stand and wait to see who has come with news. Sam expects it to be Cas or Gadreel, hopefully with a grinning Addy in tow. But it's not.
A grim faced Gabriel makes his way down the stairs. "Hey there, boys. And girl."
"What happened?" Dean asks without preamble.
"No beer first?" Gabriel smiles but it disappears quickly. "Lucifer's back in a cage. The spells are still being cast to keep him in there but he's not going anywhere for a very long time."
Sam crosses his arms nervously. "And Addy?"
"She's...healing. Lucifer decided to try to burn through her when she ejected him. He flash fried her lungs and some other vital organs. We were able to put her back together but she'll be recovering for a while. You guys up for a patient?"
"Absolutely," Dean answers without hesitation.
"Better learn your way around an oxygen tank then. Cas sends his regards. He went to pull Addison out of the cage after Lucifer was ejected and was blinded."
Dean frowns. "Blinded?"
"Not permanently. But his grace is fried six ways to Sunday so it's making the healing process...complicated. Metatron is still trying to unravel the spell that locked Heaven. If he's able to do that, Cas could get his original mojo returned and be back in the trench coat before you can blink."
"And if he can't get his original grace back?" Sam asks.
"You all are so inventive, I'm sure you'll figure something out."
Jael stands next to Sam. "And Gadreel?"
Gabriel's shoulders drop slightly. "He, uh, he's gone."
Jael shakes her head. "He's in the charging station?"
"No, I'm afraid not. He chose to give his vessel a second chance at his life. So one Joseph Sullivan is heading back to Texas as we speak where he'll wake up in his own bed tomorrow morning."
Gadreel is dead, permanently gone. Sam tries to pull some peace from that news for Kevin's sake but all he can feel is an emptiness, a loss of an ally. "Does Addy know he's gone?"
Gabriel nods. "That's the wound that concerns us the most. It's a pain we can't heal or lessen. But you, her family will be able to help her."
Dean nods thoughtfully. "So when are you bringing her home?"