Notes: Time for a new chapter, and this might need a little warning about some of the content being a little disturbing to some readers. It's not described in any complete graphic way, but there is some description which could be somewhat disturbing considering the content. Not wanting to give away what happens, you have been warned since it involves what an angel might do to the pregnant OFC. So, with that said, a few things will be revealed in this chapter. There will be no Dean, or Sam, or Bobby in this chapter. This one is all between Manda and Castiel, and you will be learning what she's hiding from Dean, what she's going to do, and the reasons behind it. I hope it all makes sense once you've read it.
Hope you will like where it's gone, because while having Castiel {and Zachariah's role in everything as well} involved in this part of the story is new to the original outline from 2010, what Manda is going to do is not.
As always, this was posted over on ao3 yesterday... and no need to edit out any adult language this time, so differences chapter wise.
Okay... time to read, if you've been waiting. Enjoy!
Hearing talking now going on behind the closed doors of Bobby's library, Castiel went outside with Manda. Dean was worried about her, didn't want her left alone at the moment, and the angel couldn't help but honour that. He also needed to find out what she was still hiding from his friend.
Walking somewhat slowly towards the garage area, Manda suddenly turned around to look at Castiel. "So, you can say no if you want to, but can you zap us to my house for a few minutes?"
Stopping in his tracks, he gave her a strange look, trying to figure out why she wanted him to take her home right now. "I could, but only if you tell me why it is you want to go home."
"I'd like to pick up my granddad's journal, read through it myself. Thought you might be able to save me over a day's worth of driving to get there."
Staring at her intently, he could tell she wasn't lying about wanting to read through that journal. She seemed to think she needed to read through it herself. "Dean won't like this. And I'm not certain it's entirely safe for me to zap you anywhere while you're with child."
She let out a small laugh at how old-fashioned that sounded. "I'm a big girl, Castiel, and I'm willing to take that risk while I'm with child. You said we're both healthy and so did a doctor. But don't worry about Dean. This is my idea, so let me handle him if he starts yelling at you for it." Her expression was serious as she stared back at him.
Coming up to her and taking a hold of her arm, Castiel nodded. "Of that I have no doubt. That bruise on his face is fresh, which I believe was probably your doing, not Sam's or Bobby's. But yes, fine, I will take you home now. After that you'll have to explain everything. I also need you to tell me if you don't feel well once we're there, Manda. You said inside that you feel nauseous. Dean wanted me to keep a close eye on you because of that, and this method of travel may make things worse."
"Deal," Manda uttered. "And Dean isn't the one growing another human inside of him right now, I am. So trust me when I say the nausea is quite normal. If I think there's something wrong, we'll be going to a hospital instead."
"Okay." Not wasting a second more because he didn't want Dean to catch them doing this, Castiel gripped her arm tightly and then they just vanished from outside of Bobby's.
Looking up at the front of her house from the driveway, Manda sort of stumbled for a second and felt the angel grab her arm a little tighter to steady her. "Thanks."
"Are you all right?" Castiel was concerned. He knew Dean might never forgive him for doing this if it had caused something to happen to her or the baby.
She took a deep breath and nodded. She felt a little weird, but nothing that alarmed her. "So far. Now I know you can't come inside, but if you want to hang out by the door, that'll be fine with me."
Letting go of her then he quickly looked around as he walked up closer towards her house with her. "Yes, good. I'll keep watch for anyone or anything."
Going up the stairs of the porch and then heading to the door, Manda took her keys out of her pocket. She opened the iron storm door and then unlocked the door. "This should only take about ten minutes."
"I will be right here. And please, if something's wrong, let me know. I can have Sam and Dean here in seconds to help you. I really would prefer to go with you, but…" He looked up the wall and saw the warding she couldn't see glowing at him. "All the warding keeps me out."
Glancing at him, not knowing exactly what he was seeing, she hesitated to go inside. "About that… for your peace of mind, I'll remove something so you can come in. Just tell me where and what."
"No," Castiel replied, looking up at the overhang of the porch seeing the traps for demons that were barely visible to most. "Your grandfather was quite thorough at what he did. It would be wise to keep everything as it is. There really isn't much that can get into the house for how well protected it is against all other supernatural entities, not just angels."
Stepping inside the doorway then, she turned and raised a brow at him. "You got all that just by being out here?"
"I'm able to sense and see things you can't. Like the Enochian."
Manda tilted her head at seeing the briefest hint of sadness cross his face over that. There were times he seemed so much more human than angel to her, but he was still an angel. And while she had to admit he really was unusual, she was also beginning to enjoy his company. "Castiel, I'm sorry. Sorry my granddad killed one of your siblings to do that."
Feeling somewhat caught off guard by her apology, he just gave her a short nod. "So am I, Manda, but you don't need to apologize. Being around Sam and Dean, I'm starting to learn that sometimes one must just do what needs to be done whether they want to or not. All of this might be fate's doing, but what was done here was obviously done to protect you, and possibly even your child. Yet, you're genuinely sorry it was done for you at all. What that says about you… I believe I now understand why Dean feels as deeply as he does for you."
She wasn't sure he would still understand it after she explained everything. Smiling sadly then, she reached out and patted his arm before walking away to go get what she was after.
Waiting a few steps from the door, Castiel looked at the warding again, and then out to the yard. This house was well hidden, and while he was almost certain Zachariah or anyone else couldn't find it, he wasn't letting his guard down. The female hunter and her unborn child needed his protection right now.
After five minutes of waiting, he stood in front of the open door, eyes scanning what he could see inside from there. "Manda?" he loudly called her, hoping for a response.
"Almost done," Manda faintly answered from further inside the house. She had wasted no time in getting to the secret room in the library and finding the journal. Now she just needed to close the room back up and put the panel back in place to hide it.
Taking his post again a few steps away from the door, Castiel waited, wondering if Dean had noticed they were gone yet. He hoped not, because he didn't want to have to figure out how to lie to the hunter about any of this.
Coming back to the door another two minutes later, Manda held up the journal as she came out. "Got it."
"Good." Watching as she locked her front door up again, Castiel stood there not sure what to do next.
When she finished locking up, she turned to face the angel. "Dean thinks I should hide out here. He thinks it's the safest place for me right now."
He was quiet for a moment, thinking she mentioned this because she wanted his opinion on it. "It would be if Zachariah wasn't looking for you. If he found this house with you in it, he would burn it to the ground or worse to get to you and your child," he told her.
Giving him a knowing look, Manda wasn't sure what he had seen earlier now. "That's what I thought… so, should we get back before Dean has a conniption or do you want me to explain what's going on?"
She was right, Dean was likely to have a conniption at them being gone, but Castiel still wanted to hear her side of things. "That's up to you. You did say you would deal with Dean if he noticed we're not around, but you were also adamant you didn't want him to overhear anything you are going to tell me."
Castiel had a point. At least here there was no chance of Dean hearing a word of anything. She stood there, remaining silent for a minute as she thought about what she wanted to do. "You saw something in my mind earlier… about Zachariah. What it was?"
The angel searched her face, finding it hard to read just then. That flash he'd caught earlier while he'd been touching her and taking a quick peek into her mind hadn't been good. "He threatened to end both your lives. With the snap of his fingers he let you have your child, and you had your baby in your arms when he… well… he acted on that promise."
"Just so we're clear, that bastard made me watch my baby die painfully before making me suffer an even more agonizing death," she said in a hard tone. "Yeah, he's a whole bag of good times like that." Manda motioned for him to follow as she went and sat down on the top of the stairs. "Castiel, I need your word that you won't tell Dean about any of this unless you think it's absolutely necessary."
Walking over and then sitting next to her at the top of the porch stairs, Castiel said nothing just then. He wasn't sure he should give her his word on this, but if whatever she was going to tell him was something he felt Dean needed to know, she wouldn't stop him. "Yes, okay."
"Okay…" She sat there, held the journal in her hands, looked out at the driveway. "If at any point it's just faster for you to read my mind to find things out, go ahead and do it."
Turning his head to look at her, he didn't think that's what she really wanted him to do, but she was right about it being faster. "You asked if I remembered telling you there would be truth to what that woman said to you. What was it?"
"The moment the pregnancy tests said positive I think I knew it was always going to come down to choosing between this baby or Dean." Manda let out a heavy sigh. "And I was going to pick Dean… at least I think I was because this wasn't wanted. There's an apocalypse happening, the father of this child is stuck it the center of it, and who even wants to bring a helpless baby into that kind of doomed mess? Odds aren't in their favour, right?" A tear rolled down her cheek. "But like you said, all this might be down to fate."
Castiel took a moment to think about what she'd just said. How honest it was, and how much heartbreak she held over it. He didn't need to read her mind to know how much it had torn her apart. "Manda…"
"The side you were always pitted against found me the next day, tried killing me, and it's obvious which choice I made, isn't it?"
Looking at her, searching her mind for what he wanted, it became very clear that everything she had endured that day wasn't something she would have survived if she hadn't made that choice. "You protected your child. But I don't understand. Why do you think that choice was between Dean and your daughter?" he asked, curiously.
Manda stayed quiet for a minute, a few more tears rolled down her cheeks. "Choosing Dean meant not having this baby for the obvious reasons. He can't do this right now, and how could I let him? The world's at stake. But choosing to have our child… I knew the cost would be high, that there was no way I might get to keep both of them, but I didn't think it'd be this steep." She put a hand on her stomach, and shook her head as she began to silently cry. "There's no other way around it either, not if I want all of us to survive. If I don't pay this price… it's guaranteed my child doesn't make it, neither do I. But not doing this… Dean doesn't make it either. And I-I… I need both of them to be alive at the end of everything, Castiel. Zachariah… that son of a bitch doesn't get to win."
Not only unsure of what she meant, but also what to do or say to her right then, Castiel reached over and awkwardly patted her knee. It was something he'd seen humans do to each other in times they needed comfort. "Manda, I think this would probably be a good time for me to read your mind."
Letting out a strangled chuckle as she eyed his open hand stiffly patting her knee, she nodded regretfully.
He waited until she looked at him, and then started combing through her mind for everything to do with what she had just said.
Seeking out her interactions with Zachariah then, it took Castiel a mere second to find how the angel had first approached Manda while she had been injured, seemingly nice and asking for an easy favour – to locate Dean Winchester for him. He noted the way she had said no without hesitation. Next, he went through how things developed from there. How Zachariah promised to leave her alone if she delivered Dean to him, how he even offered her a great reward afterwards if she did it. Again, she told him no. After that, he saw how quickly Zachariah had lost his patience with her because Manda just kept refusing to give up Dean. Every single time the angel asked, she turned him down. Seeing how she did it each time, hearing the way she refused to turn on Dean, fighting even to kick the angel out of her dreams while she did it, Castiel found himself liking the female hunter more and more for not only her spunk, but also her loyalty and love towards his human friend. Still, all her declining only made the angel even more determined. That's when he got interested in her and also began looking for her instead of just Dean.
Manda just sat there, fixed on watching Castiel's eyes as he dug through her mind with an odd expression on his face. But she noticed the way his jaw clenched the longer he was going through everything, and even if she still wasn't sure how this worked, it was clear that whatever he was able to see or find seemed to disturb him.
For a month or two he could tell she had managed to keep him at bay, but then Zachariah had broken through in her dreams again just two weeks ago by stepping up his attack. But now hearing the way his brother had taunted her when he finally realized she was pregnant with Dean's child, he was also able to pick out the genuine surprise Zachariah held over it. "It wasn't the archangels then," he uttered out loud, a hint of excitement in his voice at knowing what this meant.
"What?" Not knowing what that was about, she just sort of lifted a brow at him, but the look on his face said he was already focused on digging through her mind again.
As Castiel got to the dreams Zachariah had been making her have this past week, his expression turned hard. The angel was pulling out all the stops to break her. He creatively ripped her apart over and over, going as far at times as to pulling the unborn child from her womb only to kill them both in any way he saw fit. Though, as if that wasn't enough, he was also sending her dreams to show her the possible outcomes she would face for not turning Dean in. From what he saw, she was right – no matter what she did, in all of those outcomes she died, so did her child.
Stopping from looking any further into her mind because it was just too much, the angel knew what his brother was doing to her was wrong. It was torture, and it hadn't broken her yet, but it was definitely wearing her down. It was no wonder now why she was so tense, why she had drawn the angel blade on him earlier – Manda was strong, but she was near her breaking point. She knew what Zachariah was doing to her in those dreams was only a taste of what he would actually do if he found her because she was simply a means to an end for the angel, a way to get at and hurt Dean.
Part of Castiel longed to take off right then, find Zachariah and somehow put a stop to this. Manda Chambers had never done anything to deserve what she was being forced to withstand this way. All she'd done was met and gotten involved with her soul mate – his human friend – Dean Winchester. The innocent baby girl growing in Manda's womb was just a part of that, a helpless part of that, even if she was also possibly the product of fate. He suspected that was very much the case because now knowing how caught off guard Zachariah had been to learn of this child's existence, it was quite obvious the archangels hadn't been the ones to bring Manda back the night she had died. The angel now had a sense of hope because this had to mean his father had done that instead, and it had meant he was still somewhere out there and at that time had cared enough to have brought her back, and maybe even done it for Dean. It was just that if God was the one who had really brought her back, why this child had to be born at this time wasn't clear. He didn't grasp the reason as to why of all the times it was now Dean had to father this child. Was it merely just to help force the hunter's hand in either saying yes or no to Michael? Was it to give him one more thing to fight against it for? Or was his friend just doomed to lose what mattered most to him either way?
"Cass?" Manda called him as she saw how faraway he seemed right then. And then when he looked at her, his eyes softened a little. "You saw it, didn't you? All his threats and his promises, the ways he wants to kill me, and all the ways this ends for me. Every time, Castiel, every single goddamn time my baby and I die. He thinks he'll break me first, force me to get Dean to say yes, and you know what? Your brother can go to hell so demons can pluck the feathers one by one from his wings until he begs for mercy for all I care."
"They would enjoy that. And I admit it would be quite interesting to see him without his wings," the angel replied with intrigue as he pictured it. But she was right, he had heard the threats and seen that no matter what Zachariah did to her in those dreams, she would keep refusing him and whatever offer he made her. It made her so much like the older Winchester then that he knew without any doubt that she would never let Zachariah win. She would never turn Dean in, never beg him to say yes, and she would die for it. She would willingly endure all that pain and torture and more just as long as it kept Dean safe and alive.
Her lips curled with the trace of a smirk then, because she wasn't sure if he was just being honest or trying to make a joke now. "So I went to a psychic I know, and guess what? That smug bastard is right. I don't survive this. Me and my daughter are a target on all sides because of who her father is. One of them will catch up to me before she's born, but it's Zachariah who does the deed. " She stood up then, walked down the stairs and stared up at the sky, a few soundless tears streaming down her face.
Castiel got up and went over, stood next to her. He could sense her anger and despair, her pain and guilt, her fear and all the worry she held. "Why are you hiding this from Dean, Manda? If he knew about all of this…"
"He'd do something stupid to save us," she harshly interjected. "I won't let him do that or ask him to. How can I? Either way he loses family and he will never get over it. You know Dean… tell me, will he be fine with having to make the choice between saving his brother or me and his child?"
He knew just as much as she did that Dean would not be fine with having to make that choice. "He'd still want to know. Dean won't understand why you wouldn't let him make that choice, why you kept this from him," he told her, his tone somewhat rough. "You know him too. He will find another way."
"He won't have to. But there isn't another way. Not when I already chose my child. Dean's child," she shot back. "Now I lose him for it. And look at me, do I look like I want to lose Dean? He's…"
"The man you love," the angel cut her off, hearing the heartache in her voice.
"And you know it took me almost ten years to let myself love someone again, Castiel. It took all that time because I got the last guy I loved killed by a friggin' vampire. So I know what it does to you when watch the person you love die in front of and because of you. To spare Dean that pain, to make sure he never has to go through that… you bet your winged ass I'll do whatever it takes so he doesn't have to live with that. Do you really think I want him to watch his child be ripped out of me, both of us slaughtered just to make him say yes to Michael?"
"No." Castiel gave her one long look, seeing how much she meant it. "Nothing about you tells me you would want him to see that or have him say yes to Michael. Not if you can help it."
Manda nodded, quickly rubbed her eyes which were clouding with tears again. "I can help it. My plan spares Dean all that pain, it gets Zachariah off my ass, and it makes damn sure demons and other hunters with a grudge won't be able to use my baby's life against her father. The kicker being that not one of you angels or anyone else out there can undo it once it's done."
Hearing the weight in her voice, but also her heartache, he stared at her intently. If she wasn't going to turn on Dean, then he didn't know what she was up to now. "What are you going to do, Manda?"
She looked back at him like he'd asked a stupid question. "Use a freaking magic loop hole, what else? Best part is, well, maybe it's the worst part, only one person can undo it. Dean. Except he won't even know he has anything to undo."
"A magic loop hole?" Castiel mulled it over for a few seconds, and then his eyes widened at her. He knew what she was going to do. "You mean witchcraft? A spell? You're going to block his memories, or take them, make Dean forget you exist at all. He won't remember you or that you share a child. There is no guarantee he will ever remember either. Manda, how can you do this to Dean… and Sam? You'll have to do it to Sam as well. Neither Winchester brother can remember you for this to be fully effective."
"Because, you said it yourself – sometimes you just gotta do what needs to be done whether you want to or not," she replied, somewhat using his words from earlier. "And I don't want to do this at all, Castiel. You don't believe me, read my mind again and then tell me what other option I have. It'll break my heart to do this, especially to him, but it's the only thing I can do to protect both Dean and our child. If we mean nothing to him, we're useless as leverage. So that woman was right. To choose one meant to lose one, and it was down to two Winchesters – my daughter or her father, and I-I… I selfishly want my family, the one he's given me – my daughter."
Castiel searched her face, seeing all her heartbreak written on her so clearly. He wasn't sure he wanted to believe this was her only option or that this was the hand fate had dealt the female hunter, Dean, and the child had created. But if it was, then she was making an impossible choice to try to save both Dean and their unborn baby. And right then he could tell she didn't care what doing this did to her in the end, just that she was doing everything she could to protect them. The more he thought about it, the more he realized again how alike the two hunters were and why they were soul mates. "That's far from selfish… "
"It's far from fair," Manda sighed loudly. "We should all get to be a family. But now my daughter won't get to know her father beyond a picture or two and what I tell her of him, and Dean…" Her voice broke then. "He deserves to be around, be her dad, but he won't even get to know he has a daughter out there."
He frowned at her. "Dean knows. Right now he knows his daughter exists."
"And now that he does, I have to take it away from him."
"There must be another way. I can…"
"There isn't. The psychic confirmed it. But she also knew of something I could do to save us, so if I don't do it and if I don't do it soon… I don't make it, this baby is never born, and what our deaths do to Dean," she paused, closing her eyes just as a single tear fell down her cheek. She turned her head to finally look back at Castiel. "It hits him much like losing Sam will, and that man in Bobby's house right now, the one I know we both care about, will be gone. And then he'll die."
Castiel's expression remained mostly impassive, but he knew she was right about Dean. So he took a moment to quickly read her mind again like she had suggested. Part of him realized he didn't have to since he knew she was thorough enough to have looked for another way. But he also knew that losing Dean would hurt her in a way she would never get over, that she would risk everything to keep her family safe, that Dean was her family just as much as the daughter they would share was and she was doing this for both of them.
But as he came across what the psychic she had talked with had foreseen, the look on his face was serious. Zachariah knew more than just that she was pregnant with Dean's child. He knew that God had brought her back, and that this child's life was part of why. And like the spiteful bastard Castiel now knew him to be, the more powerful angel was going to live up to the promise he'd made her – the Winchester line would end with Sam and Dean, because Manda wasn't surviving past the next few weeks, never mind the months she had left to go in her pregnancy. It had been predicted that someone was going to find her before Zachariah was going to swoop in like her saviour, and then he was going hold on to her long enough to coax Dean out of hiding. It was also foretold that it didn't matter what Dean did once that happened, because after he had been lured in another attempt to accept hosting Michael, Zachariah would just make him watch her and their child die out of punishment.
Knowing it was the most likely outcome and that there might not be any other way to stop it, Castiel thought about it for a few minutes. Thought that if this is why his father had brought her back to life on that fateful night he hadn't been allowed to interfere, then she needed to survive again now. But this time around the angel knew had a choice to do something and not an order to do nothing. So there was only one choice he felt he could make here. The one thing he could do now was the very thing Dean had asked him without actually asking him. "Manda, while I'd like to talk to this psychic before you do this spell just to make certain, I give you my word. I'll help you and your daughter however I can. It's what Dean would want. So I won't tell him or Sam what you've told me, but I just… I don't know how I'm supposed to keep this from them," he admitted then. "I'm not sure I know how to lie."
Manda swallowed a little hard, but felt relieved as she nodded with a sad smile. "It's just another one of those things you gotta do even if you don't want to, Castiel. You'll figure it out. Hell, since you're on this team now, that's kinda one of the golden rules for hunters, I guess. But, uh, look… thank you. I need a few more days before I do this, so you talking to the psychic isn't a problem. After that, just give me your word you'll try and keep those boys alive, okay? Or doing this will all be for nothing."
"You're welcome." Castiel thinly smiled back at her. "But that isn't an easy thing to do, even if I have kept them alive a few times now."
She chuckled, tipped her head knowingly. "Nothing is easy with them, Cass. Especially that." Manda linked her arm through his then. "But maybe we should get back before Dean realizes we stepped out on him. Time you zap us back, Scotty. Let's go."
Notes: Well now, did you see that coming? Does it make sense? Or is any of the explanation too weak? Thoughts?
Who is going to have it worse here – Dean or Manda? And how can she keep this from him? Better yet, how is Castiel going to lie? And as for Dean, does he deserve to know? Questions, questions, questions.
Like the moment between Manda and Castiel here or not at all? It was fun and still a challenge to write. And I do hope I got it right. Because while I wanted to have some Sam, Dean, and a little Bobby in this chapter, it just didn't work out that way as I wrote it. There were so many issues with how to get this one to go and with how it flowed, but I found it worked better as just being between Manda and Castiel right here.
2010's outline had Manda going to do this spell after having a dream from a different angel, but now it's because of Zachariah, and let's go with the other hunters and demons that want the Winchesters brothers gone. So... getting Castiel on board with her plan here seemed to work. Hopefully he would once he heard her out. Because originally I had Bobby being the one who found out what she was up to, but... okay, spoiler alert warning – he still will find out. Of course she's going to need Bobby's help soon. How could she not?
This spell was always the plot twist plan, and my two beta readers way back in the day loved it. Especially for what happens after that... which no spoiler alert on that one! Sorry!
Will try my best to get the next chapter written and up as quickly as I can. Always aiming for my usual 3 – 4 week update, but I really would like to get the chapters out sooner. It just takes time to write and edit and cringe over it before posting. But there is still plenty more to come... even if this story has gotten way longer than I ever imagined it would.
Hope you've enjoyed the update, and are still liking the story! Thanks so much for reading!
Comments/reviews are always welcome.