A/Ns: Sorry for the delay from the usual posting schedule. I didn't get any editing done this week and struggled with some major procrastination this weekend (work is draining and all I wanted to do was watch movies on the couch which is actually quite rare for me XD) On that note, this chapter only got one read through, so it maybe be heavy on the bloopers…
Previously on TRSF… Ava found Sam at his motel in Lafayette, Indiana to warm him that he was in danger. After listening to her vision about his death via trip-wire and grenade, Sam convinced her to head home to her fiancé. She left him her number and made him promise to call her after he found his brother. He gave her his hunting knife, telling her to keep it with her in case Azazel came for her. Then he went to meet Gordon. Meanwhile, Cas and Dean fled Heaven with Uriel and Rachel in tow. Rachel was stopped from passing through the gate and taken to Zachariah as a witness as to what happened.
(BTW, I've been using these "previously on…" as reminders of things that happened more than one chapter ago but in the same arc. I haven't been including what happened last chapter, so if you guys need a refresher I recommend just scanning quickly through the previous chapter. Otherwise these A/N notes are going to get soooo long. They're already long :P)
Chapter Reference – Cas's Demotion: Quick reminder that after Balthazar's (faked) death on earth, Cas was demoted to second in command of his Flight, with Uriel taking charge in his stead. See Chapter 32: Season 1 Interlude 1 for a refresher.
Chapter Reference – Tom: Last time we saw Tom the demon, he was talking with Azazel via blood cup (because Azazel had been exorcised by Cas in Rivergrove) about their next steps. Azazel filled him in on the whole plan finally and told him he needed to move up the schedule: grab the next round of kids. Tom promised he'd get it done by the end of the week. See Chapter 87: Season 2, Chapter 54 for a refresher.
IMPORTANT TIMELINE NOTE:That ^ happened *FIVE* days ago in story-time. I know it's been at least ten weeks real time [insert sweat drop here and standard rant about verbosity here] but that week hasn't wrapped up yet in the story (a *lot* has been happening in these chapters :P)
Chapter Warnings: Dean and Cas show up to handle Gordon who doesn't need handling because Sam already had it handled on his own (isn't verb conjugation fun?!) and we wrap this arc up with a taxi ride, a meeting with the boss, handcuffs and an evidence bag, and a diamond ring.
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The Road So Far (This Time Around)
Season 2: Chapter 65
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When Dean and Angela landed (was it Dean and Cas at that point? Hard to say what with all the switching and the jumping), it wasn't graceful. They didn't disappear from the car – after Dean pulled Baby safely over to the side of the road, of course – and then reappear instantly in another location like usual. There was a definite delay Dean could almost feel, like when you blink and your eyes stay closed longer than you think they will. When the two of them did finally show back up on the other end of the trip – which turned out to be the exact same decrepit, falling apart, piece of shit house Dean remembered – the world (which had previously been up, down, left, and right) decided to rotate about forty-five degrees forward.
Dean tried to counter-balance the sudden change in orientation, only to find himself diving head first into something tall and hard, but also soft, and squishy in places. It grunted a familiar grunt as they hit the ground together. Whatever it was he'd taken to the floor, it had girly hair that Dean had to spit out of his mouth after several failed attempts.
Beside him, Cas landed about as well. Sure, the angel might not have miscalculated her positioning quite as spectacularly as the fallible human she'd carried, but the flight had taken a hell of a lot of energy out of an already very limited supply. Her feet touched down, Dean keeled forward and Cas, hand still curled around his right shoulder, went with him at the same time as her legs gave out from beneath. She both tumbled forward and crumpled to the ground, colliding with – and taking down – another body that had the misfortune of being in front of her when they landed.
Dean tried to extricate himself from the pile of gangly limbs, body parts, and floor. He was both disoriented and trying to figure out who the hell he'd used as a landing pad (friend, foe, an unaccounted for third party, or possibly a complete and utter stranger because Cas had shortchanged her power supply and flown them into some other abandoned house?). He hadn't quite managed it (his head was still spinning from the landing and trying to decide which way was 'up') when two large, familiar hands wrapped around his upper arms.
"Dean?!"
Beside them, Castiel found herself rolled and straddled, with the forearm of a human male pressed to her throat. The force of his arm tilted her chin up and head back against the hard floor of the house she had flown them to. The man above her – a hunter – was not one she recognized. He had dark skin, fierce eyes, and blood running down the side of his face from a cut just above his temple. Castiel assumed this to be Gordon Walker, the hunter who was after Sam. She immediately disliked him.
Sam, who'd realized what was happening only seconds after it happened, stared at his brother with wide, disbelieving eyes. Even though he'd thought- well, he'd been pretty sure- about that ping on Gordon's phone…. It was still hard to take in. His brother was alive and had landed, literally, right in his lap. He gripped Dean's arms as very not-dead brother finally managed to right himself. The older Winchester stared right back. It was clear it took the man a moment to focus on Sammy's face, before his gaze hardened into something dark and dangerous.
He reached up, grabbing either side of his younger brother's head, tilting him this way and that. Sam, exhausted and just damn happy Dean was alive, let his mother-hen brother check him over. That look only got darker as he took in the scatter of cuts and bruises, the still-wet blood on his upper lip and nostrils. When he turned to confront Gordon and found the hunter on top of his angel, that rage boiled over into something scary.
"Gordon, you son of a bitch!"
Castiel barely batted an eye as the man above her was tackled clean off by her charge. Dean collided with the other hunter, landing a solid punch to his face as he took him to the floor.
"Really, man?" Dean screamed as he clobbered Gordon in the face.
"Dean!" Sam scrambled to his feet but didn't try to get between the two rolling, scrapping men.
"You sniped me? Me?!"
Instead, the younger Winchester offered a hand down to Castiel, the angel still laid out on the floor. She took it with a grimace and Sam pulled to her feet, both of them grunting with the effort.
"You okay?" Sam mumbled lowly to the angel, eyes locked on his brother as Cas found her balance beside him. He knew there was no real reason to worry. Gordon was unarmed and with the odds now three-to-one, it was only a matter of time before Gordon was forced to give up the fight. Still, Sam kept his eyes on his brother. Because only a handful of minutes ago he'd thought he'd lost him, possibly forever, and he didn't feel like a repeat experience.
"Couldn't even do it to my face, huh? You had to shoot me from fucking behind?"
"I have been better," the angel answered honestly, eyes also on the fight. Dean, having taken a fair few hits himself, landed another shot to Gordon's jaw and the hunter's head cracked back against the floor. The older Winchester didn't stop there, though. He delivered punch after punch, splitting the other man's cheek, the bridge of his nose, and blackening his eye. Sam took a step forward to intervene, but Castiel halted him with a raised arm, directed at the pair.
"Enough."
Dean didn't back off right away, but he wasn't given the option twice. Gordon flew out of his grasp, sliding along the wooden floor all five and a half feet to the nearest wall, where he was up-righted and pinned. Dean, still kneeling on the floor, looked furiously over his shoulder at his angel, hand held out and power emanating from every inch of her Warrior-of-God stance. The 'deal with it' glare she leveled his way was so reminiscent of Cas in Jimmy's vessel that the anger all but drained out of Dean. Instead, he found himself rolling his eyes as he climbed to his feet.
"I don't believe it," Gordon said, face weirdly blank as he spit out a gob of blood. His eyes were wide, even with the left one starting to swell shut. He stared at the dead man standing right in front of him. "Dean Winchester. In the flesh. Thought I killed you."
Didn't just think, actually. Gordon knew he'd killed him.
"Yeah, no shit," Dean snapped right back, looking about half a second from resuming his beat down on the man now stuck against the wall. Sam grabbed him by the bicep, to keep him in check if nothing else.
"Dean, no," he muttered low, too low for the other hunter to overhear them. Dean looked over and up at his brother like the younger Winchester was crazy. "Leave it. He's taken care of."
"Leave it? No, Sammy, I left it once before and look what happened!" Dean gestured to Sam's face, his dust and debris covered clothes, the blood spreading from wound somewhere in his chest (which couldn't be too bad, since the kid was still breathing), and his missing shoes. Missing. Shoes. His baby brother was friggin' sock-footed in a war zone, and that didn't even begin to cover multitude of reasons Dean was going to murder Gordon Walker. He was so busy putting together a list that he didn't even notice the little niggle of Déjà vu caused by his brother's words. "I'm killing this son of a bitch. Screw the damn timeline."
"Dean-" Sam's voice was full of warning, but the older Winchester was already pulling out of his grip. "We need to leave."
"You call me a son of a bitch?" Gordon bit out at the same time, licking at the blood crusted in the corner of his mouth. He spat out another glob of red to the side, eyes never leaving the older Winchester. "You looked in a mirror lately, Dean? What kind of hunter works with demons, huh? Makes deals with demons."
Those dark brown eyes shifted to the woman standing beside the pair of hunters, hand still held out and ethereal blue gaze dangerous. The only way Dean Winchester could have come back from the dead. Gordon knew he was a dead man – knew the Winchesters' pet demon could take him out easy, like snapping a toothpick – but he wasn't going down without a fight. Hell, if he could he'd find a way to warn every damn hunter out there about these two. Traitors to their own kind.
"I am no demon," the woman growled, voice like stone. She straightened, those eyes suddenly lighting up with an icy white glow. Lightning flashed inside the house, making Gordon jump in surprise, pinned to the wall as he was. The flash of light lit the three figures in front of him, and the vamp hunter stared with wide, disbelieving eyes as their shadows stretched, long and distorted, against the walls of the building. The demon's shadow grew, splitting with a pair of wings stretching out, long and feathered. The walls seemed to bend out and loom inward with an intense power – a presence – that hadn't been there before.
That…wasn't possible. They didn't exist.
Gordon licked his lips as the light faded and those shadowy wings disappeared. The woman remained, cold marble and frosty eyes. The pinned hunter eyed her warily, eyes flickering to the Winchesters on either side of her.
This was a trick. It had to be.
Dean allowed himself a second to smirk at Gordon's reaction. That was an angel standing in front of him – Dean's angel – pinning him to the wall and scolding him like a child. Served the jackass right. Gordon was on the wrong damn side of this war.
Then he turned his attention back to his brother, poking the gargantuan man in the shoulder. The unwounded shoulder, because Dean sure as hell noticed the mother effing bullet wound in the other one. Gordon was lucky he wasn't a god damn smear on the wall right now. "We don't need to go anywhere. What we need to do is kill this son of a bitch before he comes after you again. And apparently me too!"
At this, the hunter spun again, anger reignited. Sam reached out and grabbed his arm again, but Dean wasn't going anywhere. Apparently he just needed to get some yelling off his chest. "Really, Gordon? Me?! Stick to the damn timeline, asshole!"
"Dean!" This time Sam shook his arm enough to get his brother to turn to him. "We have to go. I already called the cops!"
Sudden silence reigned in the small house, Dean blinking up at his younger brother, Gordon going rigid with realization of just why Sam Winchester had been stalling rather than attacking, and Castiel…well, she was often the silent type, so no change there. The angel merely glanced over her shoulder at the brothers, waiting for direction. She had already warned Dean this would likely be a one-way trip. While not completely depleted – and more than a match for one human hunter who wasn't even armed – a flight with two passengers in tow right now would be…unwise.
Just then, the sound of sirens that Castiel had been able to hear for the past thirty seven seconds (unaware it was something she should be informing her charges of) became an audible thing to the three humans in the house with her.
"Oh…" Dean blinked again, head turning towards the front of the house and those sirens. Well, shit. They couldn't kill Gordon now. But…Dean broke into a grin, realizing what that twinge of déjà vu in his stomach was about now. He hit the Samsquatch on his good arm, causing the younger Winchester to finally release his brother and wince all in one go. "That's the same move you pulled last time, Sammy. Alright, let's get the hell out of here."
Sam expected Cas to turn and zap them out of there. So he was surprised when Dean crossed the room to pick the younger Winchester's gun off the ground instead and Cas walked up to Gordon. She reached into partially intact wall beside him, bending and breaking loose a half exposed pipe in order to wrap it around the pinned hunter like it was made of rubber, essentially trapping him to the wall. Gordon glared at her the entire time but Cas was hardly intimidated, stepping back to check her work before turning to the brothers.
"We walking out of here?" Dean asked almost offhandedly as he tucked Sammy's gun into his waistline (he didn't want to see the Samsquatch attempt that with his injuries). Dean already knew the answer, of course. Cas had pretty much warned him this time (with greater specifics than 'I will be weakened.' Yup, sitting in the Impala on the side of the road, Cas had grabbed his shoulder and this time said, 'I will be weakened. Perhaps too much to fly us out again.' Whoot, score one for specificity and baby steps). He glanced over at the angel, who nodded.
"Yes. I am very nearly out of…mojo?" The head tilt to finish off the question was a cherry on top of the sundae that was their angel, back with them, alive and (mostly) well. Dean grinned, not even caring that they were hoofing it. At least Cas was there with them.
Sam, startled by the answer, gave the angel a longer look than he'd been able to spare her yet. He realized she looked as exhausted as he felt. She didn't appear much better than the last time he'd seen her, actually, back in Rivergrove and then Bobby's house, hurting from a demon trap and frantic to return to Heaven before it was too late. Sam swallowed, hoping his promises to his brother that she would be alright – that Uriel would have healed her – hadn't been completely empty after all.
"You okay?" he asked the angel again quietly, even as the three headed into the kitchen. The sirens were getting louder and the backdoor would be a lot less risky for escape than the front at this point.
"That is a long story," Castiel answered with a sad smile up at him as he gestured for her to enter the kitchen first. "But I will be."
Sam understood perfectly, his own trembling fingers – an onset of what was surely to be another withdrawal – hidden in loosely clenched fists.
"Don't you leave me here!" Gordon yelled from the living room, his voice clear in the kitchen as the three headed for the back door Sam had first entered through less than an hour ago. It was hanging on only one hinge after both grenade explosions, but they weren't exactly worried about closing it behind them. "You better kill me now, Dean! You leave me here, and I will come after you and your brother!"
Sam glanced at the older Winchester, worried he would have to pull him out of the house himself. His brother just charged on ahead, though, out the back door and into the woods surrounding the abandoned house. His jaw was clenched, a vein in his temple pulsing, but he kept moving, and Sam and Cas followed. They left Gordon to holler and rage fruitlessly after them.
Less than a minute from the door and into the woods, cop cars came screeching into view, blocking the road and drive, surrounding the front of the house. Police flooded the house, guns out. The Winchesters didn't stay to see the end result. Gordon would have unregistered weapons on him, recently fired, just like last time. Even with the changes – Gordon trapped inside the house by a metal pipe bent like a Twizzler – the cops would still put him away for the weapons alone.
Time oughta be a happy 'bout that, for friggin' once.
In the meantime, they had two injured parties, a recently revived third, and it was fucking cold out. Despite the shitty circumstances, Dean was still grinning as the three disappeared deeper into the woods and away from the flashing blue and red lights.
-o-o-o-
Sam made it about five hundred feet before he started to noticeably drag. Which was about four hundred feet farther than he should have pushed himself. He tripped on a tree root and went down to one knee, jarring the still bleeding hole in his shoulder among various other aches and pains.
"Come on, Sammy," Dean muttered, immediately bending down to curl an arm around his brother and pull him back up. He'd been sticking close to him as they hurried through the trees, having gotten a good look at those wounds and knowing Sam was running on adrenaline alone. "Couple more minutes to the road."
And then another thirty, at least, to where he had left the Impala. But Dean wasn't gonna mention that part. Baby steps. Step one: get far enough away from the house, through the woods where there was cover, to emerge back out onto the road where cops wouldn't see them or be looking in the first place. Step two was get back to Baby. Dean hadn't actually figured step two out yet. So he was just gonna focus on step one.
An arm came out of nowhere in front of both Winchesters, two fingers pressing to Sam's forehead before Dean could stop them. Sam's knees almost gave out as the familiar warmth and cleansing of Castiel's healing power washed over him. It didn't reach everything – the wound in his shoulder remained, even though the pain lessened and the bleeding stopped – but the bone-deep ache, the cranky buzzing that had moved from his skin to the back of his head, and the terrifying, telling shake of an oncoming withdrawal was gone.
Sam almost collapsed a second time, this one from sheer relief. He'd known what pushing those powers had meant; he had known what it would cost him. Even if accessing them had been pure survival instinct, the hunter had known where it would lead. What would inevitably come next. Sam hadn't been sure he'd survive it a second time. Worse, he hadn't been sure he wanted to.
"Damnit, Cas," Dean growled, causing Sam to open his eyes in time to see the angel collapse in front of him.
The younger Winchester shot back to his feet, immediately grabbing at Cas before she could hit the ground. Between him and his brother, who'd obviously known this was coming and already had half a grip on the angel, they were able to keep her upright. Sam's shoulder was still busted – enough so that the two of them ended up exchanging sides so Sam could support Cas with his good arm – but he felt better. Less exhausted and on-the-brink than he had a moment ago.
"Okay, now he's out of mojo," the woman between them muttered, voice several octaves higher and riding labored breaths.
Sam almost dropped her, realizing the person he was holding was entirely different than the angel he'd reached out to catch. "Angela!?"
The very human woman smiled up at him. It was a weak grin, but a grin all the same. "Hi, Sam. Nice to meet you. Damn, you're even taller when I'm in control. How does that make sense?"
The younger Winchester, lost for words at the end of a really long, emotional, bewildering night, looked up at his brother, then back down at Angela again. Dean didn't seem surprised by this development at all. Sam had so many questions and no bandwidth left to ask them.
"Dragon Lady, Sam. Sam, Dragon Lady." Dean nodded his head between the two of them with a look to Sam that said, 'Later.' Angela snorted at the introductions and the younger Winchester actually jumped at the noise. The physical change of presence in the woman he was half supporting was astonishing. And also a conversation – and consideration – for another time. Dean was right about that; Sam wasn't sure he had the emotional reserve left to have that discussion anyway.
The three of them were alive and moderately safe (if not various degrees of beat up and exhausted) and that was enough for now. Honestly, the last Sam had seen or thought of Angela, he hadn't even known if the woman's soul was still attached to her body. The younger Winchester settled for simply being glad the woman was alive at all.
"Over here," Dean spoke lowly, pulling them back in the direction of the road. They'd probably gone far enough from the house for the street to be safe from cops. It wasn't like they were gonna get much further with a half-injured hunter, a recently un-deceased human, and a crippled angel between them. Dean would chance the road at this point.
They came out of the woods onto winding, black asphalt stretching out on either side of them. There were still flashing lights in the distance back towards the house beyond a bend in the road and what they could see. The trunks of the trees along the curve were bathed in blinking red and blue, turning the bark a flashy purple.
Dean looked at his brother, then Cas and Angela, then down the road in the direction of his Baby, which was some three, maybe four miles away. Angela looked like she had about a five minute walk in her before one of them would be carrying her completely, and Sam had been shot.
Damnit.
The older Winchester caught his brother's eye, Sam having not missed the current lack of a step two to this plan. "So…Uber a thing yet?"
-o-o-o-
Uber was not a thing, yet, considering the look Sam gave him. Dean made a mental note to invest whenever it did turn up.
A taxi driver showed up about twenty minutes later at the random-ass location they managed to give the company when they called on Bobby's phone. It was the address of the first house they'd found after venturing down the side of the road for another ten minutes. The two brothers had carried Angela between them until she'd tripped and almost taken Sam down with her, causing his sluggishly bleeding shoulder to become an enthusiastically bleeding shoulder. At which point Dean was forced to pick her up, bridal style, and tell her to shut the hell up when she called him 'her hero' with batted eyelashes that coulda taken out a bystander.
The driver gave the rag tag group one hell of a weird look when he picked them up, but at least he picked them up.
-o-o-o-
As the Winchesters drove out of Lafayette, Angela slept in the back seat. They'd gotten to Baby via the Taxi, then back to the motel as fast as Dean could drive. There, he field-dressed Sam's shoulder wound – the speed version – while Angela started packing for them. She only managed a couple minutes before ultimately ending up on the edge of one of the beds trying not to fall asleep on her feet or pass out (Dean told her from personal experience that the first would be better than the second, so don't push it). Despite her best efforts, she failed and Dean ended up carrying the unconscious woman out to the car once he'd finished patching up Sam and finishing the packing, all as quickly as possible.
Weirdly enough, Angela Anne Garrett weighed exactly as much as Dean expected of a woman her size and build. So what had made Cas so damn heavy back at that gas station? Had it been Cas in the driver's seat? Or Cas without a vessel? Maybe Dead-Dean's glowing foghorn of impatience or the hunter's underappreciation of how much muscle even an illusion of Jimmy Novak must have? Oh well. A mystery for another day (aka: never. Because they had so much more important shit to worry about than how much an angel friggin' weighed and Dean was blaming his recent death experience for the weirdness of his thoughts lately).
Dean didn't trust Gordon not to know where they'd been staying in town and tell the cops once they got him talking. The fact that they hadn't pulled into the motel parking lot to police cars and flashing lights probably meant the hunter had kept his mouth shut, but Dean didn't trust it either way. The Winchesters (and angel) wouldn't run far. Dean may be in the best shape of the three of them, but he had just come back from the dead. So they'd make it to the next town over, at least.
They were about fifteen minutes outside of Lafayette, heading West when Dean noticed Sam staring at a piece of paper he was holding, practically in his lap. It looked like the note Dean had left back in the motel, and Dean's gut tightened for a minute, thinking his brother might bring that up (of all the crap that had happened tonight, Dean had almost forgotten about it). But Sam was staring at the back of the sheet, a bullet hole smack dab in the middle of it, with a ring of drying, brown blood soaking up half of the white space.
Dean raised an eyebrow at it. "What's with the blood note? You're not gonna go Memento on me, are you?"
Sam glanced over at his brother, having been off in his own thoughts as he stared at what was left of Ava Wilson's phone number. Back when he'd first approached the house, Sam had tucked the note into his breast pocket, along with his phone. Right where Gordon had nailed him with that rifle shot. The phone had been toast and so was the note, it turned out. Taking Ava's number with it.
"Nothing," Sam sighed, folding the piece of paper back up and tossing it onto the dash in front of him.
"Doesn't look like nothing," Dean noted, carefully keeping his voice level rather than the accusation it most definitely was. Sam's pouty-McPouting face was the troubled edition, and Dean knew that even if Sam verbally dismissed it, whatever was bugging him would keep at it for days to come.
"Did you ever get my voicemail?"
Dean pulled his head back at the tone – something caught between little-brother-pissyness and actually wanting or needing to know – then glanced at Sam. He kinda remembered getting a voicemail – remembered it was the last thing he could remember, at least – but Dean hadn't thought about it in the last oh-so-many-hours he'd been dead-then-not-dead.
"You mean before Gordon Fucking Walker shot me in the head and took my phone?" The words, still angry, left his mouth before he thought about their consequences. Dean winced when he noticed Sam visibly stiffened beside him. Shit. He hadn't actually told his brother he'd bit the dust in so many words. And this wasn't the Sam that viewed death as a more-than-likely temporary thing.
He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Uh…sorry, Sammy."
His brother was quiet for a long, long, minute before he sucked in a breath, his whole chest moving with it. "You were really dead?"
Sam glanced at Dean, who mirrored the solemn look with a frown of his own. The older Winchester had been expecting…he didn't know. More surprise? Especially from his never-been-dead-and-not-used-to-popping-back-up-like-a-daisy little brother.
Sometimes Dean missed the Sam he'd had in 2016, the one who knew what they'd been through together, had fought and died, so many times, right alongside him. But most of the time Dean caught that innocent light still in his kid brother's eyes – the light he'd watched die during an Apocalypse – and swore he wouldn't let it go out this time. Wouldn't let that other Sam come into existence, even if it hurt like hell to think it. To know he'd permanently lost that brother.
Sam shrugged his good shoulder, both quiet and morose, in a way that upset Dean way more than the conversation. "Gordon showed me a picture."
"He- What?! That- That son of a bitch!" Dean swore viciously, wringing his fingers around Baby's wheel and kind of wishing it was Gordon's throat instead. They shoulda killed him and risked a city-wide manhunt, damnit. It woulda been worth it. "He took a fucking photo?"
Sam nodded, ignoring the way his stomach twisted and churned at the mental image, forever engrained in his brain.
"God damn, mother fucking-" Dean took in a deep breath, reminding himself that bastard was gonna spend the next year in jail. The older Winchester could probably arrange for someone to take him out before Gordon managed to escape, or whatever the fuck had happened last time to bring him back into their lives. Which he would have to figure out before it happened again. Goddamnit. One thing at a time. Dean blew that same breath out, chancing a glance at his unnaturally quiet brother. "I'm sorry, Sam."
"Cas bring you back?" Sam glanced over his shoulder at the back seat. He was taking this all incredibly well, Dean thought, maybe with a little bit of worry. As Angela was sitting directly behind him, all Sam could see was the woman's legs, curled up on the back seat, so he turned frontward again.
"Yeah. Woke up in the attic and figured…why waste it. Might as well try to find Cas." Dean bobbed his head back and forth, not talking fast but not giving Sam time to really interject, either. Between the exhaustion, the blood loss, and what was probably an emotional roller coaster from Hell, Sam shouldn't be taking this so calmly. Dean didn't like it, but he was actually more worried about what would come out of his brother's mouth when the quiet ended. "Fucking Uriel had him- her tied up. I busted her out and she took care of the rest."
Dean sent his brother a grin mostly out of instinct, the post-high of a crazy escape, a battle fought and won. Flying out of Heaven, crashing right through the gate, had been pretty damn badass. Not to mention the way they'd tag-teamed and taken down Uriel. Dean's smile faded, though, at the memory of Cas kneeling in front of his brother, eyes so damn mournful, as he told Dean to look away.
The hunter cleared his throat, more somber now. "Uriel's dead."
Sam was startled to hear it. He glanced again to the backseat, less of a full turn this time, but both Angela and Cas remained unconscious. The younger Winchester slowly turned back around, worrying at the inside of his cheek. Uriel had been Cas's brother, a trusted friend, even if that trust was misplaced. And Cas had been adamant about returning to Heaven to protect her family. Even a traitor's death – and probably more so his betrayal – would weigh on the compassionate angel. "How did she…?"
'Take it?' was Sam's intended question, but it wasn't the one Dean heard. At least, not the only one he heard. He understood what Sam was asking, but he knew his brother was also asking it assuming Castiel had been forced to kill her brother again this time around.
"She's not the one who did it," Dean replied a little stiffly. "I did."
His brother's eyes practically bulged out of his head and it would have been funny if the subject matter was anything else. Eh, it was still a little funny.
"How?"
Dean shrugged but couldn't completely hide the grin tugging at his lips. Yeah, he knew Cas mourned Uriel's death, but Dean sure as hell didn't. He was glad that asshole was out of the way and happy to be the one to do it rather than make Cas carry that weight. Plus…come on; it was a total badass move (besides, Dean had never been one to shy away from owning that before, why start now?). "Stole his angel blade off him. Sure as hell taught him not to underestimate the 'mud monkeys.'"
"Huh." Sam turned his gaze back to the windshield and road beyond. That…. He made a mental note to talk to Cas whenever she woke up, make sure she was okay. Losing a brother, even if you weren't the one to do it, was still, well… Sam glanced at Dean from the corner of his eye again, drinking in the sight of the older Winchester just breathing, just being alive.
He fisted his hands in his lap, one curled over the other, to hide the fact they were trembling once more. Cas had healed him – apparently well before she should have, given her now unconscious state and the fact that he'd gotten to have eight and a half minutes of conversation with Angela Garrett – so it wasn't withdrawal. It wasn't, Sam told himself fiercely. And even if it was, it wouldn't be like last time. He'd taken in so much less blood this time. So it wouldn't be like last time. It wouldn't.
"Ava," Dean suddenly breathed out, somewhat out of nowhere. There was a shock of revelation carried on the single word. In the lapse of silence, the older Winchester had turned his thoughts back to Sam's original question, about the voicemail. It took a minute, but he remembered. Sam had called him because Ava Wilson showed up at the motel room.
Beside him, Sam straightened, gaze snapping to him, partly in surprise but mostly due to confirmation. "So you do know her. This happened last time?"
"I mean, not this." Dean motioned at the three of them, fleeing Lafayette with a gunshot victim, a recovering corpse, and an unconscious angelic vessel in the backseat. "But yeah, Gordon came after you and there was some chick with you at the time. I…I think her name was Ava."
The older Winchester shrugged at not having more to say, somewhat self-conscious of it. He didn't really remember much about Ava; he'd never even met the lady, just spotted her through a hotel window at the time and then spent months searching the country for her with Sam. It wasn't easy remembering what had gone down eleven years ago, especially with someone who'd existed mostly as hearsay for him.
Sam snatched the folded note back off the dashboard, bloodied and bullet-holed, and held it up. "She left me her number."
"You dog." Dean' waggled his eyebrows at his brother, an automatic response he really couldn't help.
Sam's immediate response was a rolling of his eyes, then the verbal equivalent: "It's not like that, Dean. She has a fiancé."
"Yeah, so?"
Whoa. The déjà vu hit like a bag of bricks to the gut, so much so that Dean almost lurched physically forward. Shit. That couldn't be good. It was never good.
"I promised I'd call her when I found you and didn't die." Sam stared down at the ruined handwriting as his brother huffed a laugh. It was off, with Dean rubbing at his chest like there was something stuck there, but Sam didn't catch it. Between the bullet hole and the blood, Ava's number was completely illegible. It wasn't the end of the world – could have been so much worse, really (the same bullet that destroyed the note could have killed him) – but Sam couldn't shake the regret. He'd made Ava a promise. More than that, she was one of Azazel's children. He wanted – needed – to check in on her, too.
"I'm sure she'll get over it," Dean offered, trying for comfort but failing in his usual Dean-way. He was busy rubbing at his chest and wondering what the hell they were walking right into, yet again. "Especially if she's ready for a ball and chain. Probably get over being stood up in a day or two. Less, even, since it's you we're talking about."
Sam rolled his eyes again, folding the paper back up and tucking it into the front pocket of his jeans. He couldn't bring himself to get rid of it yet. Something about throwing it away just didn't sit well with him. Like he was throwing her away. "Do you know anything about her? What happens to her?"
"I never met her, but she was one of Azazel's kids. A psychic – had visions, like you." Dean lowered his arm from his chest, tapping a finger against the steering wheel instead. Some of it was coming back, but slow and sluggish, like digging through sludge. "She…uh…she was at the battle royale, I think."
Not that he really knew the details. The truth was, he'd been so much more concerned with Sam at the time, first with finding him and then…after. Memories hadn't really stuck so much those first few days, at least until the shock of what had happened, what he'd done to make it happen, what he'd sold to make it happen, had started to wear off, replaced with dread and denial.
Wait, there was something else. He remembered looking for her. They'd spent weeks looking for the missing woman after…after they'd found a blood-covered apartment and no Ava.
"She live in Peoria?" Dean suddenly asked, eyes locked on a road sign as it flew past. Peoria was the second destination listed and his Timey Senses clenched, curled up in his gut tighter than an anaconda mating ball. His stomach gave an additional lurch of nausea at the image ('Thanks for that, brain.').
Beside him, Sam frowned, going back through the conversation he'd had with the frenetic woman. She'd mentioned being a secretary, having a fiancé…and the newspaper clipping she'd shown him, it had been from the Peoria Journal Star. She'd said it, too. 'Just a secretary from Peoria.'
"Yeah," the younger Winchester answered slowly, worry starting to draw his brow down sharply between his eyes. He looked at his brother again, gaze turning serious. "Dean, what happens?"
Dean pressed down on the gas, Baby surging forward with a rev of her powerful engine. "We gotta get to her apartment. Start looking for an address."
-o-o-o-
"So, Rachel."
Zachariah sat in front of her, across the large expanse of a white, ethereal, over-compensating desk. Not that Rachel would ever say as much. Didn't stop her from thinking it, though. (Didn't stop any angel who had to deal with Zachariah from thinking it).
"I understand from the Gate Guards that your second in command has turned traitor?"
"Yes. Uriel-"
"And you'd be willing to file a report to that extent?"
Rachel hesitated at the bland color spread across Zachariah's grace. It swirled sluggishly, twitching at the corners now and then, like an agitated eddy playing at being calm. It was…disconcerting, and Rachel neither liked nor trusted it. She had only reported directly to Zachariah three times since her placement in Castiel's unit, but she could, with a fair bit of confidence, claim that as her takeaway of this angel. She neither liked nor trusted him.
"Yes…" Rachel replied slowly, feeling like she was walking into a trap she couldn't see. Castiel sometimes did that to them, in their combat drills. It kept Rachel's instincts sharp, though she was concerned why those instincts might be flaring up now, in a superior's office, in the safety of Heaven's inner walls.
"Great." Zachariah rolled up the parchment in front of him, the contents of which Rachel didn't even know. She had assumed the Dominion would be asking for a verbal report. He could hardly know what had occurred between Uriel and Castiel already, and the Gate Guard's knew nothing other than her commanding officer fleeing Heaven with a human soul, Uriel in pursuit.
"Sir-"
"So, the traitor Castiel will be brought up on charges, should he ever return to Heaven. And we will, of course, mourn the loss of Uriel."
Rachel blinked. All thirty-six eyes, simultaneously. And then again. She…must have misheard?
"I'm sorry, sir, I don't…Uriel is dead?"
"Yes, tragic I know," Zachariah said, the features of his human faces forming something of a pout. He was probably going for sympathetic, but Rachel had never found him anything close to that. "He will be missed. Rest assured, we'll hunt down his murderer. You can go now."
"His…murderer?" Rachel tossed her head, sharp edges of her grace stubby and jolting. She visibly shook herself, those angles and corners beginning to vibrate in unease that was quick on its way to frustration. "Sir, there's been a misunderstanding. Castiel-"
"Has murdered one of the Host," Zachariah interrupted, bland face no longer so. In fact, his expression had grown stony, his grace hardening into sharp ridges, and Rachel immediately took note. Combat training had her prepared for attack, at any moment, and her superior officer was giving off all sorts of warning signs. Not that Zachariah was a physical fighter, but Rachel knew that violence came in many forms. "Or do you disagree that Castiel and Uriel – and only Castiel and Uriel – left Heaven?"
"Yes, they did-"
"And Uriel is dead, while Castiel has not returned."
"That doesn't mean-"
"And," Zachariah raised his voice, presence growing larger with the swelling of his grace, "is it not a fact that only an angel can kill another angel?"
Rachel quieted, realization of what was happening – what Zachariah was making sure was happening – settling in her colors like lead.
"Now, then." The Dominion settled behind his desk once more, bland smile slapped back in place on all four faces. "It was very commendable what you did, chasing after the traitor to try and save one of our own. As both your commander and second in command have been removed from rank by various circumstances-"
(Those circumstances being death and framed-for-murder.)
"-I am placing you in charge of your unit. Congratulations, Rachel." Zachariah stood in a sweeping gesture and Rachel mirrored the change in position out of instinct and a millennia of training.
"Sir, Castiel-"
"Was acting alone, as far as we can tell," the Dominion once more finished for her, something that was growing more than just frustrating. He eyed her and the face that resembled a lion twitched with a barely restrained snarl of its jowls. Rachel found herself staring at that face. "Unless, of course, you know otherwise? Anyone found helping a traitor will be held accountable for his crimes, you understand."
Rachel snapped her primary eyes back to Zachariah's center face. It was quite difficult to move through the sudden stiffness in her grace – her essence both frozen and rigid – but she managed a nod. "I understand, sir."
"Great!" Zachariah clapped his two forelimbs together, grace churning an ugly yellow-pink where it met and swirled together like a child's finger painting. "Well, you better get back to your unit. Congratulations, again, on the promotion. I'm sure you're very proud!"
She left his office with an escort, completely unsure for the first time in her long life. Rachel knew what she had just agreed to, knew the logic behind agreeing to it, but felt utterly wronged by the action. Should she not have stood up for Castiel? For herself? Rather, she had walked away without protesting their innocence, without condemning Uriel, who was the guilty party to these events.
Rachel hardly noticed her escort depart at the entrance to the Heavenly Offices. She walked on autopilot, slowly and without notice, back to the barracks where her unit was housed. The walk was not a long one and, in this case, not nearly long enough for her troubled thoughts and churning grace.
"Rachel!" The angel looked up at Samadriel's voice, only to find him hurrying towards her from the barracks. He must have been waiting for her return. "Is everything okay? What's going on? They're saying that Castiel is a traitor? That he killed Uriel?"
Seeing Samadriel's concern, his clear confusion and the way his grace surged and retreated with hope and then fear, Rachel's grace hardened with resolve. She may have walked away from Zachariah's office without a fight, but she would not walk away from her unit. She had a duty to do and Rachel would not allow that responsibility to be defined by an angel who had never dirtied his hands in battle or led a command.
Or who so carelessly dismissed his subordinates.
"Gather the Flight," she ordered, and Samandriel straightened to attention at the order. "There is something we must discuss."
-o-o-o-
Zachariah watched the new Flight Commander leave his office under escort, all four faces eying Rachel's retreating form with wariness and distaste. He turned to one of his men, standing beside his desk.
"Watch her. Watch the entire unit."
The angel nodded at the order, turning swiftly to carry it out. Zachariah eyed the door to his office again, tapping one manifested finger against the surface of his desk. He didn't trust any of those good-doers in Castiel's unit. It was far too likely that, as their leader and mentor, he had gotten to all of them. One bad apple poisoning the batch.
Zachariah let out a breath that turned into a hum. He turned to one of the other angel's in his office, at his disposal. "Find Naomi. Tell her I want to speak with her immediately."
-o-o-o-
Gordon Walker sat in the interrogation room – not his first – and eyed the one-way mirror with the kind of stoic distaste that had always made cops uncomfortable. It's why Gordon avoided them, even on cases. Never worked well with the local LEO's. Never cared to.
The door to the room opened, one such cop – probably a detective, given the pressed shirt and shiny shoes – walking over to the table. Like every LEO ever, the guy slapped a folder and an evidence bag onto the table between them, then settled down in the chair across from Gordon like a fat cat in his tiny little kingdom.
"You know," the detective began, grabbing the evidence bag almost lazily, opening the seal and pulling out Gordon's phone. "You really should lock your mobile device."
The hunter immediately frowned. He did keep his phone locked. With a relatively secure six-digit access pin.
The detective tapped something on the phone, turning it around to face him and Gordon blinked at the home menu. No pin. Phone just open, with everything on it – like photos – admissible in a court of law. Brown eyes slid closed with realization, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips.
"Nice move, Sammy," Gordon muttered, realizing the hunter had disabled the locking system on his phone, knowing the cops were on their way and would be able to use anything they found on the device as evidence against him.
Damn. He'd have to remember not to hand over his phone to anyone again in the future, particularly an adversary as smart and devious as Sam Winchester.
"Hey!" A hand slapped down on the table in front of them and Gordon snapped his eyes back open, locking them on the man in front of him. "You think this is funny?"
The detective thumbed through his phone, opening the photo gallery and turning it back around to show Dean Winchester's deceased face. Gordon stared at it for a long moment. At the green eyes, frozen open and lifeless. At the blood and brains spattered across skin and pavement.
Dean Winchester had been dead. Until he wasn't.
"So, you like taking pictures of corpses, Mr. Walker?" The man watched him, eyes dangerous, but nowhere near as dangerous as the things Gordon hunted. Or the hunter himself. The detective swiped to the next photo. "Who are they, huh?"
The picture was a woman, head no longer attached to her body but conveniently propped up beside her corpse. Like a proper photoshoot. Gordon had found it hilarious at the time.
She was vamp, the last he'd had taken out before turning his sights on the Winchesters. He liked getting them out of their nest this way. Usually started with the women. They were easier to lure away, with promises of a good meal or a good night, never realizing that Gordon's definition of both was just as bloody and deadly as theirs. After the kill, he'd take a photo and bait the rest of the nest. Vamps may be monsters, but most of them had cell phones. Hell, Gordon had seen nests with sixty-two inch TVs, cable, and PlayStations, for Christ's sake.
One little text with a picture of one of their kind dead, head rolling, and the whole rest of the nest came calling for revenge. Not that they ever got it.
"You like killing girls?" The detective's voice was taunting, pushing, and Gordon's eyes flickered back up to meet his. The cop swiped to the next photo, the woman in that one as equally decapitated as the first. Gordon should have deleted them, but he'd never thought to worry about cops, of all people, getting a hold of them. "It make you feel like a man?"
"You shouldn't call women 'girls'. Not in a professional setting," he taunted right back, keeping his tone even except for the slightest taint of condescension. The detective growled low in his throat and Gordon just smiled.
"So you, what? Got a decapitation kink?"
"Maybe I just like taking pictures." Gordon shrugged, not a care in the world. This was all utterly unimportant – beneath him – and he'd get out soon enough. "You know what else I like? My Miranda Rights. I'll take a lawyer now."
He watched as the man across from him clenched his jaw, veins and muscles bulging in the square line of his face.
"Fine." The detective stood, throwing the phone back into the evidence bag and scooping it and the folder off the table. "But we'll be running those faces and when we get matches you're going down for murder on top of the weapons charge. So I suggest you tell that lawyer you want to make a deal."
Gordon watched the man – just a man, while Gordon was so much more, took out so much more, ever damn day – leave, door slamming shut behind him. The hunter settled back in his chair, content to wait. He wasn't in a great spot now, but he'd been in worse before. He'd get out of this one, too.
Once he did, he was going after the Winchesters. And next time, he'd bring a lot heavier artillery than a rifle.
-o-o-o-
Ava Wilson's apartment was a mess. They didn't make it in time to save her, not that Dean knew if they could have to begin with. The Winchesters got to Peoria in the early hours of the morning, early enough that it was still very much dark out, and yet still entirely too late. The fiancé was dead in a puddle of blood and sheets, Ava was nowhere to be seen. The déjà vu was so strong Dean felt physically sick.
Sam crouched down past the foot of the bed, next to another pool of red over by the window. The purse he'd seen Ava sling over her shoulder only hours ago was sitting, abandoned, in the middle of all that blood. The contents were spilling out of the tipped over bag and Sam reached out, picking up a knife sheath he recognized all too well. The weapon itself was nowhere to be seen, just like the woman he'd given it to.
He set the useless leather guard back down, careful not to disturb the crime scene. A glint of something reflective drew Sam's attention to another object among the blood, and the young hunter leaned further forward to reach for it. Sam picked the metallic object out of the congealing mess, silver and diamond glinting in the beam of his flashlight.
An engagement ring.
"Ava," the younger Winchester breathed out, the sound full of grief for a woman he'd barely known yet felt entirely responsible for.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A/Ns: And *that* wraps up the Heaven Arc! Which I couldn't label out loud earlier cuz you all didn't know Dean was going to Heaven XD There's so many characters and sub-plots going on now that just wrapping up that arc took half the chapter -_-
Gordon, Extra Creepy Edition: I loved the way Gordon was portrayed in the show – he was a real son of a bitch and super creepy – and as I started writing him I just…I don't know, ended up pushing that. I started writing his motivational narration and was like…holy shit, this guy is coming out creeeepy AF. And then with the whole taking a picture of Dean, I thought…you know what…Gordon always gave off this kinda-sick-and-evil vibe to me. I could see him taunting vampires with the death of their nest-mates, and keeping the photos as trophies of sorts. Because he's human, and he's better than them just because of that. Turns out, I like writing the creepy ones (Azazel probably should have tipped me off to that one…XD )
(Writing Zachariah is kind of my favorite too. He's such a dick.)
Other Character Check-Ins: To everyone asking for updates on other characters (Crowley, Azazel, Lilith and Persephone are the top requests (and holy crap, you guys are asking for more of the OC. I…I'm stunned and very honored), I do hear you, your requests are noted! I appreciate not only your interest in what's happening elsewhere in this story but also the nudges for me to remember everyone/everything too, haha! XD
Those characters are all coming up. Feel free to keep nudging, it helps keep me on track and lets me know where audience awareness and likes/wants are. I ask only for patience in the meantime; any character that doesn't have to do with the current arc won't get screen time because screen time is so darn tight just covering what we need to cover! (By that I mean it's taken 8 chapters of roughly 6,000 words each just to cover one night dealing with a single badguy. All other villains are just gonna have to wait XD) Soon as we get to the end of this arc (which usually means downtime in the plot; we've just had three back-to-back arcs with very limited downtime lately, which is rare btw), I'll work those characters we haven't heard from in a while back in.
Up Next: With this arc wrapped up, we're headed back to Cold Oak to rescue Ava. But Cas needs some time to self-heal since Plan Trust-Uriel-To-Do-It didn't go so well, and the boys desperately need sleep and a break they can't afford to take. So first we're headed for Bobby's. Luckily, the boys aren't alone; they have Roadhouse connections too, maybe a couple that would be willing to head towards Cold Oak for them.