AN: All mentions of Gaelen, Tiesen, Rika, and Chale belong to the wonderful mind of silver ruffian.
Dean was utterly shaken as he left the room in Detroit, walking on unsteady feet back to the Impala. His brother had said 'Yes', even though Lucifer knew everything about the rings. Their plan had failed. It was simple, really, almost too simple: Sam was going to jump into the cage, Dean was going to lock him and Lucifer inside of it, and then he was going to try his damnedest to get Sammy out of there. However, Sammy made him make a promise before it all went down: after he jumped in the hole, after Dean had locked his little brother away forever, he was to walk away. He was to find Lisa again, and live an apple pie life. What kind of a promise was that, after everything that they had gone through together? What kind of a life was that without his baby brother standing at his side?
Cas said that it would be the best plan to get some booze, get rip-roaring drunk, and just wait to die. Even Bobby, stalwart Bobby, had given up. But this was Sam! His Sammy, his little brother! He was not going to give up that easily. Even if he got to the final battle just in time to see that dick Michael kill Lucifer, then he wasn't going to let Sammy die all by himself. No way. That wasn't the end to this story.
He drove the Impala to an empty lot, and pulled out a sheet of paper. On it was a number, a cellphone scrawled in a female's hand. After that meeting in Chicago, after he apologized to her for his reaction to Bobby standing up, she handed him this piece of paper. "Call me when it gets bad, Dean, and it will get bad" she had said. "Call me, and I'll come." Well, it wasn't going to get any better than this, was it? With a shaky breath, he dialed the number and waited.
Ari was drinking some of Mac's ale in their little house back in Ispwich. Her brothers were all out, having some fun. They were glad that the Apocalypse was finally here. So was she, for that fact. But something inside of her wanted so badly to stop this. But not even she would try to stop the Apocalypse. Change she may be, but she wasn't powerful enough to stop it on her own. Truthfully, she was scared shitless of what was about to go down.
Her brothers were going to fight one another, and Michael was going to kill Lucifer. That was their destiny, the roles laid out for them by their father before Lucifer even fell the first time. She? She had no destiny. But that was why she was Change. She could make them stop, even for a moment to listen. Deep down, she knew that they both loved each other, just as they still loved her. Sure, they were the estranged family of the year followed closely by the Winchesters, but they would still love each other through thick and thin. It was something that their Father had written in their DNA right from the start. They were family, and family was the most important thing to her above power, above freedom, and above revenge. But she needed some help. So she was waiting for the call.
The vibrating in her pocket stopped her reverie. She took out the little piece of plastic and metal, so important to the communication of humans, and spoke into it. "Hey, Dean."
"Ari..." She could hear the tears coming down his face even from Massachusetts. "He said 'yes'."
"Where are you, Dean?" She was off the bed and writing a quick note to her brothers, saying her final goodbye as it were. Gaelen would understand. Tiesen would think that she was reckless, and she would probably break Rika and Chale's hearts. But her brothers, her blood brothers, needed her right now, even if both of them were too proud to say it. She may have disowned herself from the politics of the Citadel, but her family was on the line.
"Detroit. Heart of Motown." She heard him clearing his throat. "Do you know where the battle's going to be?"
"No, Dean. But Chuck must. He's the prophet. He must have heard something. I'm on my way. Call him, get the place. We'll go together." She hung up on him, and ran out to her car. She saw Tiesen returning, but he wasn't quick enough to stop it. In an instant, she zapped herself and her Impala out to the parking lot where Dean was waiting for her. She slowly got out of the car and walked towards him, looking at how tired he was, how felt the same way, even if it didn't show on her face. She did the next thing on sisterly instinct: she wrapped her arms around Dean, and let his head sag against her shoulder. She rubbed his back, whispering mumbles into his ear as he tried so hard not to cry. The tears fell from her eyes freely.
"I'm sorry, Dean." She looked at him as she pushed him away. "This never should have to happen, to anyone." She leaned against the hood of her car, the pommel of the sword in her hand. "I promise you, on my word as a Horseman, that I will try my hardest to save Sam." She stared straight at him, her golden eyes telling nothing but truth. "Now, tell me everything." So he did. He told her about the demon blood that Sammy drank, about them going into that apartment and him saying 'yes' to Lucifer even though he already knew about the rings. At that, Ari grunted and sighed; typical Lucifer, for him to know everything. Sam and Lucifer fought in his head, and Dean opened the door just like Gaelen told him how to. Sam began to walk towards the gate, but then he stopped. Turning around, he smiled at Dean and was no longer Sam but Lucifer. Lucifer closed the gate and disappeared. Dean was shaking again by now, but he held it together, if just barely.
"Have you called Chuck yet?" He shook his head. Ari nodded. She placed a hand on Dean's shoulder and zapped them to Chuck's house. They needed answers, and they needed them now. She knocked on the door for them, keeping an eye on Dean as the prophet answered. For once, Chuck was dressed in actual clothes and not a bathrobe. He appeared to be mostly sober, save for the half-full glass of whiskey in his hand.
"Guys?" He stared at them as he let them in without a word. "What's going on? You're not in this part of the story."
Ari stared at him, before taking a breath. "Prophet, you know what I am. You know what I do. Well, our brothers need saving. And we need your help." She saw Dean sit on a staircase, looking out the door. "Where is the final fight between Michael and Lucifer supposed to take place?"
Chuck stared at them for a while, his face in shock but his mind still twirling. "The angels are keeping it hush-hush, Ariel."
"It's Ari, Chuck." Dean spoke up. "She hasn't been Ariel or Afriel for a long time. And saying that name tends to piss her off."
"But that's how the angels refer to her..." Chuck sat back down in front of his computer.
"Well, my brothers have become somewhat similar to dicks in recent months. I became Ari shortly after Carthage. But, Prophet, please." She tried to not beg for this information, but she would if it was necessary. "We need to know."
Chuck nodded his head, before chuckling twice. "Well, just because the angels are keeping it hush-hush doesn't mean that I didn't catch it. Perks of being a prophet, I guess." He looked over his notes, and found it. "It's tomorrow. A place in Kansas: Stull Cemetery. High noon."
"Stull..." Dean reached back into his memories. "Wait a minute. That's just outside of Lawrence!" Dean and Ari shared a glance before heading out to leave.
"Wait, Ari!" Dean walked outside, but Chuck grabbed her shoulder to tell her something. "I don't know how this story ends, but I hope that you get what you want." Ari just nodded and walked back outside. A quick zap back to Detroit for their cars, and time to drive to Lawrence. It was a little past midnight now, and a thirteen hour car drive laid ahead of them. Ari drove, Dean rested. Hold on guys, the cavalry's coming.
The thirteen-hour trip was condensed into eleven. Ari drove all through the night and into the morning. When they were just outside the cemetery, Dean switched places in the car with Ari and popped in a tape. The song 'Rock of Ages' began to play out as they rode into the cemetery and interrupted the two archangels talking with each other. Dean and Ari opened their doors and hopped out of the car. Ari had Lucifer's Sword in hand, staring at them with a closed look on her face. Dean placed a foot on the doorjamb and looked at the angels in front of him. "Hey guys. Are we interrupting something?"
Michael and Lucifer stared at the two of them like they were on drugs. "Dean, even for you, this is a whole new mountain of stupid." He tossed a look at Ari, one almost of satisfaction. "Well, little sister. Come to try to talk us out of this?"
"Yes." She walked forward, her grip on the sword tightening just a little. "Michael, Lucifer, why?" She looked at the two of them with easily-read pain on her face. "I mean, Dad really wants you to do this? For one of you to kill the other? Come on! This doesn't make sense!" She shoved the sword tip-first into the ground. "Michael, God made you two this way. He wants Lucifer to be who he is, just as you are to be who you are. But I don't wanna lose either of you."
"Ariel." Michael glared at her, pure venom on his face and in his voice. "You fell a year ago with your lover Castiel. By what right do you think you have any say in this?" Obviously, he had taken their last conversation to heart.
"Because I'm more powerful than both of you, because I have the one thing that neither of you will ever have!" She looked at them both. "Free will."
Lucifer stared at her for a moment, completely thrown off; she had never told him this, and there was no time like the present to tell all secrets. "Lu, I have no destiny. God made me that way, the little extra in our happy family. So, Michael, you were wrong. There is such thing as free will, and it's no illusion."
Dean walked up, sliding closer to Lucifer. "Sammy, are you in there?"
Lucifer had the most hideous scowl on his face as he turned his head and stared at Dean. "Sam's not here. He's gone, Dean."
Michael was getting riled now as well. "Neither of you have a role to play anymore. Stop interfering!"
"Hey, asshat!" All four of the beings in the middle of the graveyard watched as Castiel threw a holy fire Molotov cocktail at the commander of the Hosts. They watched as Michael and his vessel burst into a smoldering mess of holy fire and burning flesh before disappearing. "He'll be back, and he'll be pissed. But you got your five minutes." Cas turned to Ari. "And you have your brother again, traitor."
"Fuck off, you idiot!" All of the men stared at the fallen angel-turned-Horseman as she decked Castiel so hard that his vessel's neck snapped. The tip of her sword was at his neck so quickly that no one stopped her as she straddled him on the ground where he was unable to move. "I chose Afri over you, because you never tried to understand. You were so bloody stuck in your morals that you wouldn't make an attempt to comprehend Hell without a part of your soul." Her eyes were turning from golden to black to hazel and back with the strength of her power, and it was only growing. "If anyone could have tried to understand, I thought it was you! After everything that I went through to come back to you? After you hooked up with my sister and your whore Anna? I was still ready to give it a try." She removed the sword point and Cas glared at her. That was when she struck. Cas looked down at his stomach, where the sword was thrust in to the hilt. He looked at her for a moment, complete shock on his face. She leaned closer to him and whispered in his ear. "By the way, Castiel, no one dicks with Michael except me and Lucifer." She took the sword out and let him collapse again against the ground. He gasped for breath, trying to stay alive.
Ari looked to Lucifer and stood Western style, the hilt of her sword held loosely in her hand. "You and Michael have destroyed everything, Lucifer. Where is the brother that I loved, that taught me how to heal? Where is my oldest brother who loved our family? Who taught me that family ties were stronger than anything, even prophecies?"
Lucifer simply snorted at her, like she was a stupid school girl. "He's still here, Ari. I love you as well, but this is just wrong. Me and Michael shouldn't have to fight, but I will if Michael wishes it. And believe me, he'll need everything he has to stop me!"
"Don't worry, Lucifer. I intend on doing that!" Both of them turned to Michael as he stood livid, his own sword in hand. He charged ahead, his true form threatening to burst out of his vessel. Lucifer tried to push her away, but he ended up grabbing her sword (technically, his sword) and preparing to stop his brother and begin the first duel of the Apocalypse. Ari just stood there between the two of them, not even trying to move. She gasped and looked down at her stomach as her brothers stopped moving. The two swords pierced her sides, one on each, and red blood began to flow out of her. She fell to the ground and looked up at them.
"Ari!" Lucifer fell down to his knees, trying to catch her. Michael just stood above her, a sneer writ on his face; he, however, wasn't good enough at hiding his emotions as he thought, because a rogue shaky tear fell down his face as the sneer began to crumble. She felt the tears fall from her face as Lucifer tried his best to heal her, with no avail. However, it was too late for her. She stopped his hands from fretting over her. "It's okay, Lu." She brought a shaky hand to his face, her blood staining her fingers as she touched his cheek. "I told you that I would destroy you both. Now, I have." She looked up to the sky. "Family above everything else. That was... our code."
Lucifer let her go and gave a menacing stare up at Michael. However, what happened next, no one could have expected.
"Well, this is a royal mess, ain't it?" The three angels, fallen and not, and the two mortals left standing turned to the Impala. Ari's eyes must have been playing tricks on her, because she saw John Winchester sitting on the hood of Dean's car; he was dressed in what Ari had come to call 'hunter's wear': worn blue jeans, a black t-shirt under a flannel long-sleeved shirt, and work boots. At his side were her Horsemen brethren; Gaelen was holding his three brothers back as best he could as they all saw her laying there. John Winchester walked forward between Dean and Lucifer and stared at his oldest son. "Lucifer, Michael, you both are dicks." He stared down at Ari. "You, Ari, are the only one that did as she was supposed to. Thanks."
"Dad?" Dean tried to walk forward, but Bobby stopped him in his tracks.
John Winchester chuckled a few times. "Close, Dean. I am your father, but the father of everyone as well."
Ari let herself lean against an old tombstone, her life slowly going. "Father." John, or the being masquerading as John, nodded. Michael dropped his sword and went to one knee in the eternal gesture of loyalty. Lucifer just stood there, looking at him with questions on his face. Dean and Bobby fell to the ground. God turned to everyone, but went first to his eldest sons.
"Michael, stand up." He did so, the form of Adam Milligan coming to his feet. "I thought I made myself clear the last time around when I left. I didn't want your oldest brother freed from his cell."
At that, Michael stiffened. "But, Father, it was written in your Word that the Apocalypse was to take place! That required Lucifer being set free."
God rolled his eyes. "Michael, I never wanted Lucifer be set free. I never wanted him to fall!" He turned to his oldest son. "Lucifer, you are my favorite, never stopped even when you questioned me. But maybe you think that I made humans that way... what did you call them before you killed Gabriel... "flawed abortions"... because I wanted them that way? I wanted them to learn, to grow. My sons and daughters in heaven were perfect at the time. But that was what Gabriel was trying to tell you: they may be flawed, but most of them try to be better." He turned to Michael, a now angry look on his face. "You, Michael, need to understand that the Word of the human Bible is not my word. I gave no order for the Apocalypse, but I wanted to see what would happen if I allowed it. Thus far, I am not impressed. When I want paradise for this planet, I'll send another flood." There was no sarcasm in his voice, only cold truth. Everyone here present knew that he would do what he promised without any hesitation.
He nodded over to the Horsemen and let them crowd over to Ari. Gaelen and Chale took out the swords, and Ari gasped and yelped as the blood began to pour out of her. Dean and Bobby grew visibly sick at the smell, but it was Tiesen and Rika that held her sides together. All four of them channeled energy into Ari, hoping that it would be enough to save her.
God took over once again. "This time, for both of your transgressions, you will both be punished." He looked over to Ari as her bond-brothers helped her to stand. "War, Death, if you could?" Rika and Chale held Ari up as the two oldest Horsemen walked towards Lucifer and Michael, pushing them to their knees and holding them still against the struggling. God looked to Dean. "Dean, I believe you have something that my daughter needs?" Without a word, he handed her the five rings of the Horsemen, the key to the sealed cage.
Lucifer and Michael fought their captors, but they were too strong for even the angels to get out of. Ari limped over to the site of the cage and spoke the words. "Bvtmon tabges babalon!" She tossed the rings to the ground and let it rip open. She walked over to Lucifer and Michael at best as she could without assistance, a sinister grin on her face, and exorcised the angels out of their bodies. Dean and Bobby closed their eyes against the bright light of the angels' real forms. They never asked how she did it afterwards, because she sent her brothers back to Hell with a smile on her face. The cage closed, the whirling winds came to a stop, and Ari collapsed once more before the breathing bodies of Sam and Adam.
"Ari!" Tiesen rushed to her side, but her wounds were open again and she was bleeding too badly to be saved. "You idiot..." A tear came down War's face as he kissed her forehead. "No. You can't die!" He rushed to God, grabbing the collar of his shirt and slamming him against the Impala. "FIX HER!" His golden eyes were black as coal as the air began to smoke around him. His three brothers tried to hold him back, but this man was a mourning lover and nothing is more dangerous than that save for a grieving parent.
"I can't, War." He did nothing against the desperate man to stop him. "She made her choice. Only she can decide to live or die now." After Gaelen released Tiesen's hands from him, God walked up to her and knelt before his first daughter, looking at her. Ari looked up at the form of John Winchester, at her father, and nodded her head. God placed a hand against her forehead, against the same spot where Tiesen had just kissed her, and began to whisper in Enochian. At that point, many things began to happen.
Castiel came back to life, no sign or scar of what Ari had done to him...
Two shimmering forms began to coalesce in the air...
The Four Horseman knelt next to their youngest sister and began to pray in Babylonian...
Dean and Bobby were trying so hard not to look away from the bright light that was beginning to glow from inside of Ari's body...
Ari began to gasp and pant before she stopped fighting the light...
And then, after some kind of sonic boom that shook the ground, all was silence. God was gone, so was Castiel. Sam and Adam moaned from the ground as they came to from their angelic possessions. Dean and Bobby were in tears as Mary and John Winchester, whole in both body and mind, came forward and greeted their family. But it was the Four Horsemen on the ground that were weeping. Ari was still unconscious, but her wounds were healed. Did God fix her, or did he just kill her? They lifted her up on their shoulders and disappeared.
That was the last that any of the Winchesters would see Ari or the Horsemen for a long time. Bobby tried his best to find out more information on their activities, but they had covered their tracks too well. The Winchesters became a hunting family; after all, it was in their blood. They picked out a house on the edges of Denver and began their life again, trying to pick up the pieces and mend past quarrels. When they weren't on a hunting job around the local cities and towns, Dean and John worked at a local mechanic's shop. Sam never went back to Stanford; instead, he went to a local college and became a teacher in supernatural mythology. He became one of the most sought-after lecturers to speak about the Apocalypse and the connections between different faiths about that same event.
Adam became one of them as well, but he disappeared soon after. He wanted the apple pie life, and he felt that he wouldn't find it with his estranged father. No one ever found out what happened to him.
Chuck finished his books and disappeared as well, but not before sending a complete collection of the Supernatural novels to the reunited Winchesters and to Bobby. At the back on the final book, "Swan Song", Chuck wrote a note for Dean to read.
"Endings are hard. Any chapped-ass monkey with a keyboard can poop out a beginning, but endings are impossible. You try to tie up every loose end, but you never can. The fans are always gonna bitch. There's always gonna be holes. And since it's the ending, it's all supposed to add up to something. I'm telling you, they're a raging pain in the ass. So, what's it all add up to? It's hard to me, but I'd say this was a test... for all of you. And I think you guys did all right. You were up against good, evil, angels, devils, destiny, and God himself, but you made your own choice. You guys chose family. And, well... Isn't that kinda the whole point? No doubt - endings are hard. But then again... Nothing ever really ends, does it?
Dean, don't worry about Ari. I'm sure that she will come back. But as of now, the Prophet of this age is no longer needed.
Say hi to everyone for me.
Chuck Shurley aka Carver Edlund"
The Winchesters actually were sitting down to a Sunday meal when the street light went out. Underneath it, stood a familiar figure...