Chapter 22: How to Say Goodbye
Over the next few weeks they listened to the strange things that were happening around the country. White supremacy groups being forced to disband. Motivational speakers and areas of new age religions were being decimated.
"Wow, not much for irony is he." Andy said as she tightened a bolt on the Impala one more turn.
"He really is off the deep end of the deep end." Dean said as he replaced a broken piece of pipe.
"We really have to do something." Sam said.
"We have done way too much for him already. We're done with that." Dean said coldly.
Andy walked into the house to get a drink one evening while Bobby and Dean were getting ready to paint the newly refurbished Impala when she saw Sam sitting in the kitchen breathing heavily.
"Sam?" she said quietly walking towards him. He jumped violently and spun around to look at her. Andy stepped back with her hands in front of her. "It's just me Sammy. Are you ok?" Sam took a few deep breaths.
"Yeah, yea Andy. I'm ok." he said, still trying to get his breath back.
"Ok, if you're sure. You need anything?" Andy asked putting a hand on Sam's shoulder. He shook his head.
"I'm good. Where are Bobby and Dean?"
"Out back, about to spray the car. Care to join?"
"Yea, sure. I'll be there in a sec." Sam said with a small smile. Andy nodded and went back outside. She was starting to worry about Sam. There was no logical reason that he was this stable after what Cas did to him. She knew what it was like to have hell brain, and Sam had endured it much longer, and far more directly than she ever had. She hopped that when shit went sideways she would be ready for it, and would be able to do something for her friend. She walked in on Bobby and Dean voicing their thoughts on Sam. She stayed quiet for the time being. As much as she and Dean were better, she wasn't ready to step on any toes yet; especially where Sam was involved. A few minutes later Sam came in. He and Dean did their little dance around 'How you doing?' 'I'm fine' thing, then Sam mentioned that a publishing house exploded earlier.
"Guys, the body count is getting up there."
"What are we going to do Sam? There is no lore on this. You can't kill God." Dean said as he wiped his hands on an oily rag. Sam looked at him thoughtfully.
"Could there be some kind of holy weapon? Part of the angel arsenal Balthazar stole? There's got to be something." Sam said, his puppy dog eyes in full effect. Dean looked at him seriously.
"He's God Sam, there's nothing to." Dean paused for a moment, and looked at Sam seriously "But there might be someone."
Andy was not impressed with the idea to bind Death. As much as she knew Cas was getting out of hand, she didn't really care if Death had to get involved. He didn't like them, and he and Dyson had some run-ins that she was sure would not be remembered lightly. She was also not happy about using Crowley for the intel. Unfortunately, she got overruled and Crowley was summoned.
"Bind…Enslave Death? You having a laugh?" Crowley said incredulously looking around the room. "Darling, I'm almost positive you can't be happy with this arrangement." He said looking at Andy. She said nothing and kept her arms crossed.
"Look, Lucifer used a spell to do it. That's all we want." Dean said roughly.
"And why should I help on this suicide mission anyway?" Crowley asked shrugging. Bobby stepped forward.
"You really want Cas running the universe?" he said. The look on Crowley's face after that statement said it all.
In spite of the fact that Andy really hated the idea of binding Death, she was relieved that at least Dean was smart enough to bring a peace offering. They got all set up in the rich guys place. Andy had to wonder why binding Death needed something like a Fulgurite, but she let it go. Bobby said the spell, and the world began to shake. When he appeared Death seemed more annoyed than anything else.
"You're joking." was the first line out of his mouth.
"It's not what you think," Dean said with his hands up.
"What I think is not your concern Dean. I assume this is about Sam's hallucinations?" Andy rolled her eyes at that. She figured that he would be hiding something.
"What?" Dean said.
"Sorry, one wall per customer." Death said "Now unbind me!"
"We can't." Andy said a little shakily. He turned his gaze to her.
"You're the reapers pet aren't you." He said steadily, not taking his eyes off Andy. She nodded. Dean looked at her sideways. She hadn't really told him about Dyson's little excursions meeting Death. "This is not going to end well" the pale horseman said as he walked over to a chair and opened the bag of fried pickle chips Dean had brought as his offering.
"We need you to kill God." Dean blurted out. Death looked up at him.
"Pardon?"
"You heard right," Bobby said.
"Why should I?"
"Because we said so and we're the boss of you." Dean said with all the bravado he could muster, which was a rather sad amount under the circumstances. Andy rolled her eyes again.
"Really Dean, not the smartest statement to make." she said. Death looked back at her.
"You know, I might just change my mind about you." He said with a slight tilt of his head. Then came a new voice in the room.
"Amazing, I didn't want to kill you." Cas' voice was rough and remorseless.
"You can't kill us. Death is our bitch," Dean said facing the angel/God.
"You've erased any nostalgia I had for you Dean." Cas said with a cold stare. Then he turned to look at Death.
"Annoying little protozoa aren't they…God," Death said. He had abandoned the pickle chips and was looking curiously at Cas/God. "You look a lot more like a mutated angel to me. You're going to explode."
"When my work is done I will repair myself." Cas/God said.
"You think there are only souls rolling around inside you. There are much older things in Purgatory and you swallowed those in too."
"Wait…w-what?" Dean stammered.
"What older things?" Andy asked.
"Long before God created angel and man he created the first beasts. The Leviathans. Now the only thing keeping the creatures God created Purgatory for, is a stupid little soldier angel." After a short pissing contest between Death and a mutated angel Dean had had enough.
"Alright put your junk away, both of you. Call it what you want just kill him now." Dean said to Death. Cas turned to stare at Dean. As Death raised his hand to smite him, Cas unbound Death and vanished. Death was not in a smiting mood apparently. He went back to his pickle chips, while everyone else stood, or sat in stunned silence. Sam nodded to Dean to say something. Dean cleared his throat and got out an
"Um,"
"Shut up Dean." Both Death and Andy said together. There was a brief moment when they shared a look. Andy's heart thumped and she hopped she was not about to be smote. Death sighed.
"I'm not here to tie your shoes every time you trip, Dean. I told you how long ago about those souls so we could avoid all this."
"Well I'm sorry. I've been trying to save this planet so maybe you should find somebody better to tip off." Dean said hotly.
"Maybe I should find a better planet." Death paused and looked around. "Well, it's been amusing." He started to walk away.
"Wait…wait, there's got to be something you can give us. You have to care a little bit about what happens here." Sam said pleading.
"You know, I really don't." Death replied. "However, I do find that little angel arrogant."
"Great, let's go with that," Dean said. Death fixed him with an intense stare.
"Your only hope is to convince him to put it all back. You have everything you need back at that lab."
"But the door only opens in the eclipse and that's over." Bobby said, a slight hint of fear in his voice.
"I'll make another." Death said. He turned to Dean and held up a finger. "Don't thank me…Clean up your mess." He started to walk away. "Try and bind me again, you'll be dead before you start." With that, he vanished. They had one day to convince Cas to dump all the souls back into the box they came in. For now all Andy could do was keep Dean from drinking himself to death and keep Sam from going to pieces for a day so they could defuse Cas/God. Should be easy right? Andy thought skeptically.
Andy hadn't realized how apt her thought would turn out to be. Dean had essentially given up, he was convinced Cas was gone. He was also pissed that Sam had lied about his own issues. He was happy to sit, and drink and watch the world go by, and when the security footage from the campaign office showed up, that pretty much solidified everything in Dean's mind. Andy walked in on him finishing off a bottle.
"Dean…" she started. He looked up at her.
"Save it Andy. I know what you're thinking. But, right now, I just don't want to deal." He said. Andy didn't reply. She walked over to him, took the drink out of his hand, and turned him around to face her. She knelt down in front of him and put her head on his chest. She felt him take a shuddering breath, and sigh it out. When he put his arms around her, she breathed in his warm sent and relaxed a bit. She climbed into his lap and put her arms around his neck and kissed him softly. That was how Sam found them when he came into the kitchen, Andy on Dean's lap, each with a glass in their hand. Andy handed Sam a glass as well and they all just sat there. Until suddenly, Cas appeared, look more than a little worse for wear.
They got Cas to the lab easily enough. Together, they all started getting ready for the spare eclipse so Cas could be defused. Andy could tell Dean was having a hard time. He was in save the world mode, but dealing with the facts of what Cas had done over the past few months was grating on him. Cas tried to apologize to Dean, but both knew it was too little too late. The 3:59am deadline was coming up, and Sam still wasn't back from getting the blood they needed. Dean went to look for him. Andy looked at Bobby.
"Well, here we are again." Andy said with a small smile.
"Where's that?" Bobby asked.
"Saving the world." Andy said with a shrug.
"It must be Tuesday." Bobby replied chuckling.
"Andy?" Cas' rough voice said into the quiet. She went over to him.
"What's up Cas?"
"I…I want to say I'm sorry, for what I did to Dyson, and going back on my word. I wasn't…I wasn't in my right mind." He said. Andy swallowed hard. Like Dean, Andy was having a hard time helping Cas. She had worked for/with him for nearly two years, and all he had done was use her. "If I could get him back now, I would."
"I know you would, but that doesn't change much Cas. You lied to a lot of people, and now you're paying for it." Andy said with not much remorse. "But, I can forgive you, because I know, eventually, I will get him back. You did give me one thing. You told me he was there." Cas nodded and leaned his head back against the wall. Dean came back with the blood, but no Sam, which was concerning, but they had a bigger problem. Bobby read out the spell, the door opened and Cas released the souls and dropped like a stone. It looked like he was gone, until he wasn't. He opened his eyes, Dean and Bobby helped him up.
"That was unpleasant," he said gruffly. Andy couldn't help the slightly hysterical giggle that came out of her. They started to help Cas out, but suddenly he pushed them away.
"You need to run, they held on inside me!"
"What, who?" Dean asked.
"Leviathan!" Cas shouted. "I can't hold them back." Dean pushed Bobby to run and find Sam, he tried to do the same to Andy, but she refused to move. Dean turned back to Cas, but something was wrong. Cas stood up straight and cocked his head at Dean.
"Too late!"
"Cas?" Dean said. Cas, or who ever Cas was now, grabbed Dean by the collar.
"Cas…Cas is, well he's gone. He's dead. We run the show now." They all watched as a series of black veins crawled up Cas' neck, and black goo started dripping out of him.
"You're still going to explode, aren't you?" Andy said. Creepy Cas looked at her and swayed slightly.
"We'll be back, for you." He said and stumbled out of the room.
Watching Cas go from God, to sick and melting, to evil and melting, to nothing, was like a bad roller coaster. Then, to top it all off seeing Sam scared and unfocused was just what everyone needed. They followed Cas right to the county water supply and melt into nothing but black ooze. When Dean found his coat that sealed it. Cas was gone. Andy could see Dean was hurting badly. He just lost his best friend, and his brother was losing his battle with hell fire in his brain. All Andy could do was get ready for the fallout, because she had no idea what was coming. Apparently she wasn't ready enough.
Sam was struggling, and the more surprising thing was he admitted it. Whatever he saw in his mind at the lab had shook him hard. Now, he was seeing Lucifer, who was trying to convince him that he never left hell. All things considered, Andy thought Sam was taking it all in stride. He calmly told them what he was seeing, that he was having a hard time understanding what was real and what wasn't. Dean was, however, sceptical. Bobby was trying to work on him seeing if Dean was ok, but he shut that down pretty fast.
"It's not worth it Bobby," Andy said "he's compartmentalizing. He's focusing on Sam's shit, so he doesn't have to think about his own. We've been here before."
"I know, I just thought, it's always worth a try," Bobby said quietly. It was a quiet few days, Bobby was running the phone tree, Sam was researching, as always, and Dean was antsy. Andy, was trying to hold everyone together as best she could. So when a possible lead popped up, she and Bobby convinced Dean it was important enough to go, and leave Sam in Bobby's capable hands. It turned out it was a solid lead. There was black goo like what dripped out of Cas, and a whole lot of ick. Once Andy and Dean got back on the road, Dean checked the GPS for Sam's phone. It wasn't at Bobby's.
"We're taking a detour babe." Dean said.
"Fine by me," Andy replied nervously. They tracked Sam's phone to a warehouse not far from the house.
"Andy, I need you to stay here."
"Like hell Dean, I'm coming." Andy said already getting out of the car. Dean sighed and jumped out too. What they saw scared Andy more than she could describe. Watching someone you have known since he was 12 lose his mind and start shooting at nothing is not a nice thing to see. Dean managed to talk him down grounding him with the cut on his hand. Andy was grateful that at the time Dean wouldn't let her near them. Ironic, how things like that can make you grateful for the bad times. Just when Sam had come down off his edge, Bobby called with a small problem. Something was eating people at Souix Falls General and bleeding black goo. The three of them climbed in the Impala and headed back to the house. Except, the house wasn't there when they arrived it had been burned to the ground. They scoured wherever they could. There was no sign of Bobby. That was when Dean broke. Andy happened to over hear him trying Bobby's phone.
"You asked me how I was doing? Well not good! You said you'd be here. Where are you?" Dean hung up the phone. Andy went to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
"We'll find him Dean." That's when the vision hit. Creepy guy with very big teeth and a falling car. Dean looked at her, recognizing what had just happened.
"Dean we have to go now!"
How the thing managed to get all three of them down was beyond Andy. It was one creature against three talented seasoned hunters, and yet Dean had his leg broken, Sam took a tire iron to the head was knocked unconscious and Andy got cracked ribs and a punctured lung. It figured that they were taken to the hospital that Bobby had just confirmed there were monsters hanging around. Not only that, all three of them were separated, none knowing where the other's were going. It was a close thing getting out. Bobby, in all his wisdom, ninja-ed his way in and ninja-ed each of them out. Dean was loopy on morphine, Sam was still unconscious, and Andy had just had her lung re-inflated but he managed it and they high tailed it to Whitefish where Rufus had a hunting cabin.