Chapter Text

prologue

"The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen does." (Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos, p. 141)

September, 2008[*]

Monte Cassino Monastery, Cassino, Italy

Shelves and floor of dark wood contrasted the cold grey stone walls of the monk's cell, but not nearly as much as the tea rose curtains with the matching down comforter covering the single bed wedged into the corner next to the uncluttered, orderly desk. The pink, the cheerful family photos intermixed with knick-knacks, and the delicate lingerie hanging over the back of the desk chair, testified that a woman dwelled inside the walls of one of the few active territorial monasteries remaining in Italy.

Yet, if anyone asked the Vatican, she was no ordinary woman. That is, if anyone there admitted to her presence on any given day.

Already dressed in a long, navy blue skirt, her bare feet padded across the fake Persian rug to her bed as she gracelessly yanked a light blue sweater tunic over her head and pulled free her shoulder-length black hair from the mock turtleneck. Her thumb hooked through a silver chain at her collar and absently slid it the length of the smooth, metal chain, freeing the silver Templar cross pendant from beneath the sweater.

Just at that moment, she began to feel a familiar queasiness easing its way through her. She gripped the back of the chair with one hand, trying to steady herself. Untouchable sparkling silver spots invaded her field of vision, quickly filling up every available space until almost everything she could see was the shiny, liquid silver. Her knuckles white on the chair, she slowly turned so she could move to sit on the bed, but stumbled, falling so she ended up twisted. Her feet were on the floor, although she did manage to get her top half turned so both of her hands lay flat on the unmade bed beneath her. Already, her forehead felt clammy with a light sheen of sweat. She closed her now blind, inky blue eyes and lowered herself, until she could feel the cool, silkiness of the sheets beneath her face.

She began to slowly breath in and out, counting the breaths mentally.

;One...two...three...

This vision was going to be full-force, with both sights and sounds, which meant whatever she was going to see, it wasn't a premonition. It was something happening somewhere right now. Remote viewing, they called it.

Four...five... There would be no riddles or puzzles for her to work out later.

Six...seven...

No agonizing over cosmic secrets that could only be revealed when the time was right.

Eight...nine...ten...

Instead, these kinds of visions came with migraines and physical assaults that left her ill for hours, even days. Heaven's twisted version of Karma.

"Who are you?" the young man glares murderously at the mysterious man in the trench coat.

The man in question doesn't even bother to look up from perusing the book he's found on the table amongst the knives, occult paraphernalia, and other monster-killing weaponry. "Castiel," he replies rather matter-of-factly.

"Yeah. I figured that. What are you?"

Castiel meets the young man's remarkable green eyes. "I'm an Angel of the Lord."

There is a definite pause. "Get the hell out of here. There's no such thing," the younger man replies with absolute certainty.

"This is your problem, Dean. You have no Faith."

Lightning flashes from somewhere within and without. On the Angel's back two great shadowy wings appear, stretching into the distance silhouetted against concrete and the graffiti of black and white occult symbols. The light is gone as quickly as it came, and the dark-haired Angel in the trench coat is all that remains of the fierce phenomenon.

Dean flinches a little, looking slightly less certain as the penetrating, dark blue eyes of the Angel dare him to doubt. "Some Angel you are. You burned out that poor woman's eyes," Dean accuses bitterly without losing a beat.

The Angel bows his head, shaking it slightly, almost as if he feels regret. "I warned her not to spy on my true form. It can be... overwhelming to humans, and so can my real voice. But you already knew that."

"You mean the gas station. And the motel. That was you talking?"

The Angel nods simply.

"Buddy, next time, lower the volume."

"That was my mistake. Certain people, special people, can perceive my true visage. I thought you would be one of them. I was wrong." The Angel is patiently ignoring the man's attitude for just for this moment, because he has never questioned his superiors' decisions or orders, and he has been advised that Dean Winchester has a tendency to question everything as a defense mechanism. He doesn't understand why. His other charges are Believers.

"And what visage are you in now, huh? What? Holy tax accountant?"

"This? This is... a vessel."

"You're possessing some poor bastard?"

"He's a devout man; he actually prayed for this."

"Well, I'm not buying what you're selling, so who are you really?"

Perplexed at what is so hard to understand, Castiel frowns. "I told you."

"Right. And why would an Angel rescue me from Hell?"

"Good things do happen, Dean."

"Not in my experience."

Castiel's brow creases as he steps into Dean's very personal space. His deep blue eyes search Dean's rich, green-hazel ones for answers. "What's the matter? You don't think you deserve to be saved?"

Uncomfortable with Castiel's proximity, with the intensity of his stare, Dean turns his head, so he is looking at the Angel from the corners of his eyes. He tries not to flinch. "Why'd you do it?"

"Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you."

She was unsure how long she lay blacked out this time. Her eyesight was returning in a painful blur of colors and bright lights, and she could feel the thick, stickiness of her blood slowly dripping from her nose onto her clean sheets. She rolled onto her back, sluggishly pulling her feet onto the bed, feeling every motion as if her entire body was an exposed wire.

"Damned, Winchesters," she swore softly.

[*] Dialog during the "Remote Viewing" was taken from Supernatural episode 4x01, "Lazarus Rising," but the story author filled in the descriptive elements and interpretation of the scene.

Chapter Text

pre-series [part I]

April, 1986

City Park[*], New Orleans, LA

“The Cousins” was the general nickname that referred to any of the LeCroix clan -- no matter the actual relation -- from grandmothers, to in-laws, to fourth cousins twice removed, not to mention some ex-wives. Despite their numbers, they tended to be a close-knit family who often worked together, played together, and raised their children together -- something considered a slight rarity in a world of latchkey kids, stranger-danger, and increasing technical social isolation. However, the LeCroixes operated under a motto that the family that fights evil together, survives together. That reasoning had worked since the Crusades, so no one saw a need to change it.

Summer was still almost two months away, but the humidity in New Orleans already hung heavy in the air. Nevertheless, any of the Cousins under the age of eighteen were, without exception, oblivious to the discomfort if it meant not being cooped up on any given Saturday. Today for instance, armed with miscellaneous sports equipment, two ice chests, several picnic baskets, and a box full of other activities, a horde of LeCroixes in all shapes and sizes had descended upon City Park.

Using one of the pavilions as home base, the four youngest children were set up at a weathered picnic table with coloring books, under the semi-watchful attention of two tweens. The designated babysitters’ qualifications were based on the fact they had no interest in the nearby family football game and every interest discussing the various attributes of the altar boys at church – the ones they weren’t related to anyway.

The blonde, five-year-old cousin with braids attempted to take a broken red crayon away from her little brother, who was determined to press it as hard as he could into his picture of a whale. He pushed and pulled it in up and down motions on the page making dark red marks nowhere within the lines.

“You’re doing it wrong! You’re doing it wrong!” she scolded, shrilly, over and over.

In contrast, the other two children at the table, also a boy and a girl, sat at the far end, ignoring their blonde cousins, concentrating completely on their individual tasks, heads down. The dark-haired, fraternal twins carefully colored inside the lines of their pictures, their movements almost synchronized. Joshua felt a slight breeze as the stale, sticky air of the morning finally seemed to shift a little. The sensation brushed past him, and he realized with some disappointment that it wasn’t a breeze after all. Glancing over at their noisy coloring companions just as Eva yanked the red crayon from her little brother’s fingers, Joshua exhaled, with his bottom lip pushed out, pointedly directing the air upward in an attempt to blow his longish, black bangs out of the way. He raised his ink blue eyes to study his almost identical sister across from him.

Naomi placed her pink crayon in the crease of the fairy princess coloring book and folded her slightly pudgy hands together as she quietly listened, her eyes focusing on something intangible.

[Hello, Naomi,] the angel greeted her. There was no whisper or telepathic push into her mind. Nor was there a shout or a scream. The voice level was the same as if her brother had calmly spoken to her from across the table. Still, the angel’s voice was extraordinary, not just because she was the only one who could hear him, but because every syllable felt musical, soft, feathery, and warm, even when his words were not happy.

“Good morning, Castiel Angel,” she replied with a welcoming smile.

[I would like you to do a favor for me today; do you think you can try?]

“Anything for you. You know that.” She felt the warmth of what she assumed must be a pleased smile. Whatever it was, the dark-haired six-year-old was eager to please her angel.

[You will need to enlist the aid of one of your elder cousins…]

Naomi looked over her shoulder to where the two disheveled, so-called grown-ups of the day’s City Park invasion party had parked themselves on plastic lawn chairs and appeared half, if not completely, asleep. “Um. O…K…” she said a little hesitantly as the angel continued to explain to her what he wanted her to do. She had faith that her angel wouldn’t lead her astray, even if she thought Super Grover might be a better candidate for heroic deeds. She glanced back at her brother conspiratorially.

“Heads up, Uncle Mike!”

The warning didn’t provide enough time to pull him from his slight doze, but the football that slammed into Micah’s rib cage brought him to a fully alert state. “Umph!” Both muscular arms came up reflexively to capture the ball against his chest. His cheap, gas station sunglasses partially hid the wince as the sudden motion pulled at the stitches in his right side that were hidden beneath his faded, almost-too-small, high school gym shirt.

Without moving an inch, his brother snickered. Noah sat slouched down in his own lawn chair, keeping a semi-interested eye on the game from under the LSU baseball cap he had pulled down over his blue eyes.

Micah punched him in the arm without even looking. He instantly regretted it though, since Noah was on the same side as his stitches, but he didn’t waste time dwelling on it. He shifted so his feet were planted on either side of the brown and white plastic weave lawn recliner in which he had only a moment ago been so close to napping. Leaning forward to glare at the eight kids waiting impatiently for the football, his hands gripped the football like a quarterback trying to decide who was open. “Hey! One of you throws like a girl!” he teased. “And I know it ain’t Becca or Ruth ‘cus I taught ‘em better than that!”

The kids giggled, but they also easily ratted out the culprit with finger pointing and one wedgie, thanks to Ruth.

“Levi, go long!” With a chuckle, Micah threw the ball, making the redheaded fifteen year-old work for it, even though it had been Levi’s youngest brother, Jacob, who had been at fault. In Micah’s mind, small lessons, even in a pick-up football game, would lead to stronger leadership and better cooperation later when they were training or in the field on cases.

“You know…you could’ve just stayed home, Grumpy,” Noah grumbled, rubbing his arm where his brother had punched him.

After glancing over to check on the munchkins in the pavilion, Micah settled back into his pre-doze position, but this time he kept his eyes open for UFOs. “No…I couldn’t have.”

“Yeah, you could have. I think I can handle one day of Park Patrol on my own. I’m not the bumbling fuck-up everyone thinks I am,” Noah took the hat off, ran a hand through his brown hair, and put it back on his head. He straightened up in the chair, feeling the skin below his denim shorts peel off the plastic in that weird but strangely engrossing way.

“Dude, you live above my garage,” Micah teased lightly.

Noah made a face and punched his brother in the shoulder, resisting using his full strength, because he really didn’t want to hear any whining about stitches pulling loose. “I’m serious. We pulled in at what? Three A.M.? And you drove the last eight hours?...You should be passed out-“

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Seriously-“

“No, I mean…I was sleeping,” Micah explained, “but there was all this door slamming, and drawer slamming, and I started to worry the frying pan was going to be slamming next, and the whole time, under her breath, Lee Anne’s mumbling about how she’s been stuck in the house with the kids for six days, while I’ve been out ‘gallivanting’ with my brother and my friends-“ Micah made invisible quote marks in the air with his fingers to accentuate “gallivanting”.

“Getting your ass kicked half way across Texas by a pack of chupacabras is ‘gallivanting’?” Noah imitated Micah’s gesture on the last word.

Annoyed, Micah stared at him, until Noah finally turned questioningly to meet his brother’s gaze.

Clueless, Noah blinked. “What?”

“It is if your wife is eight months pregnant, pee-brain.”

Noah thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. “I am so never getting married, man.” He was about to add something a little less appropriate, but the sudden appearance of two small, pale faces about the same height as his own right at his side gave him a jolt. “Oh! Heh…Hey, Josh, Naomi…you need something? Juice? Animal crackers?”

Micah sat forward to peek at the twins. They were a little strange even for this family, like maybe Adams Family strange. He suppressed a surge of guilt at the thought, because Aunt Ameline would knock him in the back of his head if she even suspected anyone had an impolite thought about the recently orphaned Moir twins. Somehow, Aunt Ameline had a sixth sense about those kinds of things, not to mention having super hearing and eyes in the back of her head. The twins were, for the time being, Aunt-Ameline-protected from the normal LeCroix hazing, which, in Micah’s opinion, was a necessary, character-building rite of passage.

“We need to go poddy,” Joshua told Noah, ignoring Micah’s intense, blue-eyed stare. Naomi nodded in agreement. With those striking, dark-blue eyes, her long, straight black hair pinned with pink butterfly barrettes, her hand-me-down, too-big overalls, Naomi stood next to her brother, offering Noah a sweet, pleading smile and big, innocent eye-blinks.

With a deer in the headlights look, Noah turned a pleading look toward his brother, but Micah was wearing a wicked, bemused smile. “Clearly, they don’t think you’re the bumbling f-up everyone thinks you are either,” he chuckled. Noah started to punch his brother in the shoulder again, but Micah quickly brought up a hand to catch his brother’s fist.

Noah dropped his chin to his chest with a sigh of resignation. Then he gave the twins his best big brotherly grin. “Okie dokie then. Let’s see if anyone else wants to go.” As he stood, he offered his hand to Naomi. With a huge smile, she slid her tiny, pudgy hand into his larger one.

Noah was fairly sure there was some Secret LeCroix Women’s Family Manual somewhere, with a notation that Noah LeCroix could be easily manipulated by big eyes and cuteness. Crying also worked.

Noah, the twins, Levi, and three other LeCroix children paraded through the park beneath ancient, sculptural oak trees, some with lateral limbs bent to the ground and twice as long as the tree was tall. The temptation to climb was whispering from everywhere, but with Levi’s help, Noah kept the kids in a follow-the-leader formation and all the while, Naomi was anxiously tugging on his hand to hurry.

Stepping from the shady solace of the trees into the Storyland playground was akin to stumbling from one pleasant, lazy Saturday Cousins-only magic realm into another brighter, louder, crazy people-filled make-believe nightmare realm. At least, that was Levi’s first thought as he absently grabbed the back of Seth’s – another one of his three younger brothers -- shirt to pull him back toward the group. “Everyone buddy up,” Levi ordered before Noah could and stood straighter when the 20-something weekend guardian rewarded him with a pleased smile and a nod.

If there was one thing Noah did not have to worry about, it was how the LeCroix children would handle themselves in a crisis. They were probably better prepared than most adults were. Therefore, when the first cry for help reached their ears, and he spat out, “Stay,” he knew they would. Noah ran toward the sounds of distress; he unconsciously knew that as the oldest, Levi would take charge, and the other children would obey the teenager – as long as it was a crisis, that is. Levi would make certain they were in a safe place, and if things went wrong, take them back to Micah. He also knew that Levi was trained to protect them, but he didn’t have to think about any of that just then.

He just had to react, because that’s what they were trained to do. All of them.

Afterward, when Noah had a chance to review the events of the morning, he had a chance to suspect something might have been off – like LeCroix kind of “off”. When he instinctively, reflexively shifted from goofy uncle to action hero, he didn’t at the time notice Naomi was no longer holding his hand. She had stopped her insistent tugging and let go a second or so before the cry for help from the mother whose child a human predator had snatched.

While she was making a cold pack from the ice in one of the coolers for his bloody knuckles and smiling proudly at him, like he was her newest superhero, he studied her seemingly wiser-than-six-year-old face and wondered if it was a coincidence, or if he had imagined it.

December, 1990

LeCroix Apartment, French Quarter, New Orleans, LA

“Eat this. You’re too thin.” Ameline shoved a thrift store plate, heaped with praline bread pudding under Levi’s nose.

“Uh, Mom…” He was sitting on the sofa in his favorite Saints sweatshirt and holey blue jeans, just happy to be in civvies and not doing anything for once.

“Eat it.” She shook the plate with insistence as determined as any drill sergeant.

Levi accepted the plate and the fork with a glance at his Cousin Naomi sitting next to him on the sofa. They shared a ‘she’s-lost-her-frickin’-mind’ look, before he turned back to his mother with a grateful, if patronizing smile. “Thanks, Mom.”

Still dressed in her school uniform – white Oxford shirt and shadow plaid pleated skirt -- Naomi just shook her head with a bemused smile. Lopsided pink bows adorned the ends of two dark French plaits, giving her a Dorothy-esque appearance. One of her fingers was wedged into a copy of The Stories of Ray Bradbury to hold her place.

“I don’t know what those people are feeding you,” his mother restarted the litany she had been reciting four or five times a day since Levi arrived home from OSUT – the Army Infantry’s version of Boot Camp and Advanced Training. Frowning, as she tried to run her fingers through his hair, but the familiar mop of hair was long gone, replaced by a crew cut. He simply didn’t look like her baby anymore. He had always been athletic, but now the Army had transformed him; lean muscle had replaced all of his baby fat …and he was too thin for her comfort.

“Mom, the Army feeds me just fine.” Nevertheless, he made a show of taking a bite of the bread pudding for her. The Army just did not make bread pudding like his mother. Heck, no one made bread pudding like anyone in New Orleans. He wanted to close his eyes and let the dessert melt in mouth to just savor it, but he was worried one of his brothers or Joshua would appear and accuse him of being a girl. Then he would have to smack someone around, and someone else might steal the bread pudding while he was distracted. So instead, he just ate it like a man.

Eleven-year-old Naomi giggled.

Levi refocused on the television, but the news was on – talk of the U.N. sanctions on Iraq for invading Kuwait[†] – so…not funny. He glanced up at his mother, but her back was vanishing into the kitchen. He turned to look at Naomi and realized those striking eyes were staring right at him. Frowning, he knit his brows. “What are you laughing at?” Knowing her, it could be anything.

“You.” She folded the corner of a page to bookmark it in the middle of “A Sound of Thunder” and set the book aside. When he quirked an eyebrow at her, she added, “Because you’re going to share your bread pudding with me.”

Levi laughed. “You think so?”

She hugged him with a mischievous grin. “Yep. I’m your favorite. You looooovvvve me.”

“Ohhoho!” Levi moved the plate, holding it out of her reach, still laughing. “No, you don’t.”

Climbing onto her knees, reaching across him, and stretching her shorter arms up, she still didn’t have the height to reach the plate. “C’mon…” She pleaded. “I’ll tell you if Julie Thibodeaux is still pining over you.”

For a thirty-second period in the LeCroix living room, if the television had not been playing a used car commercial, an outsider looking in might think the whole room was a still-life diorama as their eyes met, and out-stretched hands reached for a bread pudding plate held still just out of reach.

“Yeah, Okay You can have a third,” Levi countered.

“Half,” she bargained.

“Deal.” He brought the plate down. “But I’m not getting up to get another fork.”

“Please! I live in a house with five boys. I am so not afraid of your spit,” she replied, taking the fork. To be honest, the five of them had done much worse to each other -- and to her, gross-wise.

Levi chuckled and then elbowed her, only to be elbowed in return. This led to a giggle-elbow war as they shared the bread pudding.

When the pudding was gone, and the plate set aside, Levi said, “Alright, pay up.”

“All right.” Naomi shifted, so she was sitting slightly turned toward him and smoothed her skirt down. “Give me your hand,” she said as she took his hand and turned it palm upward.

“Oh, no!” he attempted to pull his hand away from hers. “Don’t pull that crap with me. Save the act for the shop downstairs,” he accused.

Laughing, Levi’s seventeen year-old brother -- Elijah -- and Joshua walked into the room with a basketball. They were returning from a pick-up game at the church youth center, and both were in sore need of showers. At least both Levi and Naomi were instantly aware of that even if Joshua and Elijah weren’t.

Ignoring their entry, Levi continued, “I know you never promise to tell anything you haven’t already seen. You wouldn’t have mentioned it if you didn’t already know the answer.”

“Oh! Did she tell you about the protection tattoo?” Joshua blurted taking a step into the room.

Levi’s eyes jerked upward to Joshua and blinked at the completely out-of-left-field remark. Then he blinked at Naomi, but she was glaring crossly at her brother.

She grabbed her book and flung it at Josh’s head, but it fell short by half-a-foot. “You have a really big mouth.”

“Hey!” Feeling the weight of her glare, Josh took a step back.

“Protection tattoo?” Levi repeated, levelly.

Hesitantly, Elijah hovered near his dad’s big leather chair. He wanted to sit down and listen, because this so sounded like it might get good, but he was aware of what his dad might do if he came home to discover someone sweaty had been sitting in his favorite chair. So, instead, he casually hovered.

“It’s nothing. Just a little spell I’m designing for you,” Naomi dismissed it without looking directly at Levi. In fact, she was pretending that her well-bitten fingernails were the most interesting thing she had seen all year.

“Protection from what exactly?”

“Nothing in particular,” she shrugged. “It’s more of a general protection thing, like getting a booster shot; I mean, it won’t make you bullet-proof.” Her mouth clamped shut.

“Bullet…proof?” Levi repeated. “Why would I need to be bullet-proof?” Vaguely aware that their brothers were still in the room, watching them as if they were an episode of Twin Peaks, Levi kept his eyes on Naomi.

Naomi gestured passively at the television. All three boys turned their attention to the muted CNN images of mounting trouble in the Middle East. The four of them stared in uncomfortable silence for a few moments.

“Well, nobody’s said for sure the U.S. is going over there, have they?” Elijah asked softly, eyes still on the out-dated television.

Levi quirked an eyebrow at his clairvoyant cousin.

Swallowing, she nodded an affirmation to the real question the LeCroixes were asking. Her eyes never left the television though she didn’t see the moving images on the screen. She already had a clear memory of Levi entrenched in battle months from now.

“Did your angel tell you that?”

Biting her bottom lip, she shook her head. Her hand automatically touched the plain, silver Templar cross pendant at her throat before absently crossing herself. Her too-blue eyes finally swept over his face.

For the briefest of moments, Levi experienced the unsettling sensation of drowning and ascending at the same time – something Micah called “The Wednesday Addams Effect.” Like the anomalous energy that on rare occasions built up around her, the family simply accepted it as another of her quirks, like when she squeezed the toothpaste in the middle, but he was still uncomfortable as the focus of it.

“I knew almost right after you got off the plane,” she admitted softly.

In the beginning, she had to cast the spell Castiel taught her, with strange words, special ingredients, and sigils drawn on the floor. As time passed, she only needed the words. Now, unexpected premonitions occurred more and more randomly when she touched people or things. Moreover, she was now seeing further and further into the future. She was learning that knowing was not always a blessing.

“Am I going to die?” he asked in almost a whisper.

After a momentary silence, she replied, “We’re all going to die some day.” She was stalling, choosing her words carefully. She dared not glance at Josh because she knew his face would hold disapproval.

Levi’s face reflected his hurt. “Shit, Naomi! Stop playing mystic guru and answer-…just answer the fucking question! Am I going to die over there?”

“Hey! Language!” Ameline called from the kitchen. All four of them cringed, waiting for her to appear in the doorway, but the sound of dishes being washed continued. Apparently, her super-hearing only registered the naughty words.

“Well?” Levi demanded.

“I’m…not going to answer that,” Naomi said carefully. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest; her throat felt as if it were going to close up and suffocate her, but she knew she had to pretend to remain calm...for her cousins, for her brother.

The whole room shifted in less than a minute.

Elijah blurted in a hoarse voice, “What the- Holy crap, N’omi!” Lightning fast, he stood, took two steps toward her.

At the same time, Josh took two long strides in an attempt to put himself between Elijah and Naomi. He might be the shortest and youngest of the three boys, but the look on his face, and his stance were proof that he would take on both of them to protect his sister.

Elijah pivoted on the balls of his feet to pace away from her, running his dirty hands through his sweaty red hair.

Resisting the urge to throttle the innocent-looking girl who was like a sister, Levi grabbed one of his mother’s throw pillows instead, and twisted it until the Bible verse cross-stitched across it was impossible to read. “Why not?!” he pleaded with her.

Finally letting the emotional tension in the room overwhelm her, she bounced off the sofa. “Why not?!” She shouted at Levi. “Why not?!” she pivoted to face Elijah. Wetness threatened edges of her eyes. She turned back to Levi slowly, forcing her breathing back to normal. “It’s not the same as telling you whether or not we’re definitely getting pizza after mass, Levi. There’s not much you can do in an hour to screw that up. You’d pretty much have to moon the priest on the way out the vestibule for that prediction to go awry.”

Levi blinked at her, suddenly taken aback and extremely confused. He glanced behind her at Josh, who was trying not to smile at the thought of Levi mooning the priest, and Elijah, who had stopped pacing and was standing with his mouth open.

Naomi barreled forward. “Telling you if you are going to live or die in the future is huge!” She spread her arms wide. “And months in advance, gives you plenty of time to dwell on it and screw it up either way.”

“Uh…-- Huh?” Levi started to interrupt, but found he was too confused.

“Did I sound like I was done?” She shook her finger at him. “Say for example, I tell you that you are going to die before the end of the war – I’m not, but let’s say I am – so, then you think it doesn’t matter what you do because you’re going to die anyway; so you go off and either do something epically stupid or something stupidly heroic and get yourself killed before you’re supposed to. Then because you died at the wrong time, you aren’t where you’re supposed to be later in another battle, or when a monster comes and no one knows how to deal with it and someone -- or many someones – die, and it sets off a chain reaction…” She paused to let that sink in a moment.

Elijah plopped into their father’s favorite chair wordlessly. Josh sat on the arm of the sofa on the end opposite from Levi.

“I didn’t-,“ Levi started.

“Still not done!” She glared at Levi and then glared over her shoulder at Elijah just to make sure he was still paying attention. “Okay Now let’s take the other scenario and say I tell you that you are going to come home from the war just fine – again, not doing so; this is all theory. So, now you’re over there, and you’re thinking you can do whatever you want, because, hey, you know you’re going home just fine. You’re practically invincible. So, you run around playing hero, putting yourself in all kinds of danger. But you get yourself killed, because you’re recklessly jumping in front of bullets, being a hero.” She blinks away a few angry tears. “Then you don’t come home at all, and you’ve changed everything.” Naomi tilted his face up, her slender fingers on both sides of his face. After a long silence, she said, “The future is written in sand, not stone. Some of it is meant to be changed, but the bigger the change, the bigger the consequence.” She kissed his forehead, closed her eyes, and let go.

The room was quiet while it all sank in. Levi had no idea Naomi put that much thought into the visions she had, and it had never occurred to him to that she would have that kind of weight on her young mind and conscience.

Naomi let herself plop back onto the sofa. “Just go; keep your head down and your eyes open, and hopefully every thing’ll work out the way it should,” she added, not meeting anyone’s eyes as she sagged back against the pillows.

After a while, Levi quietly asked, “So, if I ask Julie Thibodeaux to the movies for Saturday, is she going to say yes?”

August, 1991

Black Bear Cabins, Blue Ridge Mountains, GA

“C’mon, Sammy, get the lead out already!” Dean dropped the overstuffed duffle by the cabin door. Grabbing the keys from the side table, he shoved them into the pocket of his ratty jeans.

“Where’re we goin’?” Sammy questioned when he appeared from the bedroom they shared. His brown hair was the longest it had been all summer, the ends curling near his shoulders, around his ears, and into his line of sight. It never bothered him, but he could see the contemplative look on his brother’s face and instinctively knew a pair of scissors was in his near future.

“To do laundry. Here, you can carry the detergent.” Dean unceremoniously thumped the store-brand detergent box into Sam’s chest, forcing him to fold up his arms to grab it.

“Right now? We just got here last night,” Sammy whined.

Actually, it had been closer to morning when John Winchester pulled the old black Impala into campground, but Dean had little desire to correct his brother, especially since it would only fuel the fire. “Yeah, well, we either wash clothes now or they start walking around by themselves.”

Sammy’s lips slipped into a small pout.

“’Sides, Dad’s asleep, so it’s not like we can do much in here. The washers ‘n dryers are in a whole other building…” Dean explained. “We can have a look around before we get stuck indoors…” He waited for Sammy get it.

“Oh!” His brother’s hazel eyes lit up with his smile. “Cool! Can I carry the quarters too?”

Dean grinned and handed him the rolls of quarters. “Sure, but be careful not to lose them.”

Sammy looked hurt as his fingers wrapped around the rolls of quarters. “I wouldn’t!” he insisted.

Dean smirked, holding the door open. “Okay…”

As they walked across the campgrounds to the “Camp Centre,” a larger building with the washers, dryers and vending machines, Sammy chattered away about anything and everything as if they had not spent every single minute of the last three weeks together. His brother stopped occasionally to investigate a rock, a bug, or an animal track. Dean just listened as he struggled to walk straight while heaving the weight of a duffle bag full of three people’s dirty laundry; it was much like the weight of being twelve yet having to raise an eight year old, and a nearly middle-aged man. Somehow, though, Sammy’s babbling made the load lighter.

The end of August meant the end of the summer vacation, which meant families were packing up and heading home. Most of the barely kept-up, cedar-paneled cabins were empty now with a few straggler families trying to soak in every last second of Georgia mountain fresh air before returning to the noise and traffic pollution of their everyday lives. The cabins were all nestled amongst the trees in the Blue Ridge Mountains, giving the illusion of seclusion while being close enough to provide community. Trails led to the lake, the “Camp Centre” and the groundskeeper’s cabin as well as a number of questionable marked “nature hikes.” Overall, Black Bear Cabins was a reasonably priced family vacation spot in the summer and even more reasonably priced in the off-season for a single father with two boys and no regular income.

As Dean and Sam came through the last cluster of trees into a clearing with a few scattered vehicles, motorcycles, and fishing boats, the Camp Centre came into view. The weathered building was missing more than a few cedar side panels as well as the “P” and “N” above the open doorway, making “CAM CE TRE” their actual destination.

Sam started to run ahead, but Dean stopped him with three cold words. “Sam, hold on.” Sam stumbled to a stop. He looked back at Dean and then followed his brother’s gaze. Dean was coolly watching two young bikers near the entrance. One was bald while the other had a crew cut; both were displaying a stereotypical amount of skin, tattoos, leather, and denim, and their mean-spirited laughter carried through the clearing. What caught his attention though was the unhappy, dark-haired girl, who was clearly trying to side-step around them, only to have one of the bikers block each step. “Gimme the quarters.” Dean dumped the duffle bag on the ground and held his hand out to Sam.

“Why? What’re you gonna do, Dean?” Sammy asked, clutching the detergent and the quarters closer.

Dean’s deep green eyes met Sammy’s hazel brown eyes. Sammy recognized the expression immediately, had seen it hundreds of times before on both Dean’s face and his dad’s face – angry, serious, and justified. It was about righting perceived wrongs, and usually it ended with a black eye, a busted lip, or some other hurt. “Give me the quarters, Sammy,” Dean demanded.

Reluctantly and wide-eyed, Sammy handed his brother the rolls of quarters.

“Okay,” Dean ran a hand through his short dark blonde hair. “Wait here with the clothes.”

“But-“

“It’ll be okay, Sammy. I promise.” Dean gave his brother a little smile and a wink. Then slipping a roll of quarters into each hand, he jogged off toward the threesome.

As he got closer, Dean could see the fading glitter of the butterfly iron-on on the girl’s sleeveless t-shirt. Her long black hair spilled over her sunburnt shoulders as she shifted slightly from foot to foot. Griping a canned strawberry soda, she appeared to be studying the ground as if it were a chessboard, as if she were imagining future moves.

“C’mon, girlie, I promise…you’ll like it,” the bald biker wooed, reaching out to stroke her long, soft hair.

She swatted his hand away, hastily yanking her hand back as if the mere touch of his hand burned her.

Both of the bikers laughed tauntingly. Even though the words angered him enough to speed up his approach, Dean was not so distracted that he missed the darkest blue eyes he had ever seen as they rose to meet his eyes from beneath her partially bowed head.

Her whole stance changed once she saw him. She straightened to her full height, straightening her back and raising her head. She looked at the biker with the crew cut and softly, calmly assured him, “Whatever happens, just remember, everything was his idea.” She gestured in the other biker’s direction with a little tilt of her head to emphasize.

The biker to whom she spoke cocked his head. “Wha-“

“Hey, is this a game everyone can play?” Dean came up behind them. They both had a foot or so over him, but when had that ever stopped him?

Surprised, both men turned.

Dean took the opportunity to kick the one on his right – baldy -- in the shin and send his right fist, wrapped around a roll of quarters, into the left one’s stomach. He quickly followed it with a second punch with his other fist.

The girl wasted no time either. She kicked baldy in the back of his knee, stepping into the move so her sandaled foot pushed flat on the back of his calf; he fell, screaming like a pansy-ass girl.

It was perfect timing, because it put the bald man’s nose at the perfect height to meet Dean’s elbow as he pulled back from the punch to the other one’s stomach.

Bent over, Crew-Cut Guy stumbled backward a few steps. He stood, still holding his stomach. He pivoted, bringing his fists up half-heartedly. Messing with kids really had not been his idea.

Dean glared at the biker with the fists, bringing his own up.

The biker opened his hands, showing Dean his palms in a show of “surrender” and backed off a step. His friend was literally trying to crawl away; apparently, he wasn’t as tough as he pretended once someone else had the upper hand.

The girl gave him a farewell kick in the pants.

“Well, I did like that, I promise,” she said smugly, still holding her can of soda. She ran her free hand through her hair, pushing it away from her face.

The biker grabbed the back of his friend’s vest and hauled him up. Baldy yelped and nearly fell again, but his friend supported him, and the two hurried toward the parking lot.

“Thank you,” she said as she watched them go.

Dean slid the quarters into his pocket and stretched the sore fingers of both hands. “You’re welcome.” He looked her up and down. She was cute for a girl her age, he supposed. He offered her a bit of a Winchester smile. “I have to go get my brother. I left him by the trees over there.”

“Oh…I’m going that way. I’ll walk with you,” she said, quickly catching up with him. “I’m Naomi.”

After a moment’s indecision, he replied, “Dean. You should be more careful.” He slowed down a little, realizing she was struggling to keep up with his stride.

“I know. I’m not supposed to be out here by myself.”

Dean glanced at her beneath long lashes. “If you know…”

“My bother and cousins are all fishing by the lake, and my aunt and uncle are in town…I didn’t want to bother anyone.” Naomi hung her head. “If it had been just one, I could have handled it.”

He huffed a little in disbelief.

She straightened her back. “No, really…I could have. I’m learning self-defense. I’m just better…at other things; it’s just that my brother is usually the one who does the fighting thing.”

Dean snorted. “That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

She tilted her head and studied him with a small pout. “Not all girls are helpless damsels-in-distress, you know.”

Dean laughed. “You really aren’t a good example of your argument, you know?”

Naomi reached out as if she were about to shove him but withdrew her hand after thinking better of it. “Hmmmf!”

“Dean!” Sammy ran up, relieved to see no obvious signs of serious injury.

“Hey! Uggh!” Dean felt the full weight of his little brother as Sammy launched himself at him. He stumbled back a few steps, holding onto the human monkey before slowly lowering him to the ground. “Sammy, this is Naomi.”

“Hi,” he smiled brightly at her.

“Hi.” His dimpled smile was contagious; she smiled widely in return. “Thanks for loaning me your brother.”

Sammy cocked his head at her and glanced at Dean.

She turned back to Dean, glancing down at his hand. Biting her bottom lip, Naomi reached out as if to take his hand where the knuckles where still slightly discolored and swollen from the fight. Her delicate fingers hovered so close only the two of them could tell she never touched him. She hesitantly drew her hand back after a few seconds. “Ice…” Her voice almost seemed breathless. “You should put ice on your hand.” Her eyes flicked up to meet his eyes.

Dean was unsure what had just happened, but he knew he was uncomfortable with whatever it was. A tangible energy seemed to hang in the air, and Dean felt decidedly unsettled by her behavior. “Um- Nah, I’ll be fine,” he shook his head, shoving his hands in his pockets and making a show of being cool.

“Oh.” Whatever she had been thinking, the moment passed. “….Right,” she smirked. She glanced around and noticed the box of detergent and the large duffle. “Well, I guess this is where I should say thanks again and head back.”

Dean nodded.

Biting her bottom lip, she tilted her head and studied him as if considering something carefully. Then she leaned in and chastely kissed Dean’s freckled cheek. Touching her fingers to her lips, she took a few steps and turned back, cheeks pink. “I’m sure I’ll see you again someday.” She offered little Sammy a worried smile. “It was nice to meet you, Sammy. ”…You –uh- should listen to your brother; sometimes ignorance really is bliss.” She absently touched the silver Templar cross at her neck before dropping her hand to her side.

Watching her suspiciously, Sammy smiled warily, “Bye.”

“Be careful,” Dean told her as he hefted the duffle bag back onto his shoulder.

She followed the worn trail toward a set of cabins near the lake.

He could still feel the echo of her kiss on his cheek, bizarrely icy and hot, not like other kisses he had received. Something was definitely off about her. He and Sam watched Naomi, until she disappeared into the trees. “That girl is missing a few marbles.” With a smirk, he shook his head, shaking off the whole experience. “C’mon, Sammy.”

December 24, 1991[‡]

Cicero Pines Motel, Broken Bow, NB

Lounging on the lumpy, threadbare couch, wearing a navy blue short-sleeved t-shirt and grey sweatpants, Sam tossed the comic book down as Dean closed the motel room door with a sigh. “Thought you went out.” The nine-year-old stated the obvious with a hint of hurt in his tone.

Smiling as if their earlier argument had never happened, Dean held up the small brown paper bag. “Yeah, to get you dinner.” He tossed Sam a package of food, which Sam managed to miss. “Don’t forget your vegetables,” he added before tossing his brother a small bag of Funyuns that Sam caught one handed.

Dean walked over to the pair of twin-sized beds on the left of the room. He set the bag down on the bed nearest the door, slid out of his army jacket, and tossed the jacket on the bed. Having been outside in the snow, he had a long-sleeved t-shirt under his short-sleeved black one, and his favorite jeans, which were starting to wear holes in more places than could be patched.

Meanwhile, Sam silently abandoned the junk food dinner on the sofa and walked over to sit on the other bed just as Dean plopped down next to the bag. Dean reached into the bag to pull out a soda, which he tabbed open with a fizz.

Out of the blue, Sam said, “I know why you keep a gun under your pillow.”

Dean’s head jerked up to blink at his brother. The smile on his face slid away. Then he lifted his pillow to reveal the gun resting between it and the motel mattress. He turned back to Sam, face blank, but serious, “No, you don’t. Stay out of my stuff.”

“And I know why we lay salt down everywhere we go.” Sam’s face was just as serious, just as unreadable beneath that fringe of bangs, as he sat perched on the bed opposite his brother.

“No, you don’t. Shut up,” Dean replied, just the tinge of warning in his voice.

Sam leaned back across his bed and rolled onto his stomach as he pulled the duvet and sheets back so he could pull something from between the box springs and the mattress. When he sat back up, he held a 5”x7”, multi-ring, tan journal.

Taking sips from the soda can, Dean had been watching his brother intently, but now there was a slight look of alarm on his face when Sam tossed the familiar book onto the night stand between the beds, displacing old, empty fast food containers.

Dean stood immediately, looming over Sam. “Where’d you get that? That’s Dad’s! He’s gonna kick your ass for reading that,” Dean threatened with a mean smirk.

Sam managed not to flinch, just stared at Dean, and then in a calm voice demanded, “Are monsters real?”

“What? You’re crazy.” Dean just stood looking at Sam with a “yeah right” smile on his face.

“Tell me.”

Dean bit his bottom lip as he looked away. He stared at their father’s journal on the nightstand, the book that held all the secrets of the supernatural their father had discovered, how to hunt evil, stop monsters, save people. He realized that there was no way to keep hiding the truth from his brother any more.

Sam just continued to watch him intently.

“I swear, if you ever tell dad I told you any of this, I will end you,” Dean said.

“Promise.”

Dean licked his lips, set his soda down with a thump on the night stand, and glanced at the journal as he sat back on his bed.

Sam leaned forward, his attention fully on Dean.

With a bit of pride, Dean started, “Well the first thing you have to know is, we have the coolest dad in the world…he’s a superhero.”

Sam’s face squished as he asked, “He is?”

“Yeah.”

Sam blinked, considering the possibility of “John Winchester, Superhero”, but before he had a chance to envision his dad in tights and a cape, Dean was talking again.

“Monsters are real. Dad fights them. He’s fighting them right now,” Dean confessed.

“But Dad said…the monsters under my bed weren’t real.”

Dean gave a soft laugh. “That’s cuz he’d already checked under there.”

Sam considered that with a sigh.

“But yeah, they’re real. Almost everything’s real.”

“Is Santa real?”

Dean snorted. “No,” he shook his head.

Sam hesitated. “If monsters are real, then they could get us. They could get me.” The blank expression from earlier was gone, replaced by the slow trickle of realization of the truth, and the panic and fear that comes with it.

“Dad’s not gonna let them get you,” Dean assured with quiet confidence.

“But what if they get him?” Sam worried.

Dean laughed, “They aren’t gonna get Dad. Dad’s, like…the best.”

“I read in Dad’s book that they got Mom.”

Dean bit his bottom lip and glanced away. When he turned back, he exhaled and said, “It’s complicated, Sam.”

A little panicky, Sam rushed, “If they got Mom, they can get Dad, and if they can get Dad, they can get us.”

Dean sighed. “It’s not like that.” He moved to sit next to Sam. “Okay. Dad’s fine. We’re fine. Trust me.”

Sam studied his brother and turned away, blinking to keep away the tears that threatened to pool below his hazel eyes. Only a few hours ago, he had been oblivious to all of this and now he felt overwhelmingly afraid. Even after reading the journal, it had all been too surreal to be true; it could have remained untrue as long as Dean had not confirmed it.

“You okay?” Dean asked.

“Yeah,” Sam whispered, staring at the far wall of the dingy motel. The tears began without his consent.

January, 1992

St. Joseph's Church[§], New Orleans, LA

Joshua struggled not to fidget, but found trying not to fidget was like trying not to yawn. Doing either might be perceived as rude, considering he was supposed to be pretending to listen to his sister. He shoved his hands into his jean pockets, shifted from one foot to the other, and watched as Naomi lit several prayer candles on the pricket stand. He nodded as if she had just said something agreeable rather than whispered a spell incantation in the sanctuary. Nervously, he glanced over his shoulder. She crossed herself, and he mimicked her out of habit.

Once, when Joshua came home nursing a new black eye, and his clothes looked like a grass stain and dirt detergent commercial, he had asked Aunt Ameline why God had made Naomi so peculiar. Aunt Ameline told him their mother, Hannah, was a special person, a woman of absolute faith, which was something rare in a world as dark and chaotic as the 20th century – even for someone in a family like theirs with generations of priests, white witches, and hunters of evil and the supernatural. She had believed that God had a great plan for her, and she had all but dedicated her life to Him. She might even have become a nun, had she not met their father, a devout, seminary-bound man – a match made in Heaven.

While serving as a missionary in Africa with her husband, Hannah began to want a child more than anything, especially since her sister Ameline already had four boys, but the years went by, and a baby didn’t appear to be in God’s plans for Hannah. Finally, like her namesake in the Bible, Hannah prayed with all of her Old Testament faith and made an Old Testament covenant with Heaven, promising that if the Lord gave her a child, she would give the child back into His service[**]. Soon after that, she was twice blessed.

Aunt Ameline told Joshua that God didn’t make his sister “peculiar” or strange, only special. In fact, He had made them both very special and unique, because he had a place for them in his grand plan. When Joshua pointed out that only Naomi could converse with angels, and that he was just regular, Aunt Ameline said to give it time. Eventually, he would see God had a plan for him too.

By the time he was twelve, he understood. She might have an angel, but he was her guardian. He protected her, kept her grounded in the real world, and did things like keeping people from thinking she was talking to herself when she was chanting in crazy made-up sounding languages. All of his life, from the moment he was born, that is what he had been trained to do, whether anyone realized it or not. He had always been overprotective of his sister, always getting into fights with anyone who dared say anything about her, push her on the playground, pull her hair, try to kiss her – Okay, she had been mighty upset about that – but living with the Cousins had been opportune. They’d trained him in weapons and hand-to-hand combat, things he probably never would have learned as the son of missionaries in Africa if his parents had survived.

By twelve, he realized as the tasks Naomi received from her angel became more dangerous and sent her further out into the world, the more she needed an understanding companion, a partner in crime, so to speak. He accepted that role in life. He couldn’t see himself following any other path in the future. In fact, as his friends began to talk about futures as engineers, dentists, and lawyers, he felt that somehow, his future was going to be more exciting, nobler and, since he knew he would be doing things on the side of angels, somehow…blessed.

Though admittedly, it was not all that exciting at that particular moment, what with the watching, and the fidgeting and the listening to Naomi murmur to herself in Enochian -- something she had been doing off and on since she learned to talk. Until a few years ago, he honestly had thought she made up the language, but now he could recognize some of the words. He knew the angel had taught her, and she was fluent, but unlike Latin, he could never seem to get the hang of it beyond a few necessary spells, like the exorcism and some wards.

Naomi never randomly used Enochian -- only for spells or to talk to Castiel when she didn’t want Josh or someone else to overhear. She always felt guilty just at the thought of summoning an angel. It seemed rather presumptuous and egotistical to think that whatever she had to say was more important than whatever else an angel had on his schedule for the day. However, it had been a while since she had heard from him, and she had something she needed to get off her mind.

A sound of wings fluttering preceded a light, momentary breeze that blew out several of the candles. Joshua and Naomi quickly moved to relight them, even as Naomi felt that familiar, feathery, warm presence envelop her.

[Hello, Naomi] the angel greeted her. His voice still melodic and soft, although she also felt a slight edge to it on occasion these days.

Naomi closed her eyes with a smile, looking very much like a purring cat. “Good afternoon, Castiel Angel,” she replied in Enochian.

[You summoned me? Is something wrong?]

Pouting, Naomi sighed. Straight to business, no chitchat today.

[You are distressed…Your cousin – Levi – has returned. He is safely home.] The last sounded almost like a question but wasn’t, because the angel already knew the answer.

Naomi nodded. “Yes, at Fort Polk.” Gratitude filled her voice, her heart. She could hardly believe Levi had been in the Middle East for less than a year. She was almost sure Castiel had watched over Levi, though he had never mentioned it. “Thank you.”

[If not Levi, then what is distressing you?]

Naomi felt the soft caress of words as if he were attempting to comfort. She knew from their previous conversations that he asked, because he wasn’t capable of guessing. As powerful and wonderful as he was, he could be quite oblivious about certain things. “I’ve been having…dreams, very disturbing dreams. I…think they're premonitions.” Dreaming of the future was new if they were indeed premonitions. Up until now, all of her visions had come when she was awake, usually when she touched someone or something.

[It is possible that your…gift has progressed to a new level. Your natural talent has been something of an anomaly.]

“Excuse me? What does that mean?” She knew he didn’t mean to sound clinically offensive.

[You have developed skills and abilities at an unexpectedly accelerated rate. I have perhaps misjudged when would be the appropriate time to teach you some spells.]

She smirked and rolled her eyes. “You’re apologizing because I’m a prodigy or something? Most folks want that in a protégée.” She imagined that if angels sighed, that was what her angel was doing. That was usually what most grown-ups would be doing about now.

[Tell me about your dreams.]

And there it was, back to business. She straightened her back as if to brace herself. “There were these... people with strange eyes -- all black or red or yellow -- they were doing evil, horrific things, and there was something about …devil children.” She closed her eyes, picturing; the disturbing images again in vivid color, played behind her eyelids like previews at the cinema. “Plagues and pestilence, storms wiping whole cities off the map…creatures …climbing out of Hell…towns of people turning on each other…armies of the undead…rivers turning into blood…rain of fire…too many lost souls and too few hunters…” She shivered and opened her eyes. Touching her cross, she shook her head, unable to go on. She felt haunted by these nightmares. Some nights she was afraid to sleep.

The angel was silent for a few minutes. Finally, he said, [Thank you for sharing this with me, Naomi. I will take this information to my superiors…You…should stop worrying about these things for now.]

“Stop worrying?” How was she supposed to just turn off the worry? “But what does it all mean?”

[I…do not yet know, but let me take the burden of worry for now.]

“Take the-“

She felt a strange sensation almost as if an invisible hand had stroked her hair. There was a slight tingling touch at her temple. The candles in front of her blurred. The room began to spin -- faster and faster, then only cool blackness.

Naomi tried to open her eyes but she still felt too dizzy. She felt the cold tile beneath her, except where her head felt cushioned in what she supposed was Josh’s lap. Someone, probably Josh, had just stuck something incredibly too cold right on her forehead.

“Cold.” she complained weakly.

“N’omi! Thank, God!” Joshua’s relief came in the form of a hushed whisper that still managed to echo in the large sanctuary.

Naomi weakly pushed at the ice pack, looking through heavy-lidded eyes. “Cold,” she mumbled.

Joshua removed the ice pack. “Sorry. You fainted…How do you feel?”

She blinked. How did she feel? Unsure, she began a silent checklist of self- inspection – fingers, hands, arms, -- check, check, check -- toes, feet, legs – check, check, check – head, torso – check, check. Brain?

She remembered talking to Castiel, about her nightmares. Dark, vivid dreams, possibly premonitions. Nevertheless, for the life of her, she couldn’t seem to catch the memory of them. They were like so many dreams, upon waking, fleeting, dodging, and just out of reach. She frowned, feeling as if she should perhaps be comforted, relieved, but also vexed, she wasn’t quite sure why.

Fall, 1996

LeCroix Enigma & Apothecary, French Quarter, New Orleans, LA

John Winchester paused on the cracked sidewalk in front of a glass door with iron bars welded to it. Recently repainted by hand, the wooden sign above the door had a blue-grey background and gold, italic, gothic lettering – “LeCroix Enigma & Apothecary.” The tiny lettering underneath indicated the store had been there since 1906, if that could be believed. The cleanliness of the sign stood out against the dusty, worn, reddish bricks of the aging and filthy fringe of the French Quarter. Weeds sprouted through cracks in the sidewalk, and vines crawled down the walls on this street. It looked like any other slightly more-than-off-Bourbon Street back-alley, but then most of the streets looked like back-alleys the further away from Jackson Square he got.

It seemed as though there were about twenty-five occult shops in the French Quarter vicinity alone. The phone book in the motel listed about fifty in New Orleans proper. The problem was finding a real occult shop in a tourist trap like New Orleans. You wouldn’t think that would be an issue in a city where the tomb of a political dynasty blatantly stood beside the tomb of a voodoo priestess the likes of the infamous Marie Laveau.[††] Or maybe you would?

However, in the end, John had called Pastor Jim to get the name of a reliable shop where he could acquire some suitable supplies. At least he had been able to talk to the boys – well, he had talked to Dean; Sammy was being – well – thirteen.

The hunter tiredly ran his hand over his face and scratched absently at the stubble on his cheek, conscious if only for a brief second of his disheveled appearance. The bell above the door jingled, alerting the denizens inside. Three pairs of eyes were on him. John had trained himself over the years to take stock of a room without making it look like he was. Three steps into the store, and he knew there was only the one door leading back outside, two doors leading somewhere further into the building, and a couple of barred windows along the storefront.

The walls were lined with shelves from floor to ceiling, fifty percent of which were filled with dusty books of all shapes, sizes and ages; the rest contained a miscellanea of jars, vials, talismans, and every other imaginable occult odds and ends, including dried, stuffed, and taxidermed things of questionable nature. In addition, there were tables and a few chairs throughout. The ceiling was covered in symbols and sigils – some were probably wards or protective spells, but at least one he thought had something to do with concealment -- in the middle of the room was a Heptagram with a Lesser Key of Solomon inside, properly done in gold lettering and recently repainted by the looks of it. Either the storeowners were really decorating for the atmosphere, or they were preparing for visitors of a darker nature.

A man about his height in his mid-20’s with short red hair stood at one of the tables in the middle of the store with one hand on a box the size of a banker’s box and several used books in the other. He wore faded blue jeans, hiking boots, and one of those new style army-issue desert camo shirts with “LeCroix” written across the pocket strip – except the shirt wasn’t new; it was frayed along the edges and faded too. His green eyes sized up John the same way John was sizing him up. He gave John a curt nod and returned to his task of sorting books, but John could sense the Persian Gulf vet was keeping a mental tab on him.

In the far back corner, at one of the two tables with chairs, a boy with black hair about Dean’s age was watching John from beneath sheepdog bangs much like Sammy’s. The corner of John’s mouth twitched, as a random snark about Sam Sheepdog came to mind. The dark-haired boy appeared to be wearing a school uniform with the emblem embroidered onto the pocket of the half-untucked white, Oxford, short-sleeved dress shirt. His schoolbooks were spread out around him on the table, with papers piled in stacks everywhere, looking somewhat like the table in John’s hotel room -- except if John didn’t ace his “test,” the permanent record that would be marred would likely involve a body part -- or worse.

The counter directly to the back held an old fashioned register, and was clearly the go-to place for the apothecary specialty items in the store, the wall behind it lined with little labeled drawers and with many a mysterious substance floating inside the bottles on the shelves. The teenager behind the counter looked more as though she belonged here than the other two. She was about the same age as Sheepdog Boy, shared his blue-black hair color and the midnight blue eyes, and her white, Oxford dress shirt was probably even untucked from what was no doubt one of those plaid, Catholic school skirts. However, the girl’s fingernails were painted a dark metallic blue. Her shoulder-length hair was tucked neatly behind one double pierced ear, her lip gloss had a slightly bluish tint, and her eye shadow was deep purple, accentuated by thick dark eyeliner under those already striking eyes. She wasn’t the kind of teenager that ended up as Homecoming Queen, but she was somewhat pretty in her own way, somewhere underneath the Goth.

“Hey, may I help you?” the girl smiled, disturbingly perky. She closed her Third Year Italian textbook, using a purple K&B pencil as a bookmark.

John felt ridiculously uncomfortable as her eyes swept over him from head to toe; it was almost as if she was seeing more than he did when he looked in the mirror every morning, as if she could somehow see inside him like some sort of preternatural x-ray. Uneasy, he glanced back toward Sheepdog Boy, who he now suspected was probably her brother. John pulled a wrinkled piece of standard, cheap motel stationary from his pocket, reviewed it once, and held it out to her as he reached the counter.

His grim face shifted into a wide smile, a little of that Winchester charm to break the tension. “Hello, sweetheart. I need everything on this list. And all the ingredients need to be as fresh and pure as possible.” The tiredness seeped through his gravelly voice -- a kind of entrenched exhaustion that was never going to go away, even if he did manage to find time to sleep for a week or a month. It had been there for years, probably since the night Mary died. He really had not slept the night through since then.

She took the list, read through it, blinked as if she was trying to focus, and read it again, before looking back at him. “Are you sure these are the books you want?”

His smile didn’t falter, though he was a little annoyed by the question. “Pretty sure,” he nodded. He didn’t need some teenage girl questioning his acumen; he had Sammy for that.

She bit her bottom lip thoughtfully, and then nodded to herself before slipping off the stool. Now he could see she was indeed wearing one of those Catholic-school plaid skirts which she had apparently hemmed more than two inches above the knees. He tried not to think about it, because she was Dean’s age, and that was just…so wrong in so many ways. He caught sight of Sheepdog Boy moving in his peripheral vision, but he didn’t seem to be doing so in response to any witnessed ogling.

“Josh—. “ She held the list out to her brother as she moved along the walls of books, searching the dustiest of them. She wasn’t even looking, just shaking the piece of paper behind her as she speed-read the titles up and down, using a pointed finger as a guide for her eyes.

As he passed behind her, Sheepdog Josh grabbed the piece of paper, appearing somewhat perturbed, and walked toward John at the counter. “I take it you want everything kept separate?”

“Yeah,” John replied, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“No, some folks like to have their stuff premixed and ready, so they can get right down to business,” Josh replied as he began to fill the order, placing herbs into packets and oils into vials or bottles and so forth. “Kind of like buying the pre-chopped, ready-mixed stir-fry veggies at the grocery, but you look more like a do-it-yourselfer.”

“Yeah, well, I like to know everything is done right.” Then after a moment watching Goth Girl, John self-consciously added, “No offense,” for good measure.

“None taken. N’omi’s the same way.”

Mumbling presumably to herself, Goth Girl blurred past between Josh and the counter and into the open door going into the back. John barely had time to blink and no time to ask where the hell she was going when a series of thumps, bumps, and bangs mixed in with a few “Umph!”s, a couple of “Ow!”s, and an unfortunate number of substitute expletives began to trickle through the doorway. John glanced from Josh to the man sorting books but neither seemed phased or concerned.

Sheepdog Josh set the items he had collected on the counter in front of John for inspection and began to ring them up just as Goth Girl returned with almost twice as many books as John requested. His eyes narrowed and he took in a deep breath bracing for an argument as he pulled his hands out of his pockets.

He started to question her about the armload of books, but she launched into a spiel as she plopped the books on the counter. “Okay, so we don’t have the English translation of Lefevre’s Créatures du Nord-Américain des Zones Humides.” She held up a copy as if to prove her point. “So you can either wait for us to call around to see if another shop has one or you can buy the original French and an English-French dictionary – though unless you’re at least semi-fluent I think that would be tedious.” Her tone held a hint of that angsty teenage wisdom that was so popular with girls her age. She exchanged the dusty leather book for a shiny hardback -- Survival in Louisiana Bayous: Alligators, Swamp Monsters, and Voodoo Witches – What To Watch Out For -- and held it up, “Dennis Parker references Lefevre all over the place; in fact, he pretty much plagiarizes Lefevre and a couple of other authors, but he’s a crackpot, and the book is way too cheesy; I don’t even know why we have it.” With a roll of her eyes, she dropped the book as if it was a lead weight. “Personally, I recommend Guide to America’s Swampland Evils by David Anchova, if you want a companion to the other book you requested.” She held Anchova’s book out to John for his inspection as well as the other title he had requested.

John silently counted to three. “Are you finished?” His voice held a parental chastising edge to it.

She nodded with a smirk, but her gaze was unwavering; his tone had no effect on her.

He frowned. He was used to being intimidating when he wanted to be intimidating. He yanked the two books from her hands and begrudgingly leafed through the one she suggested. “I want Lefevre’s book as well.”

“You read French?” Sheepdog Josh asked with genuine curiosity from behind his sister.

John gave the kid one of his patented stony glares and ignored Goth Girl’s challenging expression. She had a hand on one hip as if she truly doubted he could read French, and he was just buying the book due to some manly pride thing.

Josh visibly swallowed. “Never mind,” he mumbled as he grabbed a paper bag with handles and began putting the rung up items carefully inside so nothing would spill.

She shrugged then pushed aside the two rejected books, took back the two books in John’s hands, and plopped them on top of the two remaining books on the counter so she could finish ringing up his order.

You do not deal with a demon, and you cannot con a con man. “Hey, now wait a minute. I’m only buying the three books,” John reached for the pile of books.

Without looking up, she moved the books out of his reach. “I know.” She continued to punch in prices on the register.

“Well, what’s with the fourth book then?”

“Four?” she asked innocently; this time her eyes did meet his as she picked up the books, holding them in both her hands over the paper bag on the stool.

“Yes, Missy; you have four books there. I only want three,” John pointed, sounding extremely agitated.

“Yes, the Lefevre, the Anchova, and the Taylor.”

“And the fourth?”

She looked down at her hands and turned the books so she could read the titles on the spines. The extra one was Edge of the Grave by Ellenore Baker. “Oh …that’s for later.”

“Later?” his voice was rising with his blood pressure.

She nodded. “You’ll need it later.” Her tone remained irritatingly level.

“Look, Sweetheart, I don’t know what game you’re playing here, but I’m not buying-“

A hand came to rest on the counter about six inches to the left of him. John was surprised he hadn’t noticed the Army vet’s approach, but now the man was leaning slightly on the counter, turned toward John with a serious, if patient, expression. The fact that this brat had distracted him enough to throw him off guard only served to make him angrier. The man caught even Goth Girl’s attention. When he was certain that he had both of their attentions, the Army vet said, “Pardon my interruption, but I feel obligated to warn you that she can play this game all night. It’s not a teenager thing; she’s always been like this, and she pegged you as stubborn enough to play along about 30 seconds after you walked in.” His lips curled into an impish smile that didn’t quite meet his own tired eyes.

John glanced back toward the girl, who was looking quite smug at the accusation. His eyes narrowed. With a nod, he said, “I get it, but I only need-“

“The three books right now,” she finished. “The other, you’ll need later.”

“N’omi,” the vet warned in a low voice.

"Levi." They shared a silent conversation spoken only with their eyes. Finally, she glanced down and away with a slight huff.

When he seemed sure she would keep quiet, Levi brought his gaze back to John; offering John another slight smile, he explained, “Look…Sir, I realize this is your first time in here ‘n all; most of our regulars just accept N’omi’s eccentricities, ‘cuz they know her intuition is usually worth it. Obviously since she’s offering it up unsolicited, no one’s going to charge you. Consider it on the house.”

“Her…’intuition’?” John repeated.

The man gestured toward the closed door, the other one that headed further into the building; it had a simple sign with three lines:

“Naomi Moir
Clairvoyant – White Magic
by appointment only”

“I see,” John replied. Goth Girl – Naomi – appeared too young to be a professional psychic, but he supposed all of the shops in the French Quarter had to have one. He gritted out, “Fine. Just let me pay and get out of here.”

The man nodded. “Thank you for being so understanding, Sir. Sometimes we soldiers have to look out for each other.”

John scowled a little more at that and then noticed the long scars on the Army vet’s left forearm peeking from under his rolled up sleeve. They were not spaced right for any regular animal – about the same size as a bear but the seven claw marks were too close together. John forced himself to relax a little. He had to respect a man who had both served his country overseas and had faced the terrors of the darkness yet could still put up with two teenagers without killing them. “No, thank you.”

Meanwhile, Naomi and Josh finished packing his order into the bag. “$203.13,” she announced.

John pulled some money out of his pocket. He had planned to use one of his fake credit cards, but it was a bad idea to stiff some place he might need supplies from again. Moreover, if the girl really did have “The Shining,” he didn’t want her calling him out on it. Therefore, as much as it pained him to hand over his hard hustled cash, he did.

“Thank you,” she smiled, handing him his change as Josh handed him the two bags. “It was nice doing business with you.”

“Right,” he replied shortly. John headed for the door. He almost made it out without another incident too.

“John, wait!” Naomi called.

He turned to see her jog around the counter toward him.

When she got to him, she took the bag out of his left hand and set it on the floor. Holding his hand in hers, palm-side up, she took a blue ink started to write on it. When he started to pull away, she gripped his hand tighter. “Stop it, you big baby.” Just at that moment, when both of her hands were holding his to steady it, John felt -- or imagined -- a tiny jolt, more like that zap of static electricity that happens in winter. Naomi gasped a little, eyes closing for just longer than a blink, but gripped his hand tighter. After a pause, she drew a symbol he didn’t recognize in the palm of his hand. When she was done, she appraised her work, gazing at it as if she too were seeing it for the first time. Then she looked up into his face, dark blue eyes serious. “It’ll need to be done in fresh blood mixed with hallowed ground.”

“What’s it for?” John asked, perplexed.

Biting her bottom lip, she shook her head. “You’ll figure it out when the time comes.” She let go of his hand.

The door to the shop swung open, the bell above jingling, and a muscular man wearing an LSU baseball cap appeared carrying take-out bags. “Who’s hungry?” he asked, louder than necessary and then looked surprised to see someone unknown right where he was about to step.

“Thanks,” John grunted, grabbing his bag again and brushing past the newcomer.

John was already in his truck three blocks away, before he realized that she had actually called him by his real name, though he had never offered it.

He was in his hotel by the time he realized the French copy of Lefevre’s book had handwritten notes in the margins, all in English; however, all of the spell work was neatly translated into both English and Latin.

He was two cases after this one, before he figured out the symbol she had drawn on his hand was a way to ward off a Bebarlang, a kind of psychic vampire, and it took one more case after that, before he discovered a use for the book she’d insisted he would need, and, in fact, it saved his life.

Noah let the man pass him and walked over to one of the tables to set down the po-boys from Mother’s[‡‡] “Did I miss something?” he asked, noting all of the quiet in the store.

Naomi went to the door and pressed her cheek to it, watching John through the glass until he disappeared from view. When she turned around, absently toying with the silver Templar cross at her neck, Levi was leaning against the counter, his arms folded across his chest, and Josh was standing behind the counter, staring at her as if he was waiting for her to turn into a unicorn or something.

“What?” she asked.

“Did you see something?” Josh inquired.

Naomi looked over her shoulder as if she could still see John out there. It was a stall tactic really. She knew Levi and Josh both knew the signs. The energy was still hanging in the air, tendrils reaching for mundane purchase. Biting her bottom lip, she turned back around to face them and sighed. “Yes…”

When Levi realized that was all she intended to say, he prodded, “And?”

“And…” Tilting her head to the side, she considered her exact words. “I saw into a mirror what I would do someday, ten years from now.”

“What would you do?” Josh asked.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see,” she replied.

“But you said-“Josh replied.

“It hasn’t happened yet…I think not for ten years,” Naomi explained.

“So…now you’re having premonitions about your premonitions?” Levi asked.

Naomi shrugged and then nodded.

Noah looked confused and started to rub his forehead. “See, this is why I don’t come over here. My head’s already starting to hurt.”

“What does that even mean?” Josh asked.

“I...don’t know.” She headed toward Noah’s take-out bags.

“Is this one of those things that’s so cosmic you’re afraid to talk about it yet or you really don’t know?” Levi asked, studying her intently for clues of something amiss. Some of these stranger premonitions really fucked with her mind and there were no shrinks for psychics who heard the voices of angels – not any who were True Believers, whose first step wouldn’t be to put her in a padded room.

“A little of both,” she said honestly. She only knew that somehow her future – her life and her death – was tenuously tied to the man who had just walked out of the store.

[*]> Real New Orleans locations from my childhood referenced include New Orleans City Park and Storyland.

[†] U.N. Sanctions of Iraq began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq invaded Kuwait and lasted until May 2003 after Saddam Hussein was forced from power. The Persian Gulf War, also known as Operation Desert Storm, began aerial bombardment on January 17, 1991, followed by a ground assault on February 23rd. A decisive victory for the coalition forces, who liberated Kuwait, a cease-fire was declared 100 hours after the ground campaign began.

[‡] The dialog in this scene was borrowed from episode 3x08 "A Very Supernatural Christmas" of Supernatural; however, the author of this fan fiction has made great use of literary license to fill in all descriptive details and interpret all thoughts, motives and emotions.

[§] Another real location from my 30 or so years in New Orleans: St. Joseph's Church is a gorgeous landmark.

[**] Samuel 1:11: And she made this vow: "O LORD of Heaven's Armies, if you will look upon my sorrow and answer my prayer and give me a son, then I will give him back to you. He will be yours for his entire lifetime…”

[††] The Late Voodoo Priestess Marie Laveau's Tomb is located next to former Mayor Dutch Morial's Tomb in St. Louis #1 Cemetery. Some people think that the fact that the Morial family's political success and their closeness to Laveau in life and death are not unconnected.

[‡‡] When I lived there, Mother's made the best, messiest roast beef po-boys in the world.

Chapter Text

pre-series [part II]

May, 1998

Parking lot, Lakefront, New Orleans, LA

No longer the Goth Girl, John Winchester met years ago, Naomi was a graduating senior with a talent for foreign languages, chemistry, and spell casting and a penchant for trouble, especially the boy kind. Her brother and Cousins disapproved of Ryan, who was actually a fairly nice, shy, nerdy boy she’d met at church. Still, the ever-present male relatives in her life were positive Ryan was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, because “all men only think about one thing when it comes to women” – though, she wasn’t allowed to ask exactly how that theory applied to any of them.

This is exactly why she was actually keeping Nick a secret.

Benign little Ryan was just the diversion, someone to go to movies with, someone to go to the library with, someone to take home to the Cousins; meanwhile, Nick was the one to go clubbing with, to not watch movies with, and, especially, to sit in parked cars with. Nick wasn’t nice or shy or nerdy. He had probably never been in a library; he might not even know where the library was. In fact, she was fairly certain that Nick was a wolf, and there was no bothering with sheep’s clothing. He looked like James Dean, he had a car, he was most definitely trouble, and she knew without a doubt that her Cousins would not like him. He was perfect.

Nick parked the yellow Camaro so it faced Lake Ponchatrain. As usual, barely audible classic rock drifted from the car radio. The first few times they came to the Lakefront, they actually spent some time watching the sun set, holding hands, doing the sweet, awkward, hesitant thing, getting to know each other. Now, neither of them wanted to waste their limited, forbidden time.

Naomi’s lips felt swollen and burned by the sudden lack of Nick’s lips on hers even as she tried to catch her breath. Keeping her eyes closed, she chose to focus on the havoc his lips and hands were causing as they traveled to different destinations. Nick’s mouth was doing something…enthralling to her ear. She resituated one of his hands from her blue-jeaned thigh to just above her waist. Honestly though she was having trouble concentrating on exactly where his hands actually were or whether or not she was getting enough oxygen. Perhaps he got the memo from her fingers as they dug into his biceps with each gasp. It was almost a relief when his attention started to drift down her neck. One hand ghosted slowly up her spine, bare fingers on bare skin beneath her pink eyelet shirt. Little shivers accompanied his spellbinding touch.

She almost missed the angel’s arrival, might have mistaken the warm feeling washing over her in the heat of the moment, if she had not felt the subdued flutter of air that always announced his presence.

[Hello, Naomi,] the angel greeted her, seemingly oblivious to his charge’s pre-occupied happenstance.

“Nononono,” she whispered, barely audible. Despite the warm fuzzy angel feelings, her teen emotions were surging with a mixture of embarrassment, frustration, and anger, along with the lust being so rudely, if Heavenly, interrupted.

Nick hesitated, hovering just over the hollow of her neck above her silver pendant. “No? I thought you liked when I kissed you here,” he whispered, huskily.

“No- I mean, Yes! I- I like the kissing. More kissing -- always good with the kissing,” she whispered, tripping over her words. Maybe if she ignored Castiel, he would go away just this once.

Chuckling, Nick returned with determination to his task. He kissed the hollow of her neck, gently nudging her to drop her head back to give him more access as his lips and tongue took an intimate interest in that one tender area.

“Mmmm.” Naomi sucked in her breath, her eyes closing again. Castiel was momentarily forgotten. She felt electric shivers all the way down to her toes.

[Naomi?] Castiel queried somewhat impatiently.

Naomi’s eyes snapped open. All at once, she was unable to enjoy what Nick was doing. All she could think about was her angel spying on her while Nick tried to get to second base and it just became…weird. She frowned, a slight pout slowly forming. Trying to catch her breath, she began trying to push Nick away, “Nick, stop…Nick…stop…please…stop.” She became a little frantic.

When her words began to register through his lust-addled brain, Nick stilled; then he sat back a little, still holding her, but looking bewildered. “What?” Breathless, he sounded slightly frustrated.

“I just…I just need to…um…” She straightened her clothes absently as she thought of an excuse. “…get some air; cool off, you know?” She hoped the last part didn’t sound as dorky out loud as it sounded in her head.

“Uh…yeah. Sure….” He rubbed the back of his neck, not meeting her eyes. “We can walk up to the edge and watch the waves crash the steps?” he offered, looking out the window shield.

She gave him her best I-think-you-are-so-hot smile. “Sounds perfect.” She ran her fingers through her hair as she got out of the car.

“Gimme a minute,” Nick told her before she shut the door. He acted as if he was checking some things on the dashboard and straightening his clothes, but she realized guiltily that he needed a minute to compose himself too. That actually gave her time to deal with the Angelic intrusion.

Mumbling angrily under her breath, “Castiel, this better be good. This is a very inconvenient time. We really have to talk about your timing later.” She pulled out her strawberry-flavored baby-pink lip-gloss and began to apply it.

[Naomi, I would not be here if it were not important. You have work to do.]

“Nonono. Please, not right now. Find someone else.” Just once she wanted to be normal, to have a boyfriend who didn’t break up with her because she talked to herself or because he was freaked out of her creepy “hobbies” or because he suddenly felt “strange vibes” from her.

[There is no one else. You are the one who can hear me, Naomi. A little girl is missing. She needs your help. You need to fetch your brother.]

Damn it! He pulled the little-girl-in-trouble card! Defeated, Naomi bowed her head as she lent back against the car, sliding the lip-gloss back in her pocket. Her black hair spilled around her face, hiding her disappointment.

“Hey, Baby, you ready?” Nick asked as he came around to her side of the car, holding his hand out to her.

With a sigh, Naomi looked up and met his eyes as her fingers absently toyed with the cross at her neck. “No…I’m sorry.” She looked as if she might cry. “I...I don’t feel well. I think- I think I need to go home.”

Nick knit his brows. The expression on her face caused his to soften to one of concern and worry. “Sure, Baby.” He stepped closer to her and gently brushed her cheek with his knuckles. “Whatever you need,” he said softly, reassuring her. He tucked her hair behind her double-pierced ear with one finger.

Naomi blinked, a little surprised. Looking relieved, she smiled as she leaned forward and gave him a gentle kiss. “Thank you.”

Nick gave her his best boyish grin before reaching down to open the door for her.

Damnit. The Cousins might like Nick after all.

December, 1999

St. Joseph's Church, New Orleans, LA

Even as a little girl, growing up in New Orleans, Naomi found comfort sitting in the peaceful quiet of St. Joseph’s Church, where she could study the gorgeous murals depicting Biblical tales come to life. She would often imagine herself transported back to a time when life was simpler and miracles -- like magic – happened – a single loaf of bread and fish that could feed hundreds, water turned into wine, a dying man cured of his ills, the Red Sea parted to save the Jews from capture, and so much more. In her childhood version of the Bible, there were no monsters in the night for hunters to fight – only righteous heroes like David, Samson, Gideon, Moses, and Luke. God gave his only Son, Jesus was born on Christmas, and Sunday school sugarcoated all of the dark parts.

Her eyes drifted closed as she leaned back in the pew. She clasped her hands together in her lap. Naomi took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, clearing her mind.

[When your mother was with child, she was never sad.]

Naomi groaned inwardly. She had been wondering if Castiel was just going to hover or if he wanted something specific, but she had also been loath to disturb the quiet. In a hushed voice, she replied, “Those were different circumstances. As I understand it, she specifically requested the condition.”

[Naomi, a new life is always a blessing.]

“Don’t get your feathers ruffled.” She sounded more aggravated with the angel than she meant. “I’m not going to- I mean…I’m having her.”

[It is a blessing then. Why are you so unhappy?]

“Castiel,” she sighed. “I can’t have a baby.”

The silence that followed was indicative of her angel’s understandable confusion by the contradiction.

She toyed with the silver pendant at her neck, considering her words carefully. “My life is not…conducive to having a child around. Have you forgotten the demon that attacked me three months ago? I wasn’t even on a hunt or on angel errand duty. I still don’t know what it wanted…” She knew her brother suspected the attack had something to with John Winchester, whether it was the occasional research she did for him, or the rare times she involved herself personally with one of his hunts – by either spell-casting or treating some mysterious ailment or curse upon which John managed to stumble. However, there was just no proof – yet – that particular demon attack had anything to do with John. John wasn’t the only inglorious bastard she chose to help; heck, her own family had its own long, bloody history of making enemies with evil things. “My life is dangerous, and having a baby will put only put her in danger.”

[Your cousins Micah and Levi are hunters and they have children.]

“And they have wives so their children won’t be orphans if something happens to them. I’m a single mother, Castiel,” she pleaded her case. Though what exactly she was pleading for, she wasn’t quite sure yet. “Besides, Levi’s getting out. He’s taking Julie and the kids up to Missouri to take over one of the family farms -- let them have some semblance of normalcy and safety.”

She knew he was only giving them an illusion of normalcy by hiding from the truth. After a recent hunt left Levi seriously injured and another hunter dead, Julie had begged Levi to find a safer way to help the family, some way to give the kids a more normal life without having to know about monster hunting and the occult so early in life. A distant cousin wanted to unload the family farm after his father died; Levi made the sacrifice for his family.

The angel was quiet again for longer than she expected. [And you…want to do this as well? Move to a farm and have the semblance of normalcy and safety.]

Naomi opened her eyes slowly as she sat up straight. She frowned. Was that an option? She tilted her head as she considered it, considered the possible futures, the consequences of such a decision. Her fingers absently traced a button on the velvet cushion of the pew. “No, it’s too late for me. I’m already on this ride.”

[You understand correctly, Naomi. I am sorry; I know you sometimes feel the weight of our expectations for you. However, even if you were to go to Missouri with Levi and his family, Heaven has a need for you.] He sounded genuinely apologetic.

“But…I’ve never asked for much, Castiel. Not anything truly serious and this isn’t really for myself…I didn’t ask for any of this-“ She waved a hand noncommittally. “And no one actually asked me if I wanted to be an angel’s errand girl or spend my life waiting for the world to fall apart in a million different ways.” She sighed. “My one consolation all these years has been you. I’ve always done everything you’ve asked, everything for you…but now… you have to promise me that my little girl isn’t going to be an angel’s errand girl or have premonitions or something just as preternatural or extraordinary. Let her be ordinary. I’ll -- I’ll send her to live with Levi and Julie, and they’ll keep her safe. She doesn’t have to know about monsters or hunting or all the scary things that have just become so common place to me. She’ll just be a normal little girl who I can give my heart to.”

[Are you sure that’s what you want, Naomi?]

“More than anything. I want something different for my daughter.”

[As you wish.]

August, 2000
Singer Salvage Yard, Sioux Falls, SD

When he heard wheels turn onto gravel, Sam thought it was Dean returning from the grocery run, but he quickly realized the engine sounded nothing close to the familiar Impala. Leaving the dusty book of gnome lore on Bobby’s desk, Sam padded toward the window. A V-Star motorcycle with Templar shields painted on each side and two riders pulled to a stop in front of Bobby’s house rather than the garage. Sam quickly walked around the corner and down the short hall to open the front door.

The driver had already dismounted. He offered a hand to the girl – young woman -- behind him. Once they were both off the cycle, they removed their helmets, revealing blue-black hair – his was short, though an inch or two longer than Dean’s, and hers was a long silky chin-length bob. They both unzipped their brown leather jackets in an almost synchronized movement, exchanging a few words Sam couldn’t hear. While the girl -- young woman -- dug into one of the saddlebags, the man hooked the helmets onto the bike handle. By the time he turned around, she was shoving a brown paper package into his chest, and Sam could see his obvious eye roll through the screen door. Her laughter trickled through the screen door as she shoved the man toward Bobby’s house.

At seventeen, Sam was six feet tall and still growing. He was still pretty lanky from the last growth spurt. The young man was about his height but bulkier.

She was half a foot shorter but filled out in different – feminine – places. She shed her jacket and then began stretching her limbs and muscles through various distracting poses and bendy movements. Sam cocked his head, thinking she should not be able to touch her toes in low-rider jeans that form fitting, not that he was complaining.

Meanwhile, her oblivious companion approached the door. Clearing his throat, Sam opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch. “Can I help you?”

The stranger gave him an appraising look before saying, “I’m looking for Bobby Singer.”

The sound of the Impala turning into the lot reached Sam’s ears. “He’s out on a tow. He’ll be back in an hour or so.”

The man frowned and turned to eye the approaching black car. Both of them stood silently as Dean pulled to a stop next to the woman and the motorcycle. She stepped over, traced her fingers appreciatively along some of the chrome on the door, and leaned into the window to speak to Dean. Even from where he stood, Sam could see the smile Dean reserved for charming girls as Dean leaned across the front seat to talk to her. Sam shook his head with an inward sigh, his fringed bangs falling over his hazel brown eyes.

“Look…we have somewhere else to be. As much as we wanted to meet Bobby in person, we can’t wait around an hour,” the man said moodily, turning back to Sam. “I trust you can give this package to him?” He held up the brown paper package.

Sam nodded. “What is it?”

He shrugged, “Books. From my cousins’ store. I’m just doing him a favor since it was on the way.”

Sam took the books. “Yeah, I’ll make sure he gets it.”

The man turned back just in time to see Dean, now out of the Impala, standing behind the young woman, pulling her peasant blouse off her shoulders far enough to examine the tattoo between her shoulder blades. “That your brother?”

“Yeah,” Sam sighed. From where he stood, the tattoo seemed to be a red cross inside a shield overlaid with some sort of gold writing and bookended with geometric wings. Dean’s fingers traced the imagery as the woman replied to something he said.

“If he doesn’t get his hands off my sister, I’m going to break his fingers.”

Sam’s head jerked back to look at the man, trying to discern if he was serious. The dark blue eyes glaring at Dean seemed serious enough. “Uh- hey dude, they’re…uh-just flirting.”

“Yeah?” The man smirked back at Sam as he started walking toward the motorcycle, “We still have shotgun weddings and lynchings where we come from.” He let just a little too much Southern seep out of his voice as he said it.

Sam wasn’t sure if he was joking. So, he assumed not, “Deh- Dean!” He motioned for his brother to come toward him.

Dean gestured to Sam, indicating he would be there in “one second.”

“Dean!” Sam called more insistently.

“N’omi, get the lead out!”

With the grocery bag tucked into the crook of his arm, Dean was still chuckling when he stepped onto the porch. “That girl is crazy.”

“You didn’t meet her brother,” Sam replied, watching as the siblings replaced their helmets and remounted the motorcycle.

October, 2003
Moir Apartment, Metairie, LA

Careful not to wake his girlfriend, Joshua slipped out of the bed as quietly as possible. As soon as he stood, she mumbled something unintelligible and rolled over so her back was to him. He let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He pulled on a t-shirt as he walked around the bed toward the door. After stealthily opening the door, he glanced back and admired how adorable she looked with her hand curled under her cheek. He left the door open just a crack behind him.

Light from the neighborhood streetlamps painted the room in eerie yellow stripes through the blinds on the far wall. He padded across the worn carpet toward the tiled kitchen area and managed to bang his shin on the recently rearranged coffee table. With every ounce of willpower he had, Joshua managed not to shout the three words that instantly came to mind, but he did mouth them in an overly exaggerated read-my-lips kind of way. Hopping he managed to make it into the kitchen area, cursing Naomi and HGtv under his breath.

Once he reached the tiled area, he limped to the magnet- and photo-covered refrigerator. Just as he was about to yank the door open, a pink post-it caught his eye:

“Please DO NOT
leave the water jug
almost empty.
You know who you are!!!!
-- Naomi”

Frowning, Joshua’s eyes narrowed. He yanked open the refrigerator and stared at its contents, neatly packed into little plastic containers with identifying labels. The bottom shelf was all beer and soda for the continuous Cousin invasion thanks to their location above Micah’s garage. On the top shelf were two water jugs. Grinning, he grabbed the one with the least amount of water and screwed off the top.

“Teach you…rearrange the furniture…,” he muttered under his breath before raising the water to his mouth.

After he had gulped down as much of the ice-cold water as he could and returned the jug with less than four ounces left, he realized he could hear his sister’s voice drifting from her bedroom. Her door was cracked and the desk lamp was on. Peeking inside, he saw Naomi poring over several old books on her desk.

“You’re an asshole, John. You know that, don’t you?” her words drifted through the doorway.

Joshua hung his head. John fucking Winchester. He tried not to clench his jaw. John ran hot and cold and managed to rub everyone the wrong way at some point, even infinitely patient Naomi. The man was crazy obsessed, the way some hunters get when they come into the business through horrific tragedy. That kind of obsession could get a man killed, and he wouldn’t care who he dragged with him on his way to meet the Reaper. However, despite all of the begging from everyone in the family for her to distance herself from the man, his sister continued to help him out from time to time.

John’s disembodied voice vibrated through the speakerphone. “It’s been said, but it’s never stopped you before.”

Naomi continued, “Well, I won’t do it. You know I don’t do that kind of magic. What did Missouri[*] tell you?”

“You know what she told me,” he snapped. “It’s ‘evil’.” His sarcasm was palatable.

“Uh-huh,” she replied absently as she fingered the picture frame of a toddler with black hair, green eyes, and a toothy smile. Hope, the little girl in the photo, was clutching a worn, stuffed bunny that Joshua knew had a gris-gris bag sewn into the heart of it. “What about one of your Voodoo friends then?”

“Naomi...” John made her name sound like a cross between a warning and an angry plea.

Joshua had no idea why this argument was resurrected at least once a year. At least John sounded sober this time.

“John…” Naomi sighed. “When you can’t even find a Voodoo witch willing to mess with something, it’s something you shouldn’t be messing with.” She made the word “Voodoo” sound as distasteful as rotten liver. “In my experience anyone who thinks they’re powerful enough to tap into the spirit world and control what they tap into there, is playing a game of Russian roulette. Spirits and things on the other side of the veil only tell what they want you to know. They toy with the living. Trying to contact the other side to get information on your demon would especially be like playing with fire in a powder keg.”

“Then tell me another way to find the damned thing. This year will be twenty years since it murdered Mary, and I’m no closer to finding it now than I was then!”

“Look, John, I’m tired of having this argument with you.” She sounded exasperated. “I’ll keep my ears open for anything that might help you track down the demon, but I am not using any kind of magic to discover its name, or location or how to summon it, and if you were smart, you’d let it be for now.”

John let the dial tone answer for him. He never liked it when Naomi said “no,” but he could never change her mind once she set it either. Stubbornness was the one obvious thing they had in common.

Naomi pressed the end button on the speakerphone with an exasperated sigh and rested her head in her hands.

Joshua pushed the door open and leaned on the doorframe. Naomi turned and gave him a quizzical look. “Why don’t you just stop taking his calls?”

She shook her head. “One day, he’s going to ask for the right thing at the right time.”

Josh’s brow creased, and he looked at her as if she had sprouted a second head. “Can’t you just tell him now what he’ll need to know then?”

“Don’t be stupid. I don’t know what it is yet,” she replied dismissively.

Josh rolled his eyes. “Sometimes you make my head hurt.”

“Just go back to bed, dork.”

August 25, 2005[†]

Moir apartment, Metairie, LA

Elijah winced as the needle eased through his flesh. His fingers tightened around the bottle of Jack as the silky blue thread pulled through him, drawing the two torn pieces of himself neatly and tightly back together. He hissed as the bloody, latex-covered fingers repeated the step one more time on the razor-like gash that was far too high on his thigh for comfort. He took another swig from the bottle as Naomi tied off the stitches and wiped the area again with alcohol.

“That’s beautiful,” Elijah admired in a loud whisper.

Naomi shushed him, reminding him Noah and Jacob were asleep on the sofa bed, and proceeded to apply the gauze and tape over the wound.

Elijah just nodded. “You should have been a nurse or a doctor, N’omi,” he whispered to her, leaning close to her ear. “Instead of playing Wendy to us LeCroix boys.”

Shaking her head, Naomi snorted as she continued cleaning him up. “That’s the Jack speaking.”

Elijah shook his head.

She pulled off the gloves and dropped them into a garbage can already full of bloody towels, gloves, and other disposables from tonight’s hunting disaster. “Come on,” she whispered. “You take my bed for a few hours.” She maneuvered her cousin toward her bedroom and gently pushed him inside, bottle and all. Then made her way toward the bathroom, only pausing a moment to check on Noah and Jacob – both were out cold thanks to the painkillers she had provided after stitching each of them up as well.

After closing the bathroom door and switching on the light, she turned to face the mirror. Her pastel blue sundress was spotted with fresh and old blood, which was all right, because it matched the spatter on her arms and the smear across her cheek. The ribbon in her hair had come untied and hung limply from her ponytail.

She felt numb as she turned the water faucet on in the sink. The whole previous day, she felt a gnawing sense of dread, as if chaos was around the corner, and the day had ended in a hunt gone wrong, but not devastatingly so. Everything could have gone so much worse. No one had died. No one was dying. All of their wounds would heal.

Yet, she wasn’t relieved. Something was still very wrong.

The water falling into the sink sputtered and Naomi felt the air whirl around her.

[Is it good morning or good evening, Naomi? I was never sure about this time of day when one hasn’t been to bed yet.]

“Well, whatever it is, it hasn’t been ‘good’,” she replied, indicated the blood on her dress as she stared into the mirror. Sometimes she looked into the mirror trying to catch a glimpse of the angel; sometimes she did it just to have a face to talk to, even if it was her own. “What brings you here, Castiel?” she added with a slightly guilty sigh. She lathered the soap in her hands and began to scrub at the blood on her arms.

[I have come to tell you to gather up your brother and your cousins and leave New Orleans right away. Do not go East or West. Go North. Do not stop until you are at least as far as Memphis.]

Naomi stopped scrubbing and stared into the mirror. “Wha- Why?”

[The hundred year storms are beginning. If you do not leave in the next three days, you may lose your life in the city.]

Naomi thought about it. Her angel had never warned her about any hurricanes or storms before. In fact, he had never told her about any personal danger. “Wait, are you…warning me because I…because my family is destined to survive this…hurricane or…because you care enough to want me to survive?”

[Naomi, I don’t have time to discuss this with you. Just get everyone out of the city as quickly as possible. Soon, you will be needed elsewhere.]

She knew the angel had unceremoniously exited the bathroom, not to mention the building. Despite his ominous warning, her spirit was lighter.

October 28, 2005[‡]

Hotel Room #10, Jericho, CA

Resting the hand with the Beretta against the wall, John peeked through the curtains to spy who was on the other side of his hotel room door. Frowning, he cracked open the door, keeping the gun out of view, despite the familiar face on the other side. If he were being honest, he was more than a little uneasy about seeing that familiar face. The only person who knew he was in Jericho was Dean, and Naomi Moir was definitely not Dean.

She stood with her arms folded across her chest, and all of her weight shifted to her right side. “Hell, John, you look like death warmed over,” she greeted flatly, repeating the exact same words she used at their last meeting.

John eyed her from head to toe. The last few times they met in person, he thought she looked more and more wrecked as if “The Life” was starting to wear on her; that perky personality he’d first encountered was disappearing. She was still what her cousin Levi called annoyingly eccentric, but those spellbinding eyes of hers no longer simply saw into souls but reflected all the darkness she witnessed in them too. “I could say the same about you, Naomi. What are you doing here?”

“I have some intel for you about a hunt.” She pulled a medium-sized manila envelop out of a pocket of her thigh-length black jacket.

He ran a hand over his face. “I’m already on a hunt. How did you know I was here?”

Naomi ignored his question. “Trust me. You’re going to want this hunt more. Are you going to invite me in or are we going to have this discussion in the parking lot like drug dealers?”

John’s frown deepened but he took a step backward, opening the door wider for her. He was dressed in semi-faded jeans, a faded blue tennis shirt layered under an open, button-down, long sleeved, plaid shirt, and hiking boots. He had not shaved in two or three days and he certainly had not bothered to clean the room in at least as long. He slid the gun into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back.

She hesitated at the semi-circular, white-grained ward just inside the entrance. “Salt and cats-eye shells?” She glanced at him for confirmation as she stepped carefully over it, crossing herself as she did so. “Mmm,” she nodded in response. Beneath her jacket, she was wearing a brown jumper dress over a pink button-down blouse and brown tights.

Holding onto the door jam, he leaned out of the room, and looked both directions down the walkway. Not seeing her usual guard dog, he turned and asked suspiciously, “Where’s your brother?”

“Somewhere between the Missouri state line and here, I imagine,” she replied absently as she slowly pivoted 360 degrees to take in all of the maps, pictures, and articles taped to John’s walls.

Their last face-to-face had been volatile without even including his feverish altercation with Joshua; Naomi had made it clear then that he had pushed her patience to the limits. Leery, John shut the door abruptly. “What’s going on, Naomi?”

Startled, Naomi jumped. She turned to study John. “I told you.”

“Okay, then give me the envelope.” He held out his hand.

“No.” She held it out of his reach. “Before I hand it over, we need to talk. Sit.”

“Wha-?”

“Sit.” She insisted, using the same commanding tone she had used when she had told him to “Shut your mouth, or I’ll leave you to die from whatever venom you were too stupid to avoid.”

He sighed heavily and sat in the chair against the wall. “This better be good, girl.”

She looked around for a place to sit, before she tentatively used two fingers to push some of John’s clothes off the end of the bed and sat on the edge, back straight, knees together, and fingers toying with the edge of the envelope in her lap – very lady-like. She tilted her head as if trying to decide how to start and just as he began to shift in his chair, to tell her to get on with it, Naomi asked, “John, have you noticed there’s been an increase in supernatural activity the last few years?”

He hesitated. “There’s been talk,” he nodded. At The Roadhouse and similar places, other hunters were talking about an unusual increase in demonic possessions and violent hauntings.

She nodded thoughtfully. “Something big is coming and I think something really evil is stretching its muscles, getting ready for it.”

His green eyes narrowed as he sat forward, arms resting on his knees. “What kind of ‘Something big’?”

Frowning, she shook her head. She closed her eyes, trying to bring up an image in her mind. “It’s always just out of reach…There’s too many shadows, too much darkness to get a real picture of anything specific…” She opened her eyes and met his gaze.

Even though John felt uncomfortably unbalanced the moment their eyes met, as if the entire world was on a tilt-a-whirl, he chose to look unconvinced. “You sound like those Vegas psychics you always criticize.” His words were acidic, knowing she disliked being compared to psychics, disproved of the word, the profession, didn’t want to be associated with them.

Her eyes narrowed with her frown. “Look…John, the absolute worst you can ever imagine, times a hundred, is going to rain down, and you and your boys are going to be riding the rim of the eye of the perfect storm. I can’t tell you exactly what it is that’s coming, but I can tell you that it scares the living daylights out of me, and it should scare the fucking shit out of you; if I were you, I’d grab those boys and hole up somewhere safe where no one and nothing can find them, until the whole thing blows over.”

John knew she was seriously shaken by whatever she Saw, because Naomi almost never used words like “fuck”. In fact, of all the times he had heard her use the word “shit”, most of them had been after he made some suggestive remarks regarding her daughter’s parentage, which might have been what had led to the fistfight with Joshua, but John‘s memory wasn’t all that clear thanks to the venom, the fever, and the Jack. John’s mouth opened and shut a few times as he started to say or ask different things and changed his mind. His mood was in constant flux between anger, confusion, and the usual Naomi-related frustration. “You know, no one likes it when you talk in riddles, Naomi.”

“Cassandra warned Troy about gift horses, and they didn’t believe her. Look how well that turned out.”

John wanted to bang his head against the wall repeatedly. “Well, I’m no coward, and I didn’t teach my boys to be cowards either. None of us is running and hiding. Whatever you think is so evil, we’ll deal with it.”

“No, you won’t,” she said with absolute certainty.

Angry, John’s face turned red. He started to stand.

She stood first and shoved him back into the chair. “No. You won’t! They aren’t ready, John. Sam is at Stanford and Dean is…” She cocked her head, eyes unfocused for a split second. “Not with him. You coddled Sam too much. Sam isn’t hunting at all. You made them dependent on each other, but they aren’t hunting together. They’re…They’ll be stronger together, but right now...” She shook her head with disappointment. “They don’t have the skills they need yet or the trust in each other to do what they’re going to need to do when the time comes. You might be able to point them in the right direction, John, but they’re going to need each other to face the darkness and come out on the other side. They have such a long way to go.” She poked a finger into his chest. “You need to do something, John, or you’ll lose them both.”

“You have no right-“ John growled. How dare she even mention Dean or Sam, let alone question how he raised or trained them. She needed her own goddamned babysitter, for God’s sake. That family of hers never let her out of their sight without a chaperone. At least his boys could defend themselves.

Naomi shoved the envelope into his chest. “Your demon friend is up to no good.”

“Wha-“ John was caught off guard. He slid the contents out of the envelop. Then he peered up at Naomi with a questioning look, but she didn’t meet his eyes.

Instead, she wandered around the room. Her fingers grazed the notes taped to his wall.

Her intel was skimpier than usual, but considering the subject matter, that was hardly unsurprising. She had included: a scrap of paper with doodled sigils and notations; the obituary of a woman who died in a fire in Arizona in July; handwritten notes describing a woman noted “last seen Oct. 1 – Memphis, TN Radisson Inn”; and photocopies of pages from The Book of Demons on a demon called Azazel, the demon who taught weapon-making to mankind. “Azazel?”

She pulled her attention away from the wall of missing men and blinked at John. “I didn’t want to know about any of this, John. Not really.” She ran a hand through her hair nervously. “Just saying his name out loud is asking for trouble, so don’t.” She glanced at her shoes and then out the window into the parking lot. “Sometimes things just come to me whether I want them to or not. More and more the closer we get to…” She trailed off, and then sighed.

“So all of this just…popped into your head? After all of these years.” John sounded more frustrated than grateful.

“No.” She sat back down on the edge of the bed. “I saw Sam...at Stanford.”

John was angrily looming over her before she got the last word out. “You did what? I expressly told you not to go anywhere near my boys!”

She held up a hand to indicate he should put himself on pause. “Don’t have an overload; he didn’t even know I was there. It was a random coincidence; my cousin, Mary Ester, started Stanford this fall. Since her dad’s been working Katrina Rescue, I helped her move into the dorm.”

John continued to glower but he took a step back, giving her a little space. He didn’t want Naomi, or indeed any witch, or psychic, or whatever she called herself messing with his boys’ brains. Who knew what sort of nuttiness she might feed them?

“Anyway,” she sighed. “I saw Sam at Stanford. I probably wouldn’t have noticed anything, except I specifically stopped to watch him, because I was curious, once I realized who he was…he’s not like…he’s special, John. He’s different. There was something off about him…I don’t know how else to explain it, like a glimmer in his aura. So…I…did a little spell-casting to see what it was,” she said the last part as if it were a confession, as if she had performed the spell reluctantly, or as if there was something wrong about it. “And I discovered…he’d been touched by the demon.”

“Touched?” John choked on the word as he fell back in the chair. “Wha-What does that mean?” John looked devastated.

She shrugged and shook her head. “I’m not sure exactly. Sam has the demon’s mark. He probably doesn’t even know it,” she added soothingly. “And…I don’t think he’s the only one.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen it before…the glimmer. I didn’t realize it, until I saw Sam. The first time, I just dismissed it, thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Weird things happen during times of mass stress and natural disasters, and I saw this girl in Memphis with all of these hurricane refugees and I just didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now I know there’s more than one…she must be marked too.”

John frowned and shifted through her notes again, pausing on the description of the woman. “But why?”

“I don’t know. It’s your hunt, John. I’m handing it over to you. I don’t want anything more to do with it.”

“And this obituary?”

“It reads just like you said Mary died, only it happened this year…If so, maybe there are more, and if there are, there are probably signs – omens – where the deaths occurred. You’re great at piecing together those vast amounts of variables.” She gestured to the walls in the room. “You should be able to pick up the trail.”

John nodded. For twenty-two years, there had been nothing, no clues and no leads. He just couldn’t believe it. After all of this time, he finally had a real lead on the thing that killed Mary. Everything could be over. The rollercoaster of emotions he had been on since Naomi arrived was worth it for once. He stared at the papers in his hands, memorizing them as if it all might be a dream.

“But, John…from now on, you’re in danger.” When his green eyes finally looked up at hers, she continued. “I’m serious. Until you find a way to stop the demon, you have to be extra-careful. They’re going to be looking for you.”

“They who?”

“The demons who work for him.”

“Work for him? What like some demon mafia?” he joked.

“Yes.” She was deadly serious. “Why do you think there are more of them around lately? They’re organizing, growing their numbers, and someone has to be the boss. If he thinks you might be a threat, he’ll send demons after you, and you won’t be able to trust anyone, John. They can possess anyone – the hotel clerk, the gas station guy, the nice little old lady with the cats, the little girl with the lollipop, your friends…your boys – no one is safe with you around, especially not you while you’re doing this.”

He leaned back in the chair and considered everything she said. He knew she wasn’t lying about any of it, and hadn’t from the moment she knocked on the door. He rubbed his eyes with one hand. When his hand dropped back into his lap, she was standing.

“Don’t take too long to think about it. You need to leave Jericho as soon as possible, or your Woman in White is going to make you her next victim, John.” She headed for the door.

John stood to follow her. When they reached the door, he said, “Naomi, listen, I know I’ve given you a lot of shit, but…thanks…for this.”

Standing in the doorway, she licked her lips and glanced down. “I’m leaving the States. Josh and I are going to Rome at the end of November. For good.”

John blinked at the sudden announcement. “O…kay…Well, I’ll call you when-“

“No…this is where I get off the crazy train. Josh’s right. I have to make a clean break, or you’ll just keep dragging me into…this thing with the demon is too dangerous for my family.” She sighed tiredly. “John, for once, do me a favor; lose my number.”

Without even a good-bye, John Winchester watched Naomi walk across the parking lot to her cousin’s beat-up Chevy.

[*] Missouri Mosely is a psychic practicing in Lawrence, KS, who is referenced in episode 1x09 "Home" of Supernatural and the comic book Origins as having "helped John see the truth" about the Supernatural. In Origins, she basically told him, it was a big, bad evil that killed Mary.

[†] Hurricane Katrina hit Florida August 25, 2005 – three days before mandatory evacuations began in New Orleans and four days before the devastating hurricane hit New Orleans breaching the levees, displacing thousands, killing an unknown number of humans and pets, and leaving the city crippled for weeks, if not months.

[‡] Takes place immediately prior to the Supernatural pilot episode 1x01 and references “The Lady in White” monster of the week, who could be heard in the EVP of John’s voice mail message to Dean. The reference to the obituary in Arizona ties into John’s briefing of the boys in the episode Salvation (1x21), where he mentions that the demon’s activities began again “a year ago” just before he “disappeared” when he picked up “the trail" after 20 years.

Chapter Text

season one

April, 2006[*]

Los Jeronimos Apart-Hotel, Madrid, Spain

Shivering, Naomi pulled the cotton camisole over her wet hair. The cool shower hadn’t remedied the pounding in her head as she’d hoped. Now she had goose bumps as well. Her eyes refused to focus on her reflection in the bathroom mirror, so she closed them. She popped the top off the medicine bottle with one manicured thumb and tipped two painkillers into her mouth. She filled a hotel glass with water from the sink, so she could swallow them, and she managed to do all of that with her eyes closed. Actually, that was the least interesting thing she could do with her eyes closed, though, admittedly, at the moment, it was the most useful.

Leaning heavily on the counter, hoping the pills would take effect soon, she became aware of Castiel’s arrival.

[Hello, Naomi.]

She slowly opened her eyes, looking fruitlessly into the mirror. He was never tangibly there, but the urge to check was habitual. One day maybe… “My Angel,” she greeted softly.

[You are unwell.]

“These visions are going to be the death of me.” She smiled weakly at her blurry self in the mirror.

There was a long pause before he replied and then it was to ask, [Have you seen-?]

“I have a vague idea of what’s coming, the possibilities…and if I can just survive to the other side of it, I have an inkling how things might turn out too.”

[And?]

Every movement, only caused small stabbing pains in addition to the constant throbbing in her skull, yet Naomi moved to sit on the dressing bench. “All of that’s years and years away. Any of it could change with one choice here, or an action there by any number of people or things…or, who knows, I could die in a car crash, or get stabbed by a stranger or be attacked by wild dogs…” She licked her lips. “Why waste time worrying about something that’ll happen sooner or later, whether I see it coming or not? Besides, I know you didn’t come here to discuss my possible fates, Castiel,” she sighed. “Josh’s going to check on me any minute; so why don’t you just tell me what errand you have this time.” Naomi saw no point in discussing her death with her beloved angel. Everyone died; it was a matter of when, where and how. For her, much of her when, where and how, depended on the three Winchesters, what they did, and how they did it.

Naomi felt an intangible caress along the side of her face. Closing her eyes, she could not help but turn her cheek into the ghostly touch.

[I know you just had a vision, of which you plan to send the details to your cousins Micah and Noah to investigate.]

“That poor reverend whose wife is toying with black magic?”

[Yes. This hunt is not for your cousins. You will tell them nothing of Roy LeGrange and his wife. The hunt is meant for someone else.]

“Anything for you. You know that…Who do you want me to tell?”

[Sam and Dean Winchester.]

Her eyes popped open and her mouth dropped. “J-John’s boys? But- John never let- he never wanted me to contact them. I don’t even know how to get in touch with either of them.” Naomi thought about the photo of the teenage Winchesters tucked into the back of her Bible with her family photos. She’d stolen it from John’s hotel room the same day she coincidentally, yet at the time, unknowingly saw them at Bobby Singer’s place; that fortuitous meeting was how she’d recognized Sam at Stanford several years later – no actual magic involved.

[Don’t worry. They will contact you.]

Naomi felt the flutter of wings as her angel departed, even as she heard her brother’s tentative knock on the bathroom door. His puzzling words mingled with the strange sensation of the pain washing away, originating from the place of his angelic touch.

“N’omi? Are you alright in there?” Josh’s voice carried through the hotel suite’s door.

Naomi stood, grabbing her robe from the hook. “M’ fine.” She cracked the door open, standing behind it as she pulled her arms through the robe.

“There was a voicemail on our American number from someone claiming to be John Winchester’s son,” Josh stated. He had been playing office assistant, while she spent the afternoon trying to recover. “He said he’s looking for a faith healer or some major healing spell for his brother, anything.”

She pulled the door the rest of the way open so Josh could come in while she brushed her still damp hair. She studied him a minute in the mirror, considering what to tell the Winchesters. As the pain slid away, her mind became clearer, allowing her a better view of the situation at hand.

“Okay…call Sam Winchester back.” Feeling re-energized, she pointed the brush at her brother. “And tell him…tell him there’s a faith healer in Nebraska…a Reverend Roy LeGrange, with his own church in some backwater town. He should take his brother to see him.” She returned to brushing her hair. They had an appointment with an Archdiocese that evening regarding a pair of crying stone angels in the private cemetery of a former statesman, and she still had some research to do.

Josh didn’t feel surprised at all by the fact that she knew exactly which of the Winchesters had left the message. He’d purposefully left out details when talking to her, just to keep her on her toes. “LeGrange?” Josh tapped the edge of his notebook with the pen. “I don’t recognize the name.”

She shook her head. “He’s kind of new.”

“Should I write his info in our contact book?”

“No. He won’t be around long enough.” The Winchesters were hunters. She was sure they would figure out the puzzle and resolve Dean’s issue as well. Why else would Castiel want her to send John’s boys there? Many of Castiel’s errands involved helping someone in need, and she refused to believe the two things were just coincidence. She didn’t believe in coincidence anymore. Besides, she could feel the pull of the possibilities and consequences here, understood what needed to be done, not just for the survival of the Winchesters now, but also for their survival later. This could only make them stronger in the end.

Josh frowned. “Then wh-“

She swung around and fixed a hard look at him. “Look, Castiel said to tell them about the faith healer, okay? Just tell him about LeGrange. That’s it. Whatever else there is there, that’s for the Winchesters to find out on their own.”

Josh sighed, relenting. He suspected his sister was up to something regarding John and the other Winchesters, but he was unsure as to what it was. Honestly, he had no problem messing with John, but John’s sons might not be quite the assholes their father was. Giving them only part of the information didn’t seem quite fair.

Motel, Anywhere, USA

Dean was a shadow of his former vibrant self as his heart struggled to pump the necessary blood through his system just to give him the energy to stand. “Have you even slept? You look worse than me.”

“I’ve been scouring the Internet for the last three days. Calling every contact in Dad’s journal.” Sam maneuvered Dean to a chair. Then he sat on the edge of the hotel bed facing his brother.

“For what?” Dean breathed.

“For a way to help you. One of Dad’s friends, Joshua, he called me back. Told me about a guy in Nebraska. A specialist.” Sam smiled, showing the first signs of hope in days.

Dean’s face was tired, serious. “You’re not gonna let me die in peace, are you?”

Sam’s smile grew wider. “I’m not gonna let you die, period. We’re going.”

Dean shook his head, relenting.

LeGrange’s Living Room, Nebraska, USA

“I feel great. Just trying to…you know, make sense of what happened.” Dean was sitting in the LeGranges’ parlor. He felt healthy, but he felt wrong.

Sue Ann LeGrange finished filling the tea glasses and sat on the love seat across from Dean. “A miracle is what happened. Well, miracles come so often around Roy.” She was the all-proud-preacher’s-wife and full of smiles.

Dean gave her an uncomfortable look before turning to Roy. “When did they start? The miracles.”

“Woke up one morning, stone blind,” Roy replied with that ever-present smile on his face. “Doctors figured out I had cancer. Told me I had maybe a month. So, uh, we prayed for a miracle. Now, I was weak, but I told Sue Ann, ‘You just keep right on praying.’ I went into a coma. Doctors said I wouldn’t wake up, but I did. And the cancer was gone.” He took off his sunglasses. “If it wasn’t for these eyes, no one would believe I’d ever had it.”

“And suddenly you could heal people.” Dean continued to look slightly uncomfortable, if not a little queasy.

“I discovered it afterward, yes. God’s blessed me in many ways.” Roy put the sunglasses back on.

“And his flock just swelled overnight. And this is just the beginning,” Sue Ann beamed.

Dean looked thoughtful. “Can I ask you one last question?”

“Of course you can.”

Dean licked his lips, stalling. “Why? Why me? Out of all the sick people, why save me?”

“Well, like I said before, the Lord guides me. I looked into your heart, and you just stood out from all the rest.”

As a cynic who didn’t believe that good things happen to good people or even in a God, Dean resisted the urge to shift his weight under Roy’s sightless gaze. “What did you see in my heart?” Dean wasn't particularly fond of the idea of someone having a peak at his personal insides; he wasn't even comfortable looking there himself.

“A young man with an important purpose. A job to do. And it isn’t finished.”

Dean Winchester was uncomfortably surprised by the answer.

June, 2006

road from salvation, IA to Lincoln, NE[†]

“The party you have dialed does not answer. Please leave a message after the tone. When you are finished you may simply hang up or press # for more options.”

John navigated the Sierra pick-up with one hand, holding the cell phone with his other. “Listen, Naomi, I know you told me not to call you again…but the demon.” He took a painful breath. “Look, this is what we talked about, I found The Colt, and the demon knows it. He’s running scared. The bastard’s going after people I-“ Care about. “People who’ve helped us.”

Meg’s words echoed in John’s mind. “Your friends, anyone who’s ever helped you, gave you shelter, anyone you ever loved…they’ll all die unless you bring us The Colt.”

“You get your brother and hole up somewhere safe and stay there until I call you, okay? I’m going to end this; me and my boys are finishing it once and for all,” he added with deadly certainty, before he ended the call.

[*] The dialog in the scenes with Dean and Sam and with Dean and the LeGranges was borrowed from episode 1x12 "Faith" of Supernatural; however, the author of this fan fiction has made great use of literary license to fill in all descriptive details and interpret all thoughts, motives and emotions. It was an unplanned but fortunate coincidence that John’s friend with whom Sam spoke was named Joshua.

[†] References the Supernatural episode 1x21 "Salvation." Meg killed Pastor John and Caleb even though neither had seen John in at least a year.

Chapter Text

season two

JULY 2006[*]

Scotland County Hospital, Memphis, MO

John pushed the door open to the boiler room and entered, carrying a duffel bag. He walked through a dim, dripping hallway to find a clear space on the floor and set the bag down. He pulled out a box of white chalk and started drawing a large symbol on the floor – the center of which was the sigil Naomi had provided the last time they had met. Once the drawing was complete, he arranged a black bowl containing a sandy substance and several candles around it before beginning the incantation in Latin. He slid a knife across his palm, dripping blood into the bowl, then he lit a match and dropped it in; the bloody sand mixture in the bowl flared once and dissipated.

John stood and expectantly looked around the room. A hand grabbed his shoulder, startling him. The uniformed man had managed to sneak up on him.

“What the hell are you doing down here, buddy?” the man demanded.

“I can explain,” John replied.

“Yeah? You're going to explain to security. Come on. You follow me.” He turned his back on John to lead him to the stairs.

John pulled the mythical Colt and cocked it. “Hey. How stupid do you think I am?”

The man turned back with a car-salesman grin. His eyes turned yellow. “You really want an honest answer to that?” Two black-eyed possessed men in lab coats stalked into the room and took positions behind John. “You conjuring me, John. I'm surprised. I took you for a lot of things. But suicidally reckless wasn't one of them.”

“I could always shoot you,” John threatened with that patented Winchester smile.

“You could always miss,” the yellow-eyed demon laughed as he twisted his body like Chubby Checker to demonstrate. “And you've only got one try, don't'cha? Did you really think you could trap me?”

“Oh, I don't want to trap you.” John lowered the gun to his side. “I want to make a deal.”

The demon looked intrigued. “It's very unseemly, making deals with devils. How do I know this isn't just another trick?”

“It's no trick. I will give you the Colt and the bullet, but you've got to help Dean. You've got to bring him back.”

“Why, John, you're a sentimentalist. If only your boys knew how much their daddy loved them.”

“It's a good trade. You care a hell of a lot more about this gun than you do Dean.”

“Don't be so sure. He killed some people very special to me. But still, you're right; he isn't much of a threat. And neither is your other son.”

John lowered his head, but raised his eyes, smiling slyly.

The demon continued. “You know the truth, right? About Sammy? And the other children?”

“Yeah. I've known for a while.”

“But Sam doesn't, does he? You've been playing dumb.”

John ignored the smug son-of-a-bitch’s prodding. “Can you bring Dean back? Yes or no?”

“No. But I know someone who can. It's not a problem.” The demon shrugged off the effort.

“Good. Before I give you the gun, I'm going to want to make sure that Dean's okay. With my own eyes.”

“Oh, John, I'm offended. Don't you trust me?” the demon asked with a flourished gesture.

John slowly shook his head with a sly smile.

“Fine,” the demon replied.

“So we have a deal?” John asked.

“No, John. Not yet. You still need to sweeten the pot.”

“With what?”

“There's something else I want as much as that gun. Maybe more.”

Later, once he was assured Dean was alive and healthy and had made the best peace he figured he would be able to make with his sons in the short time he had left, John returned to his own hospital room. He placed the Colt on the small bed table and looked up at the adversary who had set all of this in motion twenty-three years ago.

“Okay.”

Sam was bringing his father the cup of coffee he’d asked for, but from the hall he could see John lying on the floor. “Dad?” he cried, breaking into a run.

The cup fell from his hand as if in slow motion and almost symbolically landed on the floor in the middle of the hall right side up though the top had popped off and coffee sloshed everywhere. Sam slid down next to his father, screaming for help.

Victoria Palace Hotel, Paris, France

“It’s too bad we’re leaving tomorrow. I could spend every day in the Louvre for the rest of my life and still not see everything.” Naomi tossed her shopping bags just inside the door as they entered their suite.

“That’s because you spend an hour looking at every single painting,” Joshua teased, letting the door close behind him. Staying in Paris for a holiday had been the best idea they had in a while.

She grinned as she grabbed a cool bottle of water from the fridge. “I just like to give them the attention they deserve.”

“Yeah, okay.” He snorted, emptying his pockets onto the coffee table.

“So, are we eating out or ordering up?”

“Ordering up, ‘cuz you still have to pack.”

“I have plenty of time.” She shrugged and took a sip of the water.

He snorted. “Yeah, right. Assistant or not, I’m not packing at the last minute for you again.” He pointed at her.

“Awww, Josh, it’s early yet. I’ve got plenty of time.” She gave him her best big-eyed innocent pleading look.

He shook his head. “That doesn’t work on me and you know it,” he smirked. “C’mon. We have an early flight back to Rome; plus, you said wanted to wake up at 3am to call Hope and wish her luck on her Little League tournament tomorrow.”

Naomi sighed, dropping her chin to her chest. “Oh, yeah. Stupid time difference.” She looked back up at him with a renewed cheeriness. “What would I do without you?” She walked toward her bedroom.

“Crash and burn, N’omi. Crash. And. Burn.”

She chuckled.

“I’m just going to check the American voicemail, before I order the food,” he announced loud enough to be heard in the other room. He punched the long sequence of numbers into the phone as he put the receiver to his ear. “Hey, there’s a message from John Winchester…” The color drained from his face as he listened. Goddamn John Winchester and his stupid crusade.

“Help! Somebody, help!” The screams shredded the silence of the hotel room like a shaving razor cutting into raw steak.

Joshua dropped the phone and ran into his sister’s room. He found her pressed against the Cheval mirror, hands gripping the edges so tight her knuckles were white. “Naomi! Naomi!” Joshua cried, trying to get her attention, but he realized she was caught in one of her visions. Her eyes were fully focused on the mirror, but she was seeing something else.

“Okay. Let’s try again -- an amp of atropine,” she murmured, using different tones for different voices, in her trance. “…come on…amp…okay, stop compressions…stopped...come on, come on…still no pulse…okay, that’s it, everybody. I’ll call it. Time of death…10:41 a.m…”

Josh hesitated to touch her. He and Levi had always debated what might happen if they touched her during such an episode, like waking a sleepwalker. “Naomi?”

She seemed to crumple, like a building falling in on itself. Josh had to move quickly to catch her as every limb went lax. “Into a mirror…” she murmured, before she blissfully passed out, blood running from her nose.

February, 2007[†]

Louise’s Diner, Louisville, Indiana

Louise’s Diner resembled almost every other mom-and-pop greasy spoon luncheonette they had ever been in their whole lives, with its red-brown vinyl booths, metallic-rimmed plastic tabletops, and mismatched soda fountain counter stools. The smells of grease, coffee, tuna melts, and burnt beef permeated the atmosphere, intermingling with an oldies radio station playing faintly in the background. At mid-afternoon, they were too late for the lunch rush and too early for the dinner crowd; only a few customers remained scattered throughout.

“Sit wherever you want, boys,” said an older woman with blue – actual Cookie Monster blue – hair as she walked past them with an empty glass coffee pot. “Be with you in a sec.”

Open-mouthed, the Brothers Winchester stared after the petite woman, who wore a yellow dress with a brown apron. Dean elbowed Sam and pointed at her feet, which were adorned with pink-sequined tennis shoes with sheer ribbon laces tied in big bows. They grinned at each other, suppressing a chuckle, before turning their attention to the matter at hand.

Dean absently cracked his neck, cocking his head first to one side then the other, as his gold-flecked, green eyes flitted across the room. Dressed in his usual jeans and two layers of shirts, the added layer of Dad’s old leather jacket was just a little warm in the dry, forced heat of the diner.

Similarly dressed, but wearing that slightly too small tan coat that badly needed replacing, Sam nudged Dean and gave a short wave to a red-haired man, who was sliding out of a booth in the back corner and smiling politely at them. “Must be the welcoming committee,” Sam murmured.

“Guess so,” Dean replied, nodding to the man as he and his brother approached. Even if he hadn’t risen to tip them off, Dean would have picked him as the hunter out of all the other customers. The man was watchful and held himself at the ready; his face appeared friendly, but his eyes were shuttered, haunted. He was casually dressed in jeans and a dark green button-down, but he was definitely armed; he had the stance of someone who had served in the military.

Once the brothers were close enough, the man held out his hand, “You must be the Winchesters, I’m Levi LeCroix. I think you spoke to my brother Elijah on the phone.”

Dean shook his hand. “Uh- yeah, I’m Dean.” As Sam shook Levi’s hand, he added, “My brother, Sam.”

“Good to meet you,” Sam greeted.

Levi nodded, “Same here.”

Dean rubbed the back of his neck, “Look, I hate to be a stickler for details, but your – uh – brother? He didn’t mention you.”

Levi sighed, “You were expecting someone more feminine? My brother said Naomi would meet you?”

The brothers nodded.

“Yeah, about that…my brother has a habit of making promises without considering the details, but don’t worry, you’ll get what you asked for.” Levi gestured for them to sit. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

They took off their coats and slid into the booth on one side as Levi slid into the other side, facing them. Levi’s black leather biker jacket had been folded over the back of his booth bench.

“First of all, Naomi wanted me to pass on her – our family’s -- condolences about your father,” Levi said seriously. He hadn’t been particularly fond of John most of the time, but he imagined not everyone got along with his father either.

Dean and Sam hesitated. Sam glanced at Dean, wondering what he was thinking. This had been a hard year, and Dean still felt responsible for Dad’s death.

“Thanks,” Sam replied.

Dean opened his mouth to respond to Levi, but was interrupted.

“Can I get you boys some coffee or something to drink ‘sides water?” Thelma – or so her nametag claimed -- asked as she set two glasses of water in front of Dean and Sam with a friendly smile. She slid two silverware packets neatly wrapped in paper napkins from her apron pocket and set them on the table as well.

Giving Thelma one of those patented Winchester smiles, Dean’s voice oozed charm. “I’ll take coffee, thanks.”

Sam nodded in agreement. “With cream,” he added.

“Don’ you worry; I’ll take good care of you, Sugar,” she winked at Sam flirtatiously. “Be right back. The menus are right there.” She pointed to the laminated sheets standing at attention amongst the condiments tray on the end of the table by the wall. “And I’ll bring the pot to freshen up your cup, Sweetie,” she smiled at Levi and pinched his cheek, causing him to blush and duck his head.

All three men thanked her as she hurried toward the counter. Dean and Sam were wearing amused smiles when Levi’s green eyes looked back at them. He chuckled. “Just wait, I’m sure you’re turn’s coming,” he mumbled.

Dean grinned, but Sam shifted uneasily in his seat. He had been pinched and prodded by enough old ladies to last a lifetime in recent months. Sam took a sip of his water to help wash away the thought.

Dean cleared his throat, getting back to business. “So…you knew Dad?”

Levi nodded, face now carefully blank. “We met a few times. He…uh- came into the store once or twice, but for the most part he was Naomi’s friend – uh – my cousin, the one who designs the tattoos?”

After Sam’s unpleasant experience with Meg at the helm, he and Dean had researched ways to keep her out for good. Bobby’s talismans weren’t infallible as they could fall off, be cut off, be yanked off, or otherwise lost. He and Dean wanted to feel confident that when they looked at each other, the only ones looking back were Sam and Dean, nothing else. So, when the name of an occult store in New Orleans – one listed in Dad’s journal under supplies -- popped up in conversation, associated with permanent “protection spells” in the form of tattoos, Sam had given the place a call.

However, he couldn’t recall anyone named Naomi in Dad’s journal. He met his brother’s gaze. “Uh- I don’t think I remember Dad mentioning anyone named Naomi,” Sam commented, though admittedly Dad had never mentioned Ellen or The Roadhouse either. There seemed to be many things John Winchester had kept to himself.

Levi scratched his nose as he considered his next words carefully. “That’s…possible…Look, you’ll have to ask her about it someday,” he dismissed. “It’s bad luck to speak ill of the dead, right?” He shifted uncomfortably. He had been given specific instructions not to over-share where Naomi was concerned; in fact, he had a list of certain topics to avoid all together.

Dean frowned, but whatever he was about to say, was interrupted by Thelma returning with their coffee, and fresh cream for Sam. After outrageous flirtations and cheek pinching, which only Dean managed to escape because he was out of her reach, Dean and Levi were settled with pie and Sam with a fruit plate.

As she finally walked away, Levi set an 8”x10”x5” aluminum box with tumbler locks in the center of the table. Engraved into the top of the box was an insignia of a Templar shield overlaid by a pentagram and bookended by geometrically outlined wings.

Dean and Sam stared at the engraving for a few seconds. Something about the image nudged at the back of Dean’s mind but he just couldn’t place where he had seen it previously. “Uh – what’s that?” Dean pointed at the box with his fork.

“A care package from Naomi,” Levi replied.

Before Levi could say anything else, Dean straightened in the booth and leaned forward. “Wait, ‘a care package’? What does that mean exactly? Elijah said this Naomi was going to work up the anti-possession spell herself.”

“Dean-“ Sam warned.

Dean’s eyes narrowed on Levi and, looking frustrated, Sam folded his arms across his chest.

“The thing is as soon as you told Elijah who you were, he knew N’omi would be onboard to help you, because of John,” Levi said hurriedly. “It just didn’t occur to him that her living in Rome would be an issue.” He shrugged and paused to see if either of the other men might lighten up at that.

Neither Winchester was interested in the LeCroixes’ issues with over-commitment and international distances. They were only interested in their own personal recent crisis of Sam spending a week with Meg at the controls.

Levi sighed. “Look, Naomi prepared everything.” He put his hand on the box on the table. “She tailor-designed a tattoo specifically for you, because we’ve never done anti-possession before; she said they’d have to be specific for your bloodline. She hand-mixed the ink herself so she could do rites at each step, and except for when it was blessed, no one else has touched any of it-“

Sam was leaning forward listening intently to Levi’s description of the process. “Blessed? What? Like a priest?”

Levi’s eyes met Sam’s eyes. “Like the Pope.”

Sam gaped.

“Yeah, right,” Dean doubted.

Levi shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. “Believe what you want, but Naomi works for the Vatican. Asking His Holiness to bless a few vials of ink as a favor isn’t a big deal when you’re helping the Catholic Church cover up real supernatural occurrences and debunk fake ones.”

Sam snorted.

“Okay, even if we believe you, and that is Pope ink,” Dean said, “what good is it going to do us if she’s not here to finish the spell?”

“It’s not just ink, Dean,” Levi explained. “The design is in there too, as well as in-depth instructions for completing rites to the spell.” Levi checked his watch. “And our cousin Ruth should be here in about 40 minutes. She’s the tattoo artist in the family. Ruth’ll do the artwork and I’ll do the rites – I didn’t just drive all over the country and back to act as courier, because I’m pretty,” he grinned. “I’ve worked Naomi’s spells before; our mothers are sisters – she says that’s as good as if she sent her brother.” He shrugged.

With his arms still folded across his chest, Sam studied him with narrowed eyes. “You said, you’ve never done an anti-possession spell before?”

Levi leaned back in his seat and stared straight at Sam. “We’ve never done one as a tattoo, no…No one’s ever asked.” Levi picked up his coffee and took a sip. “Besides, the ones they do at the store are pretty basic and generic. They don’t need Naomi to do them anymore.” He shrugged and shook his head. “From what I understand about the one you asked for…it’s pretty damned complicated. I’ve only ever heard her talk about designing spells for bloodlines a few times. That’s serious shit.”

“Complicated how? Like what are we getting into here?” Dean asked, just a little unsure now.

Levi blinked. “Nothing like what you’re thinking. No voodoo, no dark magic.” Levi shook his head.

Sam and Dean still looked a little suspicious.

“Naomi doesn’t work with spirits, and all of her magic falls into the realm of ‘white magic’, but for your spell, there will be blood magic involved,” Levi explained.

“And blood magic doesn’t fall into the realm of dark magic?” Sam asked, sounding skeptical.

Levi shook his head. “Dude, blood is life; it doesn’t always have to be about something dead or dying, and you don’t always have to kill to get it for a spell. Blood flows through the living, and the purest blood comes from the purest of us. Read your Bible; it’s full of references to blood – ‘For the soul of all flesh is its blood; it is one with its soul. Leviticus 17:10.”

“Huh,” the Winchesters replied.

[*] The dialog in the hospital in this scene was borrowed from episode 2x01 "In My Time of Dying" of Supernatural; however, the author of this fan fiction has made great use of literary license to fill in all descriptive details and interpret all thoughts, motives and emotions.

[†] References events that took place in Supernatural episode 2x14 "Born Under a Bad Sign," where Meg possessed Sam for a week, and refers to the tattoos first seen in 3x12 “Jus in Bello”.

Chapter Text

season three

August, 2008[*]

Vatican City, Rome, Italy

Thirty or so men of varying ranks, wearing the dress robes from various Catholic sects, sat or stood around a cherry wood, oval table in the center of a room with walls covered in bookshelves, floors covered in marble, and high ceilings covered in murals of choirs of cherubs and angels. Their raised voices spilled over one another in six or seven different languages. Around the outer edge of the room, lower-level priests, nuns in habits, and civilians in what Joshua dubbed the Vatican’s “Men in Black” look, sat in the personal assistant seating area, either taking notes, looking generally bored, or enjoying the show.

Returning with two bottles of water and a packet of aspirin, Joshua sat next to Naomi and glanced over her shoulder to spy on her instant message conversation with her daughter. He smiled, noting his niece’s photos from her most recent ballet recital. He tilted his head toward the men in the center of the room and whispered, “Are they still arguing about that supposed talking statue in Krasnystaw?”

Naomi nodded, making a face as she signed off the netbook with the encrypted satellite wi-fi software one of her crazy, paranoid cousins had given her. “You’d think that one would be an easy one, wouldn’t you?” she whispered in return.

Joshua shook his head in dismay. Every few months they met with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith[†] to report their “findings” and hear about other cases the Church was investigating. Sometimes, everything seemed as if it had been easier when there was no money and just family involved, because in the real world, there was no discussion on whether or not to shoot the zombie. The Cousins would never have spent ten years debating over the possibility of the healing powers of a natural spring or the possibility of a sighting of the Virgin Mary.

Naomi took her water bottle from Josh and unscrewed the cap. She took a long drink. Josh ripped open the packet and poured the aspirin into her waiting hand. She’d been looking flushed all morning as if she was fighting off a fever, and these meetings were always exhausting even for him. She popped the two pills in her mouth and washed them down with more cold water, letting her eyes flutter closed. Her shoulders automatically relaxed.

Her brain was automatically translating several of the conversations in the room from the languages in which she was fluent, and muddling them with words she recognized from a few of the others. She hated these days with the Congregation. They were tiresome. No one worked together; they all had their own agendas, and it was so hard to remain focused with the jumble of so many individual want-to-be’s, could-be’s, and will-be’s colliding in the room. So many little pitchers of possibilities overflowing into the big picture, intermingling colors and sounds as words and wills collided in one tidal, operatic communion of light and dark, growth and decay, opposites swirling through her senses, until all was chaos…

Naomi slowly becomes aware that she is in a still, dark place. The darkness should be cool, but she feels as if she’s poaching from the inside out. A slight sheen of sweat covers her bare shoulders, arms, and legs – her black pants suit is gone, replaced by a white eyelet sundress. She feels a primal, drum-like cadence, thrumming silently through her -- the inner beat of the Earth, or her daughter’s heartbeat, or…or something else that keeps her tethered here; it is a puzzle for her soul to keep.

A rush of dry wind rises from somewhere and nowhere. It whirls around her, twisting her black hair and her white dress chaotically about her body. She closes her eyes against the sting of the strands of hair whipping her face.

Voices hiss and whisper here and there in the surrounding darkness. First, they are too low to be intelligible, but before long, she realizes they are riding on the wind, coming near and going far. She can only grasp at pieces, as they grow loud, and faint, and resonant and muffled – all of it a jumble like the priests arguing over miracles.

“…Og det er skrevet at det første seglet skal bli brutt når en rettskaffen mann spiller blod i helvete…”

“…Как сломается он, сломается и печать…”

The roughness of the wind lessens. She opens her midnight blue eyes. A dim light is spreading out from where she stands, but she sees only nothingness. She cautiously turns around while staying in the same place, seeking the source of the voices. .

“…Писано, що перша печать трісне, коли праведник проллє в Пеклі кров…”

She sees no one. She sees nothing – only darkness.

“…zo zal het breken…”

“…alors il brisera…”

‘Then it will break?’ She grasps the bit of French and holds onto it as if it is a tiny bit of sanity.

“…Και είναι γραμμένο ότι η πρώτη σφραγίδα θα σπάσει όταν ένας δίκαιος άνθρωπος θα χύσει αίμα στην Κόλαση…”

A silent flash of white lightning stretches beautifully across the sky, reaching here and there, grasping for something it lives too briefly to keep.

“…esto sello sería roto….”

“This seal would be broken?” she mumbles under her breath. “What seal?”

“…Как сломается он...”

A crack of thunder rips through this desolate place. Naomi stumbles backward from the resulting quake. For two wretched heartbeats, she’s unable to breath.

“…E está escrito que o primeiro selo sera aberto quando um homem justo derramar sangue no Inferno…”

“…Als hij breekt…”

The soft bleating of a lamb from somewhere behind her startles her. Wide-eyed with one hand covering her racing heart, she spins around on unsteady legs searching for the source of the sound. She finds none. She takes a cautious step forward.

“…tak pieczęć zostanie złamana….”

She spies the pool of blood a few feet ahead of her; the dark red is the same color as the Papal wax seal. She frowns at the mental comparison. The pool of blood is spreading as she watches, but she can see no cause.

“…så også skal det briste…”

And the whispering voices continued to harass her.

“…Як зламався він …”

The sound of hoof beats approaching from her left grabs her attention. Naomi swings around in time to see a white horse race past her, so close she can feel his tail brush the hairs of her arm. The moment passes so quickly, there was no time to even scream.

“…so soll es brechen…”

Stumbling backwards, almost stepping into the expanding pool of blood, her hand tightens over her rapidly beating heart; Naomi stares in the direction of the disappearing horse.

“…En het staat geschreven dat het eerste zegel zal breken wanneer een rechtvaardige man bloed spilt in de hel...”

Another flash of lightning branches across the nothingness, crooked and sharp-edged fingers. Naomi can feel the temperature rising and with it, bit by bit, as if pouring itself upward from beneath to fill in a mold to fill in the holes in the nothingness, a landscape is rising – jagged boulders and rocks, lifeless trees with wickedly twisted branches, craterous ground with treacherous cracks hinting of orange heat below. Naomi thinks it looked like some place after a volcanic eruption or a nuclear blast.

“…Un ir rakstīts, ka pirmais zīmogs būs pārlauzts, kad paštaisns vīrietis lies savas asinis ellē…”

“…Y cuando el hombre se hundío….”

‘And when the man sank,’ her brain supplies for her.

A crash of thunder rides over the whispers. This time she braces for it and doesn’t stumble. Realizing waiting for something else to happen is fruitless, she chooses a direction away from the blood and begins to walk.

“…I napisane jest: pierwsza pieczęć zostanie złamana gdy prawy człowiek przeleje krew w Piekle….”

“…Quando ele quebrar…”

She can hear wild creatures now – four of them – not just the whispers. She doesn’t think they’re animals and she doesn’t think they’re together, but the inhuman sounds they make are distinct and chilling. They make her walk faster, even though she doesn’t know where she is going, if there will be help there.

“...Som han brister…”

She’s starting to feel as if she has been here forever, as if she will go insane with the whispers. She almost understands them and yet she doesn’t. She thinks this might be a preview of someone’s Hell.

“…Et il est écrit que le premier sceau est brisé quand un homme juste répand le sang de l'enfer…”

“The first seal is broken when a righteous man sheds the blood of Hell?” she murmurs absently. She pushes her sweaty bangs away from her face and puzzles over the translation.

“…Kad viņš lūzīs…”

“…tak zlamayetsya i pechat…”

She hears the hoof beats again, but they are far away this time. Still she begins to feel as if she’s running out of time and the floor beneath her feet is growing hotter with every step, like a game of “Hot or Cold” and she’s winning, but does she want to win?

“…Wenn er bricht…”

“…Όπως αυτός θα σπάσει …”

The hoof beats fall into a gallop behind her, growing louder. She breaks to run. The silent drumming rhythm returns but it is not in tune with the crazy thumping of her heart in her chest. Everything is maddeningly discordant.

“…lai arī tas lūzt….”

“…Comme il se casse…”

‘As it breaks,’ her mind stores for later consideration. She has more immediate matters to deal with, like avoiding a horrible death by horse. Not to mention, the heat is making it difficult to breathe.

“…Und es steht geschrieben dass das erste Siegel brechen soll wenn ein rechtschaffender Mann in der Hölle Blut vergießt…”

“…Jak on się złamie….”

The horse is almost on top of her. She screams, tumbling to the ground, holding her arms up as if they have the strength to keep the horse from trampling her to death. The horse rears back on two legs above her.

“… também o selo quebrarar-se-á…”

The white horse comes down to all four legs beside her, missing stepping on her, crushing her. He stamps his hooves and snorts. She anxiously looks up and is startled to see an armored rider holding a bow, though she can’t get a clear view of his face in the shadows. Still, she feels she should recognize him.

“…Так записано: первая печать будет сломана, когда праведный человек прольет кровь в Аду…”

The horse backs up a few steps; the rider guides him away, slowly nudging the animal into a trot, as they get further away from her.

“…έτσι θα σπάσει και αυτή…”

“Wa- wait!” she calls out too late, holding one hand out toward them.

“…Lo es escrito que el primer sello sería roto, cuando un hombre justo derrame sangre en el infierno….”

‘It is written that the first seal would be broken, when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell,’ her brain translates the last whisper from Spanish.

The scene starts to fade, but she has the strangest feeling that the further away they get, the horse is transforming into…a gazelle? Or an…impala?

Naomi woke with a start.

“Whoa, relax,” Joshua said, immediately coming to her side when he noticed her eyes open. “You’ve been out for twelve hours.” His jacket and tie were gone, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up.

She put a hand up to the cool wet cloth on her forehead as she glanced around the dimly lit room. She was reclining on a leather couch in someone’s office. Books and papers were piled everywhere in no apparent order, while paintings from the Renaissance hung on the wall.

She looked back at her brother. “Twelve hours?” she asked hoarsely.

“Oh, here, have some water.” He grabbed the bottle of water sitting nearby on the bookshelf. He exchanged it for the wet cloth. “You were kind of feverish the whole time,” he explained while she drank half the bottle in several gulps. “And you kept mumbling stuff in a couple of languages.”

“Mumbling stuff? What did I say?” she asked, pulling herself into a sitting position. The wonderful thing about her precognitive visions versus her remote viewing visions was they didn’t usually have the same negative after-affects – in particular – no migraines. “Did you write any of it down?”

Joshua grinned at her, quite proud of himself. He plopped on the couch next to her. “It’s all on your netbook. We can send it to Seth. Maybe he’ll pull something off the recording we won’t catch when we transcribe it.”

Naomi looked impressed. “Nice job.” Worrying her bottom lip, she sat quietly for a few moments, reviewing the vision, picking at the pieces. The imagery was important, just as important as the things she’d heard. She needed to write it all down while it was clear in her head so she would have all the puzzle pieces indefinitely. She pushed off the couch so she could rifle through her messenger bag. Finally, she returned to her seat next to her brother with a notebook and a pen.

First, at the top of the first clean page, she wrote the three translated French three phrases in the center:

“then it will break”
“the first seal is broken when a righteous man sheds the blood of Hell”
“as it breaks”

Then, at the bottom, she wrote the three translated Spanish phrases in the center of the page:

“this seal would be broken”
“and when the man sank”
“it is written that the first seal would be broken, when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell”

Joshua watched over her shoulder with curiosity. He frowned. “When you were out, you were going on about one of the seals being opened,” he said, glancing up to meet her eyes.

She straightened up and looked him directly in the eyes, focusing all of her energy on him. “What specifically did I say, Josh?”

He felt the odd sensation that occurred when all her attention was on him; he knew other people found it disconcerting, but he found it familiar, comforting even. He knew she was only doing it now to help him remember. He could back track through the hours of recorded audio, but this method -- invasive -- was faster. He drew a deep breath, and then closed his eyes.

Pulling from his memory, he recited as if in Sunday school, “And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, come and see.”

Naomi continued for him when he opened his eyes, ”And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he sat on him had a bow…and he went forth conquering, and to conquer…Revelation 6: 1 and 2.”

Naomi’s heart felt cold in her chest, strange after a day of feeling as if she would burn from the inside out.

Joshua swallowed. “Revelation? You’re talking about the end of times,” he said quietly.

Rather than answer, she looked down at the page of her notebook. She rewrote the three Spanish phrases on a brand new page:

“It is written that the first seal would be broken, when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell. And when the man sank, this seal would be broken.”

She had been waiting for signs from Revelation for a long time, knew it would happen in her lifetime, let it weigh on her every action and decision for over a decade, and, now that it was beginning, she almost felt relieved. Of course, she realized she had to keep the feeling to herself; no one would understand. She no longer had to be alone in the nightmare, but no one would appreciate having to share this with her.

“N’omi?” Joshua interrupted her thoughts. “Maybe you should –um-- contact, you know, Management.” Joshua gestured upward meaningfully. “And maybe find out if there’s a plan for handling the end of the world?”

Naomi studied Joshua for a minute, looking at him as if she had no idea what he was saying. “Oh. Right.” She cleared her throat. “None of this has happened yet. It can still be stopped.” She frowned. “Besides, what kind of screw up lands a righteous man in Hell, right?”

[*] References and abuses Alastair's statement "And it is written that the first seal shall be broken when a righteous man sheds blood in hell. As he breaks, so shall it break" from episode 4x16 "On the Head of a Pin" of Supernatural as well as makes implied references to episodes 3x16 "No Rest For the Wicked" and 4x01 "Lazarus Rising". Special thanks to the following people for graciously translating the quote into exotic languages I wish I could speak:

• Portuguese: E está escrito que o primeiro selo será aberto quando um homem justo derramar sangue no Inferno. Quando ele quebrar, também o selo quebrarar-se-á. (888mph)


• Russian: "Tak zapisano: pervaya pechat budet slomana, kogda pravednyi chelovek prolyet krov v Adu. Kak slomaetsa on, slomaetsa ee pechat." OR in the appropriate alphabet: "Так записано: первая печать будет сломана, когда праведный человек прольет кровь в Аду. Как сломается он, сломается и печать." (dear_tiger)


• Ukrainian: "Pysano, shcho persha pechat' trisne, koly pravednyk prollye v Pekli krov. Yak zlamavsya vin, tak zlamayetsya i pechat'." OR in the appropriate alphabet: "Писано, що перша печать трісне, коли праведник проллє в Пеклі кров. Як зламався він, так зламається і печать." (angharadd)


• German: "Und es steht geschrieben dass das erste Siegel brechen soll wenn ein rechtschaffender Mann in der Hölle Blut vergießt. Wenn er bricht, so soll es brechen." (geckoholic)


• Dutch: En het staat geschreven dat het eerste zegel zal breken wanneer een rechtvaardige man bloed spilt in de hel. Als hij breekt, zo zal het breken. (liliaeth)


• French: Et il est écrit que le premier sceau est brisé quand un homme juste répand le sang de l'enfer. Comme il se casse, alors il brisera. (jade_1459)


• Greek: Kai einai grammeno oti i proti sfragida tha spasei, otan enas dikaios anthropos tha hysei aima stin kolasi. Opos autos tha spasei, etsi tha spasei kai auti. OR in the appropriate alphabet: Και είναι γραμμένο ότι η πρώτη σφραγίδα θα σπάσει όταν ένας δίκαιος άνθρωπος θα χύσει αίμα στην Κόλαση. Όπως αυτός θα σπάσει, έτσι θα σπάσει και αυτή. (stageira)


• Norwegian: Og det er skrevet at det første seglet skal bli brutt når en rettskaffen mann spiller blod i helvete. Som han brister, så også skal det briste. (bflyw)


• Latvian: Un ir rakstīts, ka pirmais zīmogs būs pārlauzts, kad paštaisns vīrietis lies savas asinis ellē. Kad viņš lūzīs, lai arī tas lūzt. (emerish)


• Polish: I napisane jest: pierwsza pieczęć zostanie złamana gdy prawy człowiek przeleje krew w Piekle. Jak on się złamie, tak pieczęć zostanie złamana." (kansascshuffle)


• Spanish: "Lo es escrito que el primer sello sería roto, cuando un hombre justo derrame sangre en el infierno. Y cuando el hombre se hundío, esto sello sería roto." (John & Kerry B.)

[†] The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith was born of the Holy Inquisition and really does have commissions, sometimes lasting half a century, researching and debating the various events, which may or may not be supernatural or miraculous.

Chapter Text

season four

September 18, 2008[*]

Monte Cassino Monastery, Cassino, Italy

“Right. And why would an Angel rescue me from Hell?”

“Good things do happen, Dean.”

“Not in my experience.”

Castiel’s brow creases as he steps into Dean’s very personal space. His deep blue eyes search Dean’s rich green-hazel ones for answers. “What’s the matter? You don’t think you deserve to be saved?”

Uncomfortable with Castiel’s proximity, with the intensity of his stare, Dean turns his head so he is looking at the angel from the corners of his eyes. He tries not to flinch. “Why’d you do it?”

“Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you.”

She was unsure how long she lay blacked out this time. Her eyesight was returning in a painful blur of colors and bright lights, and she could feel the thick stickiness of her blood slowly dripping from her nose onto her clean sheets. She rolled onto her back, sluggishly pulling her feet onto the bed, feeling every motion as if her entire body was an exposed wire.

“Damned, Winchesters,” she swore softly.

September 25, 2008[†]

Fo ter [Main square], Szentendre, Hungary

Supernatural aftershocks rippled across the globe following Dean Winchester’s "Great Escape," causing a surge in reports of the unexplained and impossible, keeping amateur and professional hunters and Vatican-sanctioned investigators alike busier than CPAs in mid-April. Over the last seven days, the fifteen-person Moir Team had become scattered in twos and threes across Europe from Rome to Budapest, because each time the team reached a destination, something somewhere else would come to their attention.

In the distance, Naomi could see Keresztelo Sz. Janos – St. John the Baptist Church – standing amazingly unscathed on Templomdomb, otherwise known as Castle Hill, above the sleepy artist community of Sventendre. The Roman Catholic Church had somehow managed to avoid the disaster that had devastated much of the small town’s center that afternoon by only a few feet. No one knew if that was a coincidence, an accident, or a miracle.

The famous Serbian Orthodox Church, Blagovestenska, was not as lucky. In fact, the Hungarian forensics team’s current working theory was that the now collapsed building was ground zero for a bomb, though no terrorist group had yet claimed credit. The area certainly had the sickening, eerie look and feel of an explosion –the tremor had been felt sixteen miles away in Budapest, which is how Interpol, the Moir twins, and two reporters from a questionable American magazine ended up in Szentendre within only a few hours.

The sky was in that sketchy place between bright afternoon and nighttime, when everything is just a little too dim for even shadows to play. Spilling through the rubble and the buildings that remained standing, floodlights filled in the spaces where the flashing lights and headlights of emergency vehicles didn’t. Chaos filled Naomi’s ears even as far away from the center of it all as she was. From her precarious position on the rooftop of one of the few buildings somehow still standing in the main square, Naomi watched the scene unfold beneath her; Joshua, dressed in his standard Vatican “Men-in-Black” suit and tie, assisted three rescue workers as they lifted fallen debris to reveal a trapped woman, who was crying, grateful and shattered.

She ran a hand through her black hair, pushing it out of her pale face and closed her eyes for just a few seconds as she tried to block out the chaotic sounds. She attempted to resituate herself on the roof, almost losing her footing in the process. After a slight, flailing panic, she regained her composure. Shoving her fists into the pockets of her long, black coat, she refocused on the scene, needing to know if something about the event was supernatural, or if it really was "just" a bombing. A bombing was a particularly horrifying event all in itself, but the result would be a different kind of hunt, a different kind of monster, a different kind of evil, and, as Joshua had informed Interpol, not "their kind of boogieman" at all.

Naomi took a deep breath and let the air out slowly. The acrid smell of death and dust hung thick and heavy in the air, reminding her of New York City after 9/11, but there was something else too -- fire and sulfur – otherwise known in the Bible as brimstone. Her lips curled downward unhappily. She expected the hint of other chemicals, but the lack of anything but sulfur was disturbing and…telling.

She purposefully and slowly blinked and moved her eyes over every inch of the disaster, looking for a pattern. Slowly, it came into focus. In the Square between the crumbled church and a wrecked memorial in the Square’s center, was some sort of point of impact, as if something had crashed into the ground from above. Part of the building nearby had crumbled, tumbling over the spot, but she could see the cracks in the hard ground stretching outward away from where it should be.

She quickly pressed “1” on her speed dial, holding her cell phone to her ear while she tried to keep her balance on the roof. When her brother answered, she explained where he should search, before folding the small phone and sliding it back into her pocket.

She stood in the cool air watching the rescue workers and the police, wanting to join them, but suffering from an intense feeling that something she had been unaware she was waiting for was about to happen, and if she moved from that spot, she would ache with the missing of it. She stood for what felt like forever with her hands in her pockets, her legs aching from the strain of keeping her balance on the slanted roof, and her skin chilled from the wind seeping through her clothes to her bones. She stood frozen in place, tuning out noise and slowly blinking at the changing scene below her illuminated by fluorescents and tagged with yellow plastic tape, numbered markers, and white chalk outlines.

At first, her mind was unable to register exactly what she was seeing. The impact site was mostly cleared when she finally saw him. She thought he was just another townsperson or tourist caught in the explosion. However, from her vantage point, she could see everything; she witnessed something no one on the ground would notice. Most people are unable to see reality, because society has brainwashed them into discounting the unexplainable. Even for a white witch clairvoyant who could hear Angels before she could speak, the sight before her was all at once chillingly horrifying and breathtakingly beautiful.

The most beautiful man she had ever seen lay in the center of the impact point with cracks spidering out from under him. Stretched out impossibly huge to either side of him, lace-like shadows of wings were etched into the hard surface of the ground like the fossilized remains of a butterfly, so fragile and seemingly almost immortal. A dark stain spread across his chest ruining the illusion that he might only be sleeping.

Naomi put her hand to her mouth, fighting the ill feeling rising inside her. She closed her eyes, willing away the vision of the dead angel in the streets of Szentendre. However, the image was permanently burned into her mind. Feeling a sudden lack of oxygen in her lungs, she gasped for air. Trying to catch her breath, she bent forward resting a hand on her thigh, and that was just enough to upset her balance. She started to flail forward, with the street looking unpleasantly like her next stop.

A strong hand caught her arm and pulled her back, tucking her neatly against his solid form.

Trembling but feeling steady, she looked up at her savior. “Thanks.” She took a sharp intake of breath as she recognized the one who was now standing on the roof with her. Her heart fluttered.

The man in the trench coat didn’t spare her a look. He was intensely studying the scene in the square.

“Y-You’re him, aren’t you?” Eyes never leaving his face, she made it more of a statement than a question. “Castiel.”

Finally, he turned his own, piercing blue eyes toward her, and, for once, she understood why her gaze unnerved everyone; she shivered, sensing the power and strength beneath the surface, the unexpected feeling of intrusion, but the Castiel she had always known was there too – there was a familiar sense of warmth, comfort, and belonging. “Yes,” he nodded, looking slightly puzzled. “Naomi, I was informed you had a vision of this vessel.”

She huffed and glanced away, flushing slightly. “Yeah, about that...you haven’t been around for months," she accused. "And the last two times I ‘phoned home’ --” She used the universal quotes gesture. “--someone else showed up.” She had been disturbed by both experiences; not only had she never interacted specifically with any other angel except Castiel, but Zachariah had felt wrong to her -- less genuine like her warrior angel and more pompous like an exclusive Porsche dealer.

He blinked blankly at her. “Naomi, you are not my only charge, and, if you haven’t noticed, lately...things are not going well.” He nodded to the scene below them. “Six of my brothers have died in the field this week.”

Naomi shivered at his words. Swallowing, she turned her head to stare down at the dead angel. “I...I’m sorry,” she whispered. Instantly feeling guilty for presuming to demand his time again, she glanced at her feet before looking back up to meet his gaze. “What do you need me to do?”

“As you know, the First Seal has been broken,” Castiel stated simply. When she nodded, he continued, “Now that the first has been broken, the demons only have 65 more to break to raise Lucifer and start the Apocalypse.”

Naomi shifted uncomfortably but kept silent. The specifics were never hers to know, but the coming struggle, the pain, and the darkness she had been acutely aware of in even her waking dreams for far too long.

“There are hundreds of Seals they can choose from. Most aren’t singular objects or places but conditional spells.”

Naomi understood that quite well. Spells she could understand better than people sometimes. She nodded. “Okay. Okay. So, the idea is to stop the spells from succeeding or stop them from being cast to begin with.”

He nodded. “You and your brother will be needed on the European front.”

Naomi worried her bottom lip. “And in America?”

He was watching the rescue workers carefully move his brother to a stretcher. “You know that’s taken care of,” he said purposefully.

Her eyes narrowed, feeling a spike of something...unfamiliar and unpleasant, which she chose to ignore for the moment. The time would come soon enough when she would be forced to face it and deal with it. “Should I...Should I think about moving Hope?” She was thinking about the advice she’d given John Winchester years ago -– to take his sons and hole up somewhere where no one and nothing could find them. Maybe she should learn from his mistakes.

Castiel turned back to Naomi and shook his head. “Only if you think it will ease your mind to have her closer to you, but she’s still protected and hidden, just as I promised. Neither demons nor Angels can find her as long as she remains where she is.”

Dropping her chin to her chest, Naomi sighed heavily. “Okay...I trust you. She’s safe where she is.”

For almost thirty years, she had longed to touch her angel, to see her angel, and though she knew that the flesh and blood man standing with her on the roof had a life and a name other than that of her angel, she couldn’t help but fit his face and features into all of her memories. Seeking comfort, her fingers sought out his fingers, her smaller hand wrapping around his.

She had grown used to the ethereal zings that occurred from time to time when she made contact with strangers or people she had been apart from for long periods -- everything from the sensation of a mild tingle to the electrifying jolt of a finger in a light socket. However, nothing had prepared her for the experience of touching the inhabited vessel of an angel. The pulse of ethereal energy that surged through her when their hands met was unparalleled and all-consuming. For one glorifying, horrifying moment everything was clear and jumbled -- a million futures, centuries of civilizations rising and falling, uncountable worlds, Heavens and Hells, God wrathful and fatherly, Lucifer in his Cage, all the betrayals, all the promises, all the prophesies, all the lies, all the mistakes, all the hordes of people simply living, all the war, all the death, and all the living -- none of it in order, and all of it like a flash of lightning caught in the corner of her eye.

Naomi realized immediately they were no longer on the roof. She was standing, but only because Castiel's hands held her slumped body upright, her head resting on his chest, wrinkling that ridiculous tie. Careful to grip his arms over the trench coat, she pulled herself straight.

Castiel's expression was not unlike that of a child holding squirming worms for the first time.

Naomi glanced around realizing they were in the courtyard of the Roman Catholic Church on the hill. She suppressed the need to ask how they got there; he was an angel. That should be explanation enough. She let go of him and stepped back, feeling weak kneed, and a little scared for once.

Finally, Castiel's expression turned to fatherly concern. He gave her a faint smile and tentatively reached over to gently stroke her hair in an almost paternal manner. "Are you…okay?"

She nodded.

"I should go."

Again she nodded silently. Just as he dropped his hand, she jerked forward and grabbed the lapels of his trench coat. “Castiel, wait!”

He paused, "Yes?" He tilted his head, watching her through the inferior eyes of his mortal vessel. It was so much harder to interpret her moods and expressions with this limitation.

Naomi bit her bottom lip, carefully searching for the right words. She always had to be so careful with these sorts of things. The future was a dangerous sandbox to play in and she dared not presume she was wise enough to always make the right choices, to always nudge people in the right directions.

Rubbing her thumbs along the material of his coat, she said, "It's not a coincidence you're here. My...mother's faith…," she bowed her head. "I know she was devout, a true believer; you've been saddled with me because of her, and having known you all my life, Castiel, I know you're more than just a good soldier; you're one of the Faithful." She looked up through her lashes. "He picked you; you're...chosen." She licked her lips, considering her next words, "But there are going to be choices, Castiel, impossible choices ahead. The right thing to do isn't always going to be self-evident from here on out." Her fingers released his lapels, and her pale hands smoothed the fabric against his chest. "Have faith in your own convictions, Castiel; beware the duplicitous Righteous, and...most importantly..." Because I don't think I'll be here to remind you. "Turn a deaf ear to the Devil."

Castiel frowned, puzzling over her words as he searched her face. "Are those words of advice or premonition?"

Her eyes snapped back to his as she stepped backward. "A little of both perhaps." She glanced in the direction of the destroyed town square, where the dead angel would now be in an ambulance. "I-I'm worried about you," she added quietly.

Castiel nodded. "I'm worried about all of us." He hesitated, thinking there was something else in her sad eyes that she meant to say, but she just wrapped her arms around herself instead. "We'll speak again. This time sooner, rather than later," he offered.

Biting her bottom lip, she nodded. Somehow, between blinks, he simply ceased to stand there. She looked around with a perplexed expression attempting to locate him before letting her brain accept that he had "flown away".

January, 2009[‡]

Monte Cassino Monastery, Cassino, Italy

After the antiseptic, somberness of Dean’s hospital room with its discomforting mechanical sounds, Castiel welcomed the peace in the garden at the monastery. Even with spring months away, the monks’ choices of evergreens instilled the perfect atmosphere. While the gardens at the Vatican City were more palatial and extravagant, he could understand why Naomi preferred this place outside of the city, where there were less people to intrude on his quiet wanderings and ponderings.

“Dean, they don't tell me much. I know our fate rests with you.”

“Well, then you guys are screwed. I can't do it, Cas. It's too big. Alastair was right. I'm not all here. I'm not strong enough. Well, I guess I'm not the man either of our dads wanted me to be. Find someone else. It's not me.”

Castiel glowered. Dean clearly had not been listening when the angel told him that, since his actions started it all, he was the only one who could end it. An understudy couldn’t be called to take his place. Castiel needed to convince Dean not only of his role, but of his own inner-strength.

Perhaps that would be an easier task if he were not in the midst of his own minor crisis of faith.

“Who are we to question the will of God?” he had demanded of Anna.

“Unless this isn't His will,” she had blasphemously suggested.

“Then where do the orders come from?”

“”I don't know. One of our superiors, maybe, but not Him.” Alistair’s tortured cries pierced the air as Dean did as Heaven bade of him, as Uriel and Castiel demanded of him. “The Father you love…You think He wants this? You think He'd ask this of you? You think this is righteous?” Castiel refused to meet her eyes, so she informed him, “What you're feeling? It's called doubt.”

Castiel’s frown deepened as he remembered admitting later to Anna that he was considering disobedience. To his shame, he had begged her to tell him what to do. He felt betrayed by Uriel, but more than that, he felt lost with this horrible pain in his heart, which Anna had labeled “doubt.” Were his superiors giving orders that were not God’s will? How could he know for sure? The sense of uncertainty clawing at him made him feel as if he were standing on shifting sand.

He halted his steps as the Moir twins came into view. When Naomi and her brother caught sight of him, they altered their course. He studied them as they approached, walking nearly in harmony despite height differences and apparent injuries. Joshua walked with a limp and the entire right side of his face sported week-old bruises. Naomi’s left arm was in a sling, and she had the signs of a healing split lip. They bore the battle scars of any hunter after a recent case, despite the contrast of wearing their “Sunday best.”

“Good morning, Castiel,” Naomi greeted politely as the twins reached him.

“Naomi,” he nodded toward her. He turned toward her brother. They had never met, in the flesh. “Joshua.”

Joshua’s expression was a mixture of awestruck and anxious. He wiped his hand on his pant leg and held it out. “It’s an honor, your holy-ship, sir.”

A few seconds of awkwardness passed as Castiel stared at the offered hand. Joshua was about to withdraw when Castiel’s lips curled at the corners, he shook Joshua’s hand, and said, “Castiel will be fine.”

Joshua blushed, glancing at his sister who was chuckling behind her good hand. “Oh, uh, sorry. I’m not as up on my angel etiquette as N’omi.”

Castiel nodded. “It’s fine. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” Castiel offered the young man an encouraging smile. “You know, I’ve know you both since you were babies. You’ve grown into a fine, young man. Your mother would be proud.” Twenty-nine years, compared to the millennia Castiel had been in existence, were barely a blink in time, but Castiel had an excellent memory.

Joshua beamed. “Really? My mom?” He looked proudly back and forth between the angel and his sister. “I- uh—thank you.” Blushing, he ducked his head. “Uh…you know, I…should go ahead to mass and let the two of you talk.” He pointed to the rectory as he stumbled backward, wincing as he put the wrong amount of weight on the wrong leg. “It really is an honor, sir,” Joshua stuttered.

As they watched him go, Naomi grinned, “You made his year. The only thing you could have told him that might’ve been better is that Heaven is filled with Playboy Playmates.”

“His could be,” Castiel replied simply. Naomi gave him a puzzled look, but Castiel didn’t respond to that specifically. Instead he said, “You’re injured.”

She shrugged. “Hazard of the job.”

“Your cousins used to keep you out of the line of fire.”

“Yeah, well, this isn’t Micah’s team, it’s mine, and I’m not going to send anyone to do a job I’m not willing to do myself. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s no front line in this war, which means there’s no way to stay out of the line of fire anymore. People are dying, good people, Castiel,” she said, warily. “I lost four people stopping one of your seals last week.”

“I know. I am not unappreciative.” Castiel nodded with a sigh as they began to walk along the garden path. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “All deaths in this war are regrettable, but, you know, Naomi, if we can stop Lucifer from escaping the cage, then their sacrifice won’t be in vain.”

With a wry smile, Naomi shook her head, purposely looking in a direction away from him. “I don’t think you can stop that now,” she said matter-of-factly.

Brow furrowed, he stared at her as if trying to divine her thoughts. When she didn’t turn to meet his gaze, he queried, “Why not? What do you know?”

“If you’re asking if I’ve ‘Seen’ anything,” she replied, using the universal quote gesture with her one good hand, “you know how it works; there are no guarantees where the future is concerned – it’s always multiple choice – but it’s not hard to figure out how this seal business is going.” She risked looking him in the eye, letting him see that she was carrying the weight of the world, all of the darkness and the suffering to come, but all of the hope and the faith too.

“What do you mean? There’s still time—“

She scoffed, “Please, the whole seals-thing is stacked in the demon's favor, Castiel.”

He looked at her quizzically.

“They have hundreds of seals to choose from, but they only need sixty-six to break to reach their goal, and the loophole is that just because we stop one, that one doesn’t count against their sixty-six, it just means that they have to pick another of the hundreds to try. They get to keep trying, until they get it right, if they have to try 67 seals or 100 seals. It’s like playing Dodge ball against a team with an unlimited number of players.”

“I don’t understand that reference…but I do see your logic,” Castiel replied, thoughtfully. From Naomi’s point-of-view, the Apocalypse would appear inevitable. After giving that some thought, he broke their companionable silence. “In all of your possible futures, are there any, where the Apocalypse is stopped before it begins?”

Naomi blinked at him as if surprised by the question. “Clever,” she murmured. Few people knew how to ask the right questions; so she had become accustomed to easily skirting direct answers. She considered her answer as she toyed with the silver cross around her neck. Finally, she shook her head slightly, “I don’t know. It’s so close and everything’s so jumbled now; it’s hard to tell if what I See is an aborted Apocalypse or a thwarted Apocalypse.”

“And the difference would be?”

“Aborted would mean it never happens, Lucifer never makes it out of his cage, but thwarted would mean that it begins but it doesn’t end in one of the expected ways.”

“Expected being either as Hell on Earth or as Paradise on Earth?”

“Yes.”

Castiel stopped walking and waited for Naomi to do the same. ”Naomi, I need to know everything you know.”

“I told you.”

Castiel shook his head. “No, I’ve been watching you since you were born. I know you. I may not know exactly what you think, or what you See when you have your visions, but I know you always hold back part of the details.”

Naomi opened her mouth as if to deny it; then she closed it. She continued to toy with the cross as she considered what to say. She nodded. “Yes. I try to be somewhat responsible with this ‘gift’ I didn't want.” She used the universal finger quotes again with her one good hand. “I have to be careful. Have you ever heard of the Chaos Theory? That the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can cause a typhoon halfway around the world? Every little thing you, or I or anyone does, affects the world around us, Castiel, and acting on the right -- or rather the wrong -- information, could throw the whole world irrevocably into chaos.”

Thinking she was being a little melodramatic, Castiel frowned. “But you’ve done it before. You've used your visions to help people in numerous ways. When I’ve asked you to share your premonitions with me and with others before, you have. How is this different?”

“You’ve never asked me for specific information about the future before,” she poked him in the chest accusingly. “You’ve asked me to pass on information about things that were happening right then, about locations of missing people, about visions related to demon activity, about dreams I couldn’t interpret, and similar stuff, but never specifically about what’s going to happen, which is just as well, because as soon as you alter even the smallest detail, all the possible futures can change, all the details can change. The future is like sand, Castiel; it shifts as time passes.”

Castiel eyed her suspiciously. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Maybe you haven’t asked the right question," she replied innocently.

Frustrated, Castiel threw up his hands and began to pace a little. He stopped in front of her. “What about Dean Winchester?”

With a hint of jealousy in her voice, she pouted, “What about him?”

“I’ve been told our fate rests with him, that only he can put a stop to the Apocalypse. Do you think that’s true?”

She worried her bottom lip. “No,” she said flatly. “I think you need both of them. Dean and Sam.”.

“Why both of them?”

“They’re stronger together as long as they have each other’s trust.”

Castiel frowned and shook his head at the analysis. That was probably ten years of John Winchester’s brainwashing more than any visions.

Noting his reaction, she insisted, “Castiel, I’m serious. It’ll all come down to them in the end, both Winchesters.” She sounded reluctant to even make such a statement aloud. “Everything they’ve gone through, everything they’ll go through – it’s all been about this, but they need each other to make it through. One without the other is just another hunter, just another man, but together – they are heroes; they’re more than what everyone wants them to be, and given the chance, they will stop the Apocalypse, just because it’s the right thing to do, not because anyone asked.”

“You have a lot of confidence in two men you’ve never met,” Castiel commented.

Naomi smirked mischievously; maybe God was all-knowing, but angels apparently missed some of the details from time to time. “I’ve always had a feeling there was something special about John’s boys. For my daughter's sake, I have to have faith when it matters most, they'll make the right choices.”

May, 2009[§]

Singer Salvage Yard, Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Dean huffed impatiently as he halted his frantic pacing through the rusted car graveyard. The familiar sound of fluttering caught his attention. He spun to find Castiel with his hands in his pockets, leaning almost casually against red metal scaffolding under a single fluorescent light a few feet away.

“Well, it’s about time,” Dean huskily groused. “I’ve been screaming myself hoarse out here for about two and a half hours now.”

“What do you want?” Nonplused, Castiel walked purposely toward Dean.

“Well, you can start with what the hell happened in Illinois.” Dean forced the angel to come to him.

“What do you mean?” Responding with a question was a childish stall tactic for an uncomfortable question, but at least he had picked up something from all those years watching Naomi's smug mind and word games.

“Cut the crap. You were going to tell me something.” A reminder of the Winchester’s adventures with the Novak clan, the pink around the healing scar above his left eyebrow was a stark contrast to the rest of Dean's pale, freckled face.

“Well, nothing of import,” Castiel said, looking away as he took the last few steps to meet Dean.

Dean met Castiel’s blank stare with an incredulous expression. “You got ass-reamed in Heaven, but it was not 'of import'?”

“Dean,” the angel cut him off shortly. “I can't.” He pleaded with the man silently to just drop the subject. In a gentler, more sincere tone, he added, “I'm sorry.” He paused, turning and walking a little way away to refocus on the task he'd been given. “Get to the reason you really called me. It's about Sam, right?”

Dean stared at him as if he had suddenly taken to wearing OPI Pop My Cherry Red nail polish or burped the ABCs backwards. Finally, he asked, “Can he do it?...Kill Lilith? Stop the Apocalypse?”

Castiel turned to face Dean. This, he could answer. He could even answer most of it with his own honest opinion. “Possibly, yes. But as you know, he'd have to take certain steps.”

Understanding, Dean nodded. “Crank up the Hell-blood regimen.”

Castiel carefully kept his tone neutral. “Consuming the amount of blood it would take to kill Lilith would change your brother forever.” He hesitated as that information visibly settled into Dean like a winter chill. “Most likely, he would become the next creature that you would feel compelled to kill. There's no reason this would have to come to pass, Dean.” Castiel moved back to stand in front of his charge. “We believe it's you, Dean, not your brother. The only question for us is whether you're willing to accept it. Stand up and accept your role. You are the one who will stop it.”

Dean considered him. “If I do this..Sammy doesn't have to?”

“What about Dean Winchester?”

“What about him?”

“I’ve been told our fate rests with him, that only he can put a stop to the Apocalypse. Do you think that’s true?”

“No...I think you need both of them. Dean and Sam.”

Ignoring Naomi's opinion or prediction, which so directly conflicted with his orders, Castiel hesitated. His eyes narrowed as he chose the right words – the words that his superiors would approve of, and yet would still be...honest. “If it gives you comfort to see it that way.”

Dean shook his head in exasperated disbelief at the non-answer. “God, you're a dick these days.” He paced away, considering what the angel had theoretically offered. He took a deep breath. Really, when it came down to Sam, to Sammy, there was never any doubt what he would do. He would always do what he had to do to protect his baby brother. It was his job. He would do anything for him. Hell, he had already proven he would give his life and soul for him, what was one more thing? “Fine. I’m in.”

Castiel remained where he was, hands in his pockets, staring into the night. He spoke almost by rote. “You give yourself over wholly to the service of God and his Angels?”

“Yeah, exactly.” Dean mentally rolled his eyes.

“Say it.”

Dean's spidey-sense went to red alert. He turned and gave Castiel a quizzical look. Castiel met his gaze without blinking. His eyes silently communicated to his friend that this was the only way. This was how things had to be. Everything was out of his hands; otherwise, he might have handled them differently.

Dean approached Castiel with deliberate steps, never dropping eye contact. “I give myself over wholly to serve God and you guys.”

“You swear to follow His Will, and His Word, as swiftly and obediently as you did your own father's?”

Dean reigned in his anger at the use of his father in this now poorly disguised, official-sounding capital-D-type deal. “Yes, I swear.” At least with demons, you knew what you were getting in the Deal, and what you were giving, too. Angels worked in murkier ways. “Now what?”

“Now you wait, and we call on you, when it's time.”

Night time had fallen by the next time Sam woke. He was still locked in the demon-proof panic room in Bobby’s basement. He was still handcuffed to the cot located in the center of the Devil’s Trap that was permanently painted on the floor. As the reality of his situation settled over him, he became alarmed.

He was alone.

Or at least none of his torturous hallucinations were there. Not Allistair. Not his bleeding mother. And especially not his disappointed, fourteen-year-old self.

Yet, something else was amiss. To his surprise, the handcuff that kept his left hand near his waist simply popped open. Dumbstruck, he watched as one by one each of his other restraints mysteriously popped open as well. He looked around and still he was alone.

The iron door to the panic room creaked open just a crack. No one appeared in the doorway. There was silence but for his breathing.

Confused, Sam sat up. “Hello?”

No one answered.

Cautiously he rose from the cot. Fearful and hesitant, he approached the door, peeking into the rest of the basement for signs of life. Yet he saw no one and heard nothing but his own panicked breaths. He pushed the creaky door further open to get a better view of the basement and the stairs to the first floor.

“Dean?” he asked quietly.

When he got no response, he momentarily abandoned caution. He wasn’t going to look this gift horse in the mouth. He rushed for the stairs and didn’t look back.

Under the stairs and unseen, Castiel watched Sam go. With a wave of his hand, the panic room door slowly creaked closed, and the bolt slid back into place. Castiel kept his expression neutral. This was just another task, another order. It wasn’t his place to question the reasoning behind it, nor was it his place to wonder about the righteousness of what they were doing; after all, they were Angels. They were the children of Heaven.

Docks, Planet Earth

Castiel leaned heavily on the railing and stared into the dark water below the dock as if he could find the answers he needed somewhere in the depths. One of the fluorescent lights above him flickered; the soft sound of angel wings fluttering accompanied it. He frowned at the predictable inevitability. Heartbroken, he turned around to face his old commander.

“What did you do?” Disappointed, she glared at him.

“You shouldn’t have come, Anna,” he warned.

“Why would you let out Sam Winchester?”

“Those were my orders.” Inside he was silently pleading with her to read between the lines, to understand what he was trying to tell her, before it was too late.

“Orders? Cas, you saw him. He’s drinking demon blood. It’s so much worse than we thought. Dean was trying to stop him.” Every one of her words held so much passion.

The fact that they shared some unnatural soft spot for his human charges made this so much worse. Helplessly, Castiel shook his head and looked away. “You really shouldn’t have come.”

Anna opened her mouth, but she suddenly understood. Well-dressed Angels grabbed each of her arms. Castiel could not meet her eyes as she was finally arrested for having Fallen.

After they disappeared into a bright light, Castiel looked to Heaven, daring not ask his Father any of the questions plaguing him. Perhaps there were answers he really did not want to know. Then with an inward sigh, he turned back to the railing and leaned against it, staring out at the distant skyline.

“The Father you love...You think He wants this? You think He'd ask this of you? You think this is righteous?”

“Green Room,” Heaven

Dean paced the polished cherry hardwood floor of the garish, gilded room as he dialed his brother’s cell phone number again. Hearing nothing but static when he put the phone to his ear, unlike the last time, he eyed the gadget quizzically.

“You can’t reach him, Dean...You’re outside your coverage zone.”

Dean’s expression automatically went blank upon hearing Castiel’s voice behind him. He swallowed shallowly. “What are you gonna do to Sam?”

“Nothing,” Castiel sighed morosely as he strolled slowly across the room. “He's gonna do it to himself.” He stepped into Dean’s line of sight and turned so he was facing the man.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Avoiding Dean’s eyes, Castiel looked down.

“Oh, right, right.” Dean casually took the few steps he needed to crowd into the angel’s personal space. “Got to toe the company line.” When Castiel finally relented and met his hard gaze, Dean bitterly asked with one eyebrow raised, “Why are you here, Cas?”

“We've been through much together, you and I. And I just wanted to say I'm sorry it ended like this.” Though his voice expressed little emotion, his eyes remained steadily meeting Dean’s, wanting to communicate his sincerity.

"’Sorry’?” Dean scoffed. Dean turned as if to move away; instead, he swung back with a right hook to Castiel’s face.

Castiel barely reacted, hardly moved even, except to turn his head, following the motion.

Meanwhile, pain shot through Dean’s knuckles, through the bones in his hand, through his wrist and up his arm as he turned his back on the one angel he had once thought was an ally; he grimaced as he shook out the pain. “It's Armageddon, Cas. You need a bigger word than ‘sorry’." Dean angrily turned to face Castiel.

Frustrated, Castiel appealed to Dean, “Try to understand -- this is long foretold. This is your--”

“Destiny?” Dean interrupted. Finally unable to hide his feelings of betrayal anymore, Dean looked every bit like a little boy who just discovered parents could tell lies. “Don't give me that ‘holy’ crap. Destiny, God's plan... It's all a bunch of lies, you poor, stupid son of a bitch! It's just a way for your bosses to keep me and keep you in line! You know what's real? People. Families -- that's real. And you're gonna watch them all burn?”

Frustrated with his brother’s deceptions, and guilt-ridden by his inability to do the right thing despite the pressure, Castiel felt an overwhelming desire to defend himself as well as make excuses. Angrily, he responded, “What is so worth saving? I see nothing but pain here. I see inside you. I see your guilt, your anger, confusion. In Paradise, all is forgiven. You'll be at peace. Even with Sam.” Castiel dropped his angry gaze.

Dean forced Castiel to meet his eyes again. “You can take your peace... and shove it up your lily-white ass. 'Cause I'll take the pain and the guilt. I'll even take Sam as-is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in Paradise.” Dean’s voice grew louder with every declaration. “This is simple, Cas! No more crap about being a good soldier. There is a right, and there is a wrong here, and you know it.”

Uncomfortable, perhaps unwilling to admit that Dean Winchester was more right than the Angels in Heaven were, Castiel turned away. Thinking of Anna’s words to him, of Naomi’s warnings, he felt at odds with the universe; he paced a few steps.

“Look at me! You know it! Now, you were gonna help me once, weren't you? You were gonna warn me about all this, before they dragged you back to Bible camp. Help me -- now. Please.”

“What would you have me do?” Castiel dared him, but the words were hollow. He felt hopeless.

“Get me to Sam. We can stop this before it's too late.”

“I do that, we will all be hunted. We'll all be killed.”

“If there is anything worth dying for... this is it.”

Cemetery, Parva, Romania[**]

The gravediggers fell into a rhythm. Three metal shovels slid into cold, wet dirt. Three heaping piles of sacred ground were displaced. The sounds of scraping, grunting, and panting became as much background noise as the wind howling beyond the gates of the cemetery.

Within the short, stone walls of the old cemetery, the air was eerily still in contrast. Elliot had studied this phenomenon in the Vatican's archives. During his training, he’d even sat in on debriefings of the CDF's specialist teams, but actually experiencing the benefits of a real protection spell was…almost as terrifying as the thought that their companions were digging up three somewhat freshly buried bodies in the land of the Hollywood-inspired vampire. A new burst of hysterical laughter bubbled up from inside him.

"...In umbra, malum velieris..." With her eyes closed and head bowed, Naomi stood at the South end of a protective sigil carved into the ground in the center of the cemetery. Four white candles burned at the compass points of the sigil. A silver dagger lay across the top of a small copper bowl from which a stream of smoke snaked around her legs. A white cloth was wrapped loosely around her fisted left hand. "…Promptus duco mihi ex diligo pars..."

"Don't worry, Elliot, the first hunt's always the hardest." Grinning, Parker slapped the young, bookish Brit on the back as he handed him a sawed off shotgun. "Now, don't shoot anybody you recognize, right?" Parker stared him right in the eye. "Josh really hates getting hit with rock salt."

"Ye-yeah," Elliot stammered, gripping the gun and hugging it to his chest.

"...Tamen per vestri succurro ego vadum exsisto validus..."

Parker grinned wider and shoved him away. The experienced hunter finished helping Natalie gather the salt-and-burn supplies. As much as he made light of things for Elliot's sake, this wasn’t one of their usual ghost hunts. Even the Moir twins had never encountered anything like these moroii things.

Superstitions regarding the disgruntled, restless deceased were all too alive and well in many small Romanian villages, where strict burial rituals continued in hopes of preventing an assortment of vampire-like creatures from popping in for a family visit. Unfortunately, those variations -- vampires, ghosts, werewolves, whatever went bump in the night -- had become so interchangeable that research had been nearly impossible.

However, persistence, and sometimes stupidity, were helpful tools in their line of work. The Moir Team now had first hand experience. Moroii behaved pretty much like any other angry spirit, but like the vampire myth, if someone died from a moroii's touch that someone would become a moroii within a few days, starving for spiro vitae. Thus, where there were only two moroii when they arrived in the village, there were now three.

"..Expello quicumque operor mihi nefas..."

"Got one!" Zucchi shouted as his shovel struck the polished wood. He quickly finished clearing the dirt from the top of the coffin in the hole as Parker and Natalie hurried over, dragging a large duffel bag between them.

"...Transporto lemma absentis , transporto lemma errant..."

"Me too!" Ray called as he too climbed out of his hole, throwing the shovel on the ground with tired arms. Natalie started toward him with a bag of rock salt in her hands.

"...Nunquam iterum abeo meus via..."

In the distance, beyond the cemetery walls, Josh, Nick, and Amy raced around the corner of the old wood chapel. They looked more like the hunted than the ones doing the hunting. So much for keeping the moroii distracted near their haunting grounds while their bodies were uncovered.

"Incoming!" Tola warned as the wind outside the gates picked up to near tropical storm speeds. She raised her shotgun, noting thankfully that Elliot followed suit.

"...Sic mote is exsisto..."

"Mine's clear too!" Giorgio called, pulling himself out of the grave he just dug.

Parker and Zucchi both made faces when they opened the coffin. "Ug! Juicy!" Zucchi complained.

"...In umbra, malum velieris..."

As she ran, Amy felt something slam hard into her back. With a sharp cry, she tripped forward from the momentum of the violent push. She slid face first along the dirt road.

"Amy!" Josh and Nick called. They each rushed to grab one of her arms to help her up, but that was a mistake.

One of the moroii threw Josh against the wall of the old wooden chapel like a rag doll, knocking the wind out of him and cracking his head on a few loose boards. He felt its phantom fingers gripping tightly around his neck as it held him a few feet off the ground. The more he struggled, the more tired he felt as the moroii siphoned away the energy racing through him as if he were an energy drink.

"...Promptus duco mihi ex diligo pars..." Naomi swayed a little on her feet, feeling light-headed, but pressed on with the spell.

"Let go of him, you bitch!" Amy's shot dispelled that moroii for the moment. Josh dropped to the ground, feeling the jolt of the fall in his bad knee, and he tried to ignore the fact that her aim had been uncomfortably close, even if it had been only rock salt shells. He rubbed at his neck, the memory of the intense pain lessening only slightly, while the bruising slowly began.

Nick grabbed his arm and yanked him toward the cemetery. "C'mon. I'm outta shells." Josh nodded as he stumbled along, understanding that of the three of them, only Amy had ammo now -- against three crazy, vampire ghosts.

"...Tamen per vestri succurro ego vadum exsisto validus..."

Parker and Zucchi spilled two bags of rock salt over the body, while Natalie helped Ray do the same. Giorgio had to struggle with the unwieldy rock salt bags by himself at his own gravesite.

Josh and his team threw themselves through the cemetery gates with the hope that they were at least safe for a few seconds.

"...Expello quicumque oper-" A tremor on the metaphysical plane rippled through Naomi as it washed across the globe. She stumbled backwards. "Uh-" She felt the queasiness first, combined with a chill in her bones.

As she stumbled over the words, the barrier her protection spell had created collapsed and the wind whipped into the now vulnerable bubble. The sheer force of it knocked Natalie forward to land on the week-old decaying corpse in the grave. The others fought to keep their footing.

One of the moroii grabbed Nick by the ankles, dragging him back toward the street.

Tola fired her shotgun, dispelling the moroii holding Nick, though the kickback nearly sent her down on her ass. To her relief, Elliot had conjured some confidence and fired his shotgun just as another moroii appeared in front of Josh. Of course, Josh looked a bit pissed about the rock salt round that caught him in the chest -- thank God for Kevlar.

Careful not to disturb the sigil, Parker abandoned Zucchi to rush to Naomi's side. He tried to steady the petite woman. "N'omi? N'omi? Are you all right?" It was a stupid question, since he could clearly see she wasn’t all right.

"Oh, God," she groaned. She wrapped her arms across her chest as she hunched in on herself from the pain. Naomi tried to focus, but her thoughts, and the ethereal energy she had been channeling were discombobulated and scrambling like ants whose home had just been kicked apart by a mischievous child.

Ray hurriedly attempted to light the match while Natalie hauled herself out of the grave. She was free of the gory hole in time to see a moroii grab Zucchi as he struggled with his own matches. "Look out!" she called.

Zucchi dropped the matches as cold fingers twisted around his wrist and yanked him backward. He let loose a string of multilingual curses as he attempted to pull the Berretta from its shoulder holster using the wrong hand; he secretly wished he had used the hip holster instead of teasing Parker that only girls wore them.

Giorgio dropped a lit match on top of his well-salted three-day old corpse.

The moroii that had just appeared menacingly over Elliot instantly burst into flames; she let out a piercing scream, forcing everyone instinctively to cover their ears in response.

Yet, there was no relief from the wind. It only seemed to rage worse. A nearby tree cracked under the constant barrage and crashed into the cemetery. Lightning flashed across the sky, stretching jagged white fingers across the above nothingness.

Josh, Nick, and Amy dug in the bags of ammo and reloaded their weapons. Josh glanced at Naomi with a frown of worry.

"This is it," Naomi murmured, wincing at the pain in her head. "It's beginning."

"What? What's beginning?" Parker pulled her closer to shield her from the worsening windstorm.

"The Apocalypse." She wanted to smirk, but the evil that was spilling into the world in wave after wave was too distracting. Yet, she knew at that moment, despite Castiel's desire to prevent it, Sam Winchester had completed what Dean had begun. The Winchesters always had to make everything more difficult than it had to be. Well, everyone wanted an Apocalypse, so now they had one. She just hoped someone was pleased with themselves.

The first wave was just the door to Lucifer's Cage opening. Maybe someone had pushed the creaky iron door open just a tiny crack, leaving it there for him to puzzle over how it had come to be that way after being left there alone for so long. However, once that moment of hesitation was past, Lucifer did not look a gift horse in the mouth; he raced through the door, making an explosive entrance into this world via Maryland, startling nearby earthly residents and rocking the supernatural world on multiple planes.

That second wave contained far more unchecked ethereal energy than Naomi could even begin to contemplate; she was still too open, too raw. She felt as if she were burning from the inside out, and the pain in her head instantly reached a level none of her migraines had ever aspired to, as if her brain was leaking out of her ringing ears or her forehead was swelling from the pressure. She immediately pushed away from Parker and fell to her knees, expelling everything she had consumed since waking this morning. The liquid silver spots were beginning to dot here and there in her vision as she continued to feel the charge of dark energy bursting through her.

"Holy shit! Josh!" Parker called for her brother, not certain the man could even hear him over the wind.

At the same time, Ray successfully lit fire to the body he was tasked with destroying. The moroii draining Zucchi screeched as she burst into flames. Zucchi made a loud but unintelligible sound when he landed in a heap on the ground.

Natalie flung a match into the last grave as the moroii in question abandoned taunting Tola in favor of moving on to Natalie. Moroii were apparently not the smartest undead kids on the block. Josh, Elliot, and Amy all fired into the moroii at the same moment she burst into flames.

As soon as her screaming ended, the wind ceased. The town was eerily silent.

"Josh!" Parker repeated as he caught Naomi before she collapsed.

Turning at his name, Josh looked stricken. He raced to his sister. Josh tenderly pushed the hair from her pale face and felt for a pulse with two fingers on her neck after Parker had lowered her to a more comfortable position. Finding a strong but erratic pulse, Josh's wide eyes met Parker's concerned expression. He nodded a silent reassurance. "Get everyone in the cars," he croaked, pulling his sister to him like a security blanket.

"Josh-"

"Do it!" he ordered. "The nearest decent hospital is hours away."

Parker reluctantly left Josh with Naomi to organize the reload of the equipment in double time. Josh rocked his sister in his arms, ignoring the activity around them. Stroking her hair, he whispered reassurances more to himself than to her. "Now's not the time," he whispered to her, placing a kiss on her forehead. "Now's not the time. We'll get you to a hospital."

Baia Mare County Hospital, Baia Mare, Romania

Joshua pushed the hospital room door open and stared at his comatose sister amidst the plastic tubing and wires, which led either to IVs or electronic machines. Whirs and beeps were a constant reminder at least that she was alive in there, even if the doctors didn’t know why - or why not. The room smelled of antiseptic and ammonia.

He locked the door behind him and dropped his duffel bag on the chair. He pushed as much of the furniture and equipment as he could against the walls of the room, leaving a large empty space between the window and Naomi's bed. He pulled the curtains closed and turned to study his sister nervously. He had never actually done anything like this without her. Exorcisms, yes, but not summoning spells. She had taught him how to read them, how to perform them properly, but she had always been at his side just in case.

He set the duffel bag down on the tile floor and pulled out a box of white chalk. He drew a circle, divided it into four sections, and drew a sigil in each section. He pulled a large copper bowl from the bag and laid out a large, colorful selection of herbs and plants. He set Naomi's spell book in front of him, opening it to the bookmarked page and began to mix the ingredients in the bowl, adding myrrh as he quietly said the words.

When he finished, he stood and looked around the room. Josh was unsure what exactly he had expected to happen. He supposed he had imagined the man in the trench coat would appear in a flash of light, like in a Las Vegas magic show. However, after five minutes of nearly holding his breath in anticipation, Joshua accepted with bitter disappointment, that Naomi's supposed angel would not be showing up today to play Prince Charming -- he couldn’t possibly know Castiel was having sibling troubles of his own, having been blown to meaty bits by his brother Raphael at Chuck's house[††].

[*] See prologue.

[†] References, however obscure, are made to the Supernatural episodes 4x01 “Lazarus Rising”, 4x02 “Are You There God, It’s Me, Dean Winchester?”, 4x21 “When the Levee Breaks”, 4x22 “Lucifer Rising”, 5x22 “Swan Song”, and 6x20 “The Man Who Would Be King”.

[‡] References are made to the Supernatural episode 4x16 “On the Head of a Pin.”

[§] The dialog used in the scenes taking place in Bobby’s Salvage Yard and on the Docks in May, 2009, was taken from the Supernatural episode 4x21 "When the Levee Breaks," and the dialog used in the scene taking place in the “Green Room” was taken from episode 4x22 “Lucifer Rising,” but the story author using literary license filled in the descriptive elements and interpretation.

[**] The protection spell Naomi casts in this scene translated from Latin reads:

In the shadows, evils hide,
Ready to draw me from love's side,
but with your help I shall be strong,
Banish all that do me wrong.
Send them away, send them astray
Never again to pass my way.
So mote it be

[††] Reference made to the Supernatural episode 4x22 "Lucifer Rising."

Chapter Text

season five

May, 2010[*]

Stull Cemetery, Lawrence, Kansas

One eye was swollen shut, and the whole right side of his face felt swollen, probably from a busted jaw or cracked cheek bone. He had spat out several teeth on the first punch, but there had been plenty of punches following that one, which explained all of the extra blood running from his nose and other miscellaneous cuts. However, rather than defend himself, he had only assured his brother that he was there for him, that he wasn’t going to leave him, even as the Devil used his brother’s fists to pummel his face.

One second, however, Dean watched as Lucifer pulled back a fist, with the angry promise to take his sweet time breaking each of Dean’s bones, and the next, Sam’s fist unclenched, and Sam struggled for control of his own mind and body. Dean was unceremoniously allowed to slide down the side of the Impala as a shocked Sam stepped back and tried to catch his breath.

Dean slowly turned his aching head to watch his brother. Something inside him wanted Sam to win and yet...

“It’s okay, Dean,” Sam panted. “It’s gonna be okay.” With a panged expression, Sam added, “I’ve got him.”

Dean shook his head slightly, not sure of the right words. After all, he was not a big fan of the next phase of the plan. However, this was Sam’s moment of redemption. He had to be strong for him.

Sam struggled with every thought, every action. Finally, he pulled the rings from his front pocket as he recalled where Lucifer had put them after the first attempt in Detroit. Breathing hard, he tossed them on the dry Kansas grass and recited the Enochian spell to open the door to Lucifer’s Cage in Hell between gasps of air. “Bvtmon Tabges Babalon.”

The earth beneath the Four Horsemen’s rings broke open with a crack of thunder and a gale of wind rose from the vortex sucking earth and air downward into a pit somewhere between reality and the metaphysical world. In exchange, ethereal energy began pulsing into this world, stretching across a globe already disturbed by an increase in natural disasters.

Sam looked back at his brother, who was wincing with his one good eye as he sat, speechless, leaning against the Impala. Dean turned around to meet Sam’s fearful gaze, and Sam glanced back at the gaping hole, which represented an eternity of pain, suffering, horror and redemption. Their eyes met again, and Sam nodded nervously as they tried to express everything that Winchesters never say in that one look. Sam braced himself to jump into the pit, and Dean helplessly, hopelessly, wordlessly watched.

“Sam!”

Sam whirled around at the sound of his name, in time to see the Archangel in his half-brother Adam’s form. Dean followed the movement.

Michael stood a few feet away. “It’s not going to end this way!” he shouted over the wind. “Step back!”

“You’re gonna have to make me!” Sam declared determined but on the verge of tears.

“I have to fight my brother, Sam! Here and now! It’s my destiny!”

Sam struggled with Lucifer. He struggled with his own will to live. He struggled with his natural instinct to stay with Dean. Dean watching him was a blessing and a curse. He wanted to prove to his big brother that he had grown up, that Dean had raised him to clean up his messes, that he could do this, and Dean could be proud. Yet, he wanted to stay with his big brother. With a heavy heart that he couldn’t keep from the expression on his face, he nodded one last time at Dean.

Sam closed his eyes and relaxed his body, letting his arms stretch out to the sides as he allowed himself to fall backward into the pit.

Realizing too late what Sam was doing, Michael ran forward and grabbed a fistful of Sam’s jacket, intending to pull him away from the pit, but, startled, Sam opened his eyes and reflexively grabbed the arm clutching his jacket. He yanked Michael forward, and he had the momentum; despite Michael’s greater ethereal strength, the vortex had them. As Dean looked on, they fell downward into the darkest, hottest, worst part of Hell imaginable.

A year ago, only one had been in the Cage when the door first opened and when it slammed closed this time, there were four -- four brothers: Lucifer, Michael, Sam, and Adam – whether that was meant to be or not, that was how it was.

Vatican City Hospital, Rome, Italy

The hospital room in Vatican City was not unlike than the one in Romania. Perhaps the equipment was more expensive, and the pictures on the wall were more dedicated to the Virgin Mary, but there was still a sterile hospital bed with white sheets, there was still the smell of antiseptic and ammonia, and there were still constant, telltale beeps and blips along with wires. There were still metal poles holding plastic bags slowly dripping clear liquids down anonymous tubes leading to IVs beneath white tape over pale skin.

Not to mention, there was still a comatose white witch, who had once led adventurers across Europe investigating the impossible. In addition, there was the almost constant presence of her brother, who had rarely been far from her side in thirty years. His one responsibility was to keep her safe in a secret, horrific, amazing world, and he had failed on the one level where he was incapable of defending her -- the one level where she was supposed to be strong enough for both of them.

Light flashed across the room through the windows as lightning stretched across the stormy sky. Josh kept the curtains open even after the sun set most nights. The room seemed too small and dark with them pulled closed. Besides, even though the medical "experts" said Naomi was in a vegetative state, completely unaware of her surroundings, he preferred to believe she appreciated the "feng shui" of it -- energy could flow easier in and out of the room through an unblocked window -- or whatever.

She was in there somewhere. Their sort of "experts" had assured him of that. However, none of them could reach her in her dormant state. He had spent a frustrated year going through their little black book, dealing with every Naomi-approved faith healer and spell caster. What he really wanted, was someone else like her, but despite all the advertisements on the internet, real practitioners of angel magic were not easy to find. He grew angrier and angrier at her missing-in-action angel, and even though he could see the decline in the state of the world, heard blow-by-blow witness accounts from his cousins about the Apocalypse, could perhaps make the logical leap that something unpleasant might also have happened to the invisible caped crusader, he needed to keep that holy scapegoat, because, after all, if it weren't for Castiel in the first place, there would never have been supernatural or magic or angels in their lives, and Naomi would be fine.

Joshua glowered at the torrents of rain on the other side of the glass. Having abandoned the suits he had so often mocked, he appeared so much younger in the long-sleeved navy tee and soft blue jeans. The lightning revealed the shocking contrast of his own pale skin, dark hair, and red-rimmed eyes. He hugged himself as he watched the gusts of wind change direction in the courtyard below, snapping branches and throwing soaked leaves here and there at random. The news channel was reporting worldwide natural disasters – earthquakes, tornadoes, storms of the century – everywhere. Either God, or Mother Earth or Heaven and Hell were throwing a big damned tantrum, and normally he would be right in the middle of it, but apparently, the only reason that was true was, because Naomi would have dragged him right into the eye of the storm.

Unlike his sister, Joshua could never feel the ethereal energies surging on the metaphysical plane. He never felt twitchy when someone brushed up against him unawares in the marketplace, or carefully placed his or her hand in his to say grace at dinner. He never felt anything residual left behind after someone had recently passed away or at the end of a hunt, and he never had to pause crossing salted doorways or hexed markings on doors and walls.

So, he did not feel the pulse crossing the globe. First there was a small one as if in forewarning – the one when Lucifer’s Cage was reopened for a second time in days. Power seeped out, the longer the door stayed open, spilling into the world, but rather than evil, negative energy, it was neutral, untainted by the anger of the fallen angel over the last year. Neither did he feel the larger, more powerful pulse that sped across the planet as the Cage’s door slammed shut behind the two pairs of brothers.

Instead, Joshua was distracted by the canon-sized tree branch spinning wildly toward their side of the building.

“Holy, shit!” he exclaimed, backing away from the window quickly to get out of the way. He threw himself halfway over the bed in time for an explosion of glass, rain, and wind; the branch itself was too large to fit through the window. Electricity filled the air, sliding along every surface, slithering along the metal in the room, until it found purchase in the machine circuit boards and unground sockets. Sparks fizzled like small firecrackers throughout the room.

The room filled with nurses, orderlies, and other staff from the hall. Like ants racing to recover amidst anthill destruction, they worked in efficient chaos. One of the nurses, a young nun from Greece, tried to carefully pry him away from the bed. Her lips were moving, but all he could hear was ringing. More hands grabbed him and pulled him from the bed, shards of glass spilling to the floor.

A gurney was wheeled next to the bed as black and white clad staff surrounded it. He could see and smell that all of the medical equipment had been electrified. Yet the electricity had never touched him.

Quite suddenly, the storm surging into the room from behind him stopped - as if someone had slammed the shutter closed, only there were no shutters to close. Joshua looked over his shoulder and saw the storm of the century had indeed simply dissipated like a five minute April shower. Mouth slightly agape, he turned back to the room, only to see everyone backing away from his sister’s bed. Only one of the doctors remained, checking her vitals.

A wave of panic ran through Josh as he rushed to his sister’s side, only to find himself staring into a pair of familiar eyes. He let out a breath he did not even know he was holding.

Joshua Moir would never have a chance to thank Sam Winchester for saving the world or bringing his sister back to him, but he sincerely would have done so if he could.

Impala, road from Lawrence, KA to Souix Falls, SD

The Impala sped down a two-lane highway past nondescript telephone poles and look-a-like lines of trees in the dead of night, the only lights for miles were her headlights and those of Bobby's sedan behind her.

Dean finally broke the heavy silence. “What are you gonna do now? “ Looking away from the heavily cracked windshield, Dean glanced at the newly back-from-the-dead…again…angel riding shotgun. Their lives really were weird.

“Return to Heaven, I suppose,” Castiel replied simply, having given it some thought since the end of the Apocalypse only a few hours ago. Shadows from raindrops on the windshield scattered across his face like blood splatter.

“Heaven?” Dean’s expression was a mix of disgruntled and dismayed as his fingers tightened on the steering wheel. After everything Heaven had done to him and his brother, even to Cas, one of their own, he was going to go back. Just like that. Another someone to leave Dean.

Content with his third or was it his fourth lease on life, Castiel remained unruffled. “With Michael in the Cage, I'm sure it's total anarchy up there.”

“So, what, you're the new sheriff in town?”

Castiel glanced at Dean, meeting his eyes for a moment. The corners of his lips curled briefly into a smile, so rarely seen in those last few dark weeks. “I like that. Yeah. I suppose I am.”

“Wow. God gives you a brand-new, shiny set of wings, and suddenly you're his bitch again.”

“I don't know…what God wants. I don't know if He'll even return. It just...seems like the right thing to do.”

“Well, if you do see Him, You tell Him I'm coming for Him next,” Dean assured, adding God to Dean’s growing list of People and Things He “Owed.”

Castiel studied Dean. “You're angry.”

“That's an understatement.” Dean nodded as an oncoming car passed, filling the cab of the Impala with a bright fluorescent light, allowing Castiel to see all the pain, and grief and anger, not just from that one day but from a lifetime, and especially from the weight of the last five years.

“He helped.”

Dean scoffed.

“Maybe even more than we realize.”

“That's easy for you to say. He brought you back. But what about Sam? What about me, huh? Where's my grand prize? All I got is my brother in a hole!”

“You got what you asked for, Dean. No Paradise. No Hell. Just more of the same.” Castiel caught Dean’s eyes in the dark. “I mean it, Dean. What would you rather have -- peace or freedom?”

“What is so worth saving? I see nothing but pain here. I see inside you. I see your guilt, your anger, confusion. In Paradise, all is forgiven. You'll be at peace. Even with Sam.”

“You can take your peace... and shove it up your lily-white ass. 'Cause I'll take the pain and the guilt. I'll even take Sam as-is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in Paradise….This is simple, Cas! No more crap about being a good soldier. There is a right and there is a wrong here, and you know it.”

"...we will all be hunted. We'll all be killed.”

“If there is anything worth dying for... this is it.”[†]

Dean glanced back at the road for a second and then turned back to reply to the angel in the trench coat, only to realize he was alone in the car. “Well, you really suck at goodbyes, you know that? “

[*] The dialog during the scene in Stull Cemetery and taking place inside the Impala was borrowed from episode 5x22 "Swan Song" of Supernatural; however, the author of this fan fiction has made great use of literary license to fill in all descriptive details and interpret all thoughts, motives, and emotions.

[†] Reference to previous conversation in episode 4x22 "Lucifer Rising" of Supernatural.

Chapter Text

season six

Late May/Early June, 2010

Trattoria La Cantina, Cassino, Italy[*]

With the soft sound of fluttering wings, Castiel arrived in the small, dimly lit room. He uneasily inspected his overly pink surroundings as he shoved his hands in his pockets.

A hesitant voice from the far stall asked, "Castiel?"

He swallowed. "Yes."

After a pregnant pause, the voice stated, "This is a lady's room."

"Yes."

"You aren't supposed to be in here."

His brow furrowed, Castiel pondered the statement. "Why not?"

The toilet flushing followed an exasperated sigh. "Because it's a lady's room?"

"That was never an issue before..."

The stall door slammed open, and Naomi stomped over to the angel. "Yeah, well that was before the whole sexy-blue-eyes, and the-Zoolander-hair and the radiating pheromones!" She gestured at his eyes, and hair and then randomly at his whole body to make her point. She turned to wash her hands in the pink sink. "You can't go around looking like that in lady's bathrooms. You'll either get arrested or molested." She glared at his reflection in the mirror.

Unsure quite how to respond, he continued to frown at her with a furrowed brow. She was thinner than he remembered and certainly paler. She was wearing her hair longer than he had seen her wear it in years, probably since she was a teenager. Mostly, though, she looked frail, which seemed so unlike her at all.

"What do you want, Castiel?" She finally asked, drying her hands, while managing to sound irritated and even more exasperated.

"I came to see how you were," he admitted.

She blinked at his reflection. After letting a few seconds pass in silence, she tossed the paper towel into the trashcan and turned to face him. "What? Now?"

He nodded, managing not to wince at her tone.

"Not like...twelve months ago?"

Castiel had the decency to look both sympathetic and slightly embarrassed. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "Naomi..."

"No." She held her hand up, indicating he need not bother. She shook her head, disappointment and hurt clear in her eyes. "I didn't ask to be who I am, Castiel. I wasn't the one who swore my life away, but I've done everything you ever asked, everything! I gave everything I ever had....And you left me," her voice quivered.

"Naomi-" He implored her. The last few weeks had been difficult – first, watching a newly resurrected Sam inexplicably walk away from his brother; then dealing with angels who could not seem to grasp the concept of free will. The last thing he wanted was to fight with her as well.

"Left me! Left me trapped in the darkness for a year. Trapped inside, all alone." Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. "You didn't even try! You didn't do anything! You didn't send anyone to help. What kind of an angel are you?"

"Naomi!" He grabbed her by the arms to get her attention. She tensed but she stared at him in silence. "I swear, it wasn't my choice. I...was exiled from Heaven, and if I had come to see you, I would have been captured. I was trying to do the right thing...for the greater good."

Wide-eyed looking a little crazed, she studied him. "Exiled? Wh-why were you exiled?" She shrugged his hands off and stepped back. "That wasn't supposed to happen." She shook her head, hair shaking loose around her shoulders.

He watched her warily. "It's complicated." When she folded her arms across her chest impatiently, he surrendered. "I helped Dean Winchester try to stop Sam from breaking the final seal, against orders from my superiors."

She frowned momentarily, but let it pass. "But he didn't stop Sam," she stated with a hint of the old, patient, wise Naomi back in her tone.

Castiel shook his head. "No."

"And there was an Apocalypse."

"Yes."

"Which was thwarted."

"Yes."

"How?" She sounded genuinely curious -- as if this was one of the few great mysteries of the modern world that kept eluding her.

"Sam...let Lucifer use him as a vessel, and, at the last minute, before Lucifer and Michael could battle, Sam managed to jump into the Cage. He took Michael and Lucifer with him."

Surprised, Naomi gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. She almost looked giddy. Her well-manicured hands dropped as she considered the possibilities. "And Dean...wasn't Michael's vessel?"

Castiel tilted his head as he considered her reaction. "No. What did you mean when you said 'that wasn't supposed to happen?'," he asked suspiciously.

She was smiling, almost too lost in thought to have heard him. "What?" She glanced up at him. "Oh, that. It's an anomaly." She grinned at him. She leaned in and rested a hand on his bicep. "Something in all the possibilities that even I didn't See." She said it as if it was the explanation for everything, the answer to life, the universe, and all of the above.

He shrugged and indicated for her to continue.

She sighed as if it should be obvious. "Castiel, you are the butterfly." When he continued to stare at her blankly, she added, "Remember when we discussed how possible futures change with every little decision each person makes? Well, for the most part, there are only so many options at any given time. Basically, most people aren't going to stray very far from their comfort zone on any given choice, and, for the most part, the Fates, and whoever else can See the big picture, accept the future as a series of plausible variations. But you, Castiel, you're the butterfly!"

"I'm the butterfly," he repeated, trying not to sound patronizing.

She glared at him. "The decision to help Dean was an impulse, am I right? Completely unplanned? Even you were surprised you did it?"

She knew him better than he knew himself sometimes, better than he knew her. Castiel forgot that sometimes, most times. Unfortunately, for a human, she had a keen insight into him, into the way he thought, the way he cared about his charges, the way he worried for God's creations, the way he'd needed to be a good soldier, a good angel, and a good son. She knew he had agonized over the actions of his brothers in the months after the first seal was broken. She had warned him. She had tried to comfort him. She had tried to guide him -- as if she were the angel and he were the charge. Something felt wrong inside his chest. "Of course I didn't plan it; I had no idea what was going-"

"Castiel." The way she said his name sounded more as if she were pleading with him not to lie to her. She looked up through long lashes, and her eyes said everything her words did not. She knew what Heaven had planned for Dean and Sam Winchester as much as he did, and she didn’t believe that he had gone along unwillingly. He was a good soldier, after all. He had followed orders. That is, until he had not.

"I didn't plan it." He repeated.

She nodded. "You're the butterfly. You changed everything. No one expected it. You threw everything off kilter enough to give Sam and Dean the last push they needed."

He narrowed his eyes again as she bit her lip thoughtfully.

"It almost makes everything okay." She glanced up at him once again before turning away, reaching for the silver chain around her neck to play with as she always had. "I almost forgive you for leaving me there."

He looked confused. "'Last push'?"

She looked exasperated. "Well, Castiel, planning an Apocalypse isn't like planning a last minute kegger, and you can't just call the cops when things get out of control. That party was in the planning for years, decades, more probably, and the guests of honor were the main course, like lambs to the slaughter. Who would want that for their children? John wouldn't have. He would have hated to see his boys weak, destroyed, and used...and he didn't have to," she said defiantly.

"What are you talking about?" Castiel frowned. She seemed to be off on some unrelated tangent now. Really, he was becoming more and more aware that perhaps the year in the coma had left her...not right. He wanted to speak to her brother, whom he knew was in the restaurant outside the door.

"Heroes don't spring out of nowhere, Castiel," she told him insistently. "They rise to the occasion. Dean and Sam," she said, "are stronger together, but they couldn't realize that as long as John was in the way."

"What did you do, Naomi?" His tone hid none of the anger that darkened his expression. Suspicious thoughts ran rampant through his not-so naïve mind. Was it only a few minutes ago she was a precocious five year old who never told a lie? Perhaps a few blinks ago, Castiel had just convinced her to trick her cousin Noah into thinking he was leading her to the little girl's room, instead of on his way to rescue a small child from a predator? Maybe it was a few breaths ago when he pressured her into telling her boyfriend she was feeling ill and needed to go home, so she could help look for a missing little girl? Could it be just a snap of the fingers, and he would be back in a room full of Legos and off-brand Barbie's, teaching a little girl how to cast what was supposed to be a divination spell? All with the best of intentions?

Naomi clamped her mouth shut, realizing she might have said too much. She shook her head. "Nothing John didn't want."

He grabbed her arms and held her tightly, forcing her to look up into his eyes. "Naomi, what. Did. You. Do?"

Worrying her bottom lip, she bit out, "I told him about the demon and Sam...and I told him that he made the boys dependent on each other, but since Sam was at Stanford, and Dean was on his own, they were vulnerable; I accused him of coddling Sam, and I said that they didn't have the skills, or the trust they'd need to do what was needed when the time came. I just told him what he needed to hear, if our places had been reversed...I'd do whatever I had to do to save my daughter. John saved them."

Castiel let her go with a slight push. "At what cost? And who were you to make that decision, Naomi?"

She looked hurt and offended. "I was the only one who could make that decision. I was the only one who knew, who cared! I've been dreaming about the end of the world half of my life, Castiel! Do you know what that does to a person? And it's not like I could tell anyone! Who would believe me? Even the people who believed me about the little visions weren't going to take being told the end of the world was coming very well...and John...John got what he wanted, what he wanted from me all along, the thing that killed Mary, and I did what I thought was the best thing for everyone. I did the right thing."

Castiel shook his head angrily. "No, your intentions were good, but you didn’t do the right thing, Naomi. I..." He closed his eyes as he considered his next words. "I can see now I’ve done very wrong by you. Manipulating people, whatever your intentions is never right." He felt like a parent whose child had accidentally invented a weapon of mass destruction while trying to cure cancer.

"Wrong by me?" Her jaw clenched. "You pompous-"

The knock on the door interrupted what was about to be a string of regrettable words Naomi hardly ever used. "Naomi?" Joshua's voice rumbled through the thick Italian wood. "Are you okay in there?"

When Naomi looked back from the door to where Castiel had been standing a second ago, he was gone. Clenching her fists, she stomped her feet and let out a guttural exclamation of frustration.

Braeden’s Yard, Battle Creek, Michigan & Hell[†]

“Ah, Castiel, Angel of Thursday. just not your day, is it?”

Crowley’s lilted soft but flippant words interrupted Castiel’s troubled thoughts as he watched Dean Winchester mindlessly doing leftover yard work in Lisa Braeden’s backyard. The angel turned to face the ladder-climbing demon. With a little surprise and some concern for Dean’s well-being, he demanded, “What are you doing here?”

“I want to help you help me help ourselves.” In his all-black attire, Crowley was a designer-dressed, ironed version of rumpled Castiel – a modern day black knight vs. Columbo.

“Speak plain.”

Crowley shrugged. “I want to discuss a simple business transaction. That’s all.”

“You want to make a deal?” Castiel could not believe Crowley’s audacity, and, yet, from all of his experiences with the snarky little demon over the last few months, maybe he could. “With me? I’m an angel, you ass. I don’t have a soul to sell.” He pointed out with as much obnoxious conceit as he could muster.

“But that’s it, isn’t it?” the demon replied with a knowing little smirk. “It’s all of it. It’s the souls. It all comes down to the souls in the end, doesn’t it?”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” Oddly, the way Crowley was hedging the subject like a riddle, reminded him of Naomi, and that in itself was disturbing on a whole other level he didn’t want to think about.

“I’m talking about Raphael’s head on a pike. I’m talking about happy endings for all of us, with all possible entendres intended.” Crowley gestured away from the yard, which was now mostly cleared of leaf debris. “Come on. Just a chat.”

“I have no interest in talking with you.” Castiel had a bad feeling about this.

“Why not? I’m very interesting,” Crowley appealed flippantly. Then sounding completely reasonable, he used the time honored words of every salesman, “Come on. Hear me out. Five minutes. No obligations. I promise. I’ll make it worth your while.”

Every fiber of his being said to turn and walk away. At the very least, he should turn and talk to Dean who was mere steps away. He had come here to see Dean in the first place, to seek his advice, to seek his help...but once he arrived, it seemed like too much to ask of a person who had already sacrificed too much.

Naomi had told him to trust his instincts to do what was right, but she also told him that God had chosen him, and so had Rachel. He was more than a soldier. He was an angel, and he was certainly smarter and stronger than a demon. Crowley had been useful during the Apocalypse. Perhaps, Castiel could make use of him to resolve his issue with Raphael. He was no fool, though; he would have to keep an eye on that sneaky snake.

Castiel glanced one last time over his shoulder at Dean, who was stuffing leaves in a large plastic bag, before nodding to Crowley to lead the way.

Moments later, they stepped through a door into a long, poorly lit hallway with indiscernible overhead announcements echoing off yellowed halls, walls and floors. Countless doors labeled “file room” stretched down one side, while the other side was populated by a long line of trillions of casually-clad, deeply bored sinners corralled by poles and rope. One balding soul in an army jacket took a tag from the take-a-number dispenser, checked the number on the tag, and the “next serving number” – 6,611,527,124 – groaned and shuffled to the end of the line.

“Where are we?” Castiel asked.

“You don’t recognize it, do you?” Crowley looked positively proud, thin smile spreading across his weasel face. “It’s Hades, new and improved. I did it myself.”

Castiel looked truly perplexed. He hesitated, turned and looked back at the door they stepped through, then back down the long hall. “This is Hell?”

“Yeah. See, the problem with the old place was most of the inmates were masochists already.” Crowley looked wistful. “A lot of ‘Thank you, sir. Can I have another hot spike up the jacksie?’ But just look at them...” He looked down the hall fondly.

A mechanical voice called “Next.” The number on the board changed to 6,611,527,125, and all the sinning souls took a step forward in synch, the sound echoing with a loud thunk.

With an almost orgasmic grin, Crowley added, “No one likes waiting in line.”

“What happens when the reach the front?” Castiel’s face remained stuck in shocked awe.

“Nothing. They go right back to the end again.” He turned to meet Castiel’s now annoyed expression. “That’s efficiency.”

“You have four minutes left.” Castiel stalked down the empty side of the hall. He had to admit to himself that the King of the Crossroads was creative. No one liked waiting in line. It really was a one-size-fits-all solution. He would not admit that to Crowley though. The demon had a big enough ego.

Crowley casually followed. “What are you going to do about Raphael?”

“What can I do besides ‘submit or die’?” He really, really hated those options.

“’Submit or die’? What are you, French? How about resist?” Crowley baited.

“I’m not strong enough, and you know it.” Castiel replied adamantly. Castiel knew he was playing Crowley’s game at this point. After all, this was what the whole conversation was about – Raphael vs. him, him vs. Raphael, Raphael breaking him into tiny, painful pieces and then undoing everything Sam, Dean, and Bobby had sacrificed – not to mention John Winchester, Ellen, Jo, Pamela, Naomi, countless others -- stopping the Apocalypse. And there was the tiny, painful pieces thing too.

“Ah, not on your own, you’re not...But you’re not on your own, are you? There’s a lot of angels swooning over you. ‘God’s favorite’ – buddy boy, you’ve got what they call sex appeal.”

Castiel rolled his eyes. “Thank you. Get to the point.”

“Angels need leaders, so be one.” He paused for effect. “Gather your army and kick the candy out of each. And. Every. Angel that shows up for Raphael.” Crowley really worked on selling the apple.

Castiel stopped stalking and turned to face the snake in his tree. Full of righteous indignation, he demanded, “Are you proposing that I start a civil war in Heaven?”

“Ding! Ding! Ding! Tell him what he’s won, Vanna.” Crowley grinned proudly.

“You’re asking me to be the next Lucifer,” Castiel replied angrily. His exile from Heaven had been horrifically, personally painful after having been the faithful, loyal, good son for so long. Disobedience had not been easy even if it had been right. Distinguishing himself from Anna, and especially from Lucifer, was important to his self-worth.

“Please, Lucifer was a petulant child with daddy issues. Cas, you love God. God loves you.” Crowley smiled to himself as Castiel sulked thoughtfully to himself, looking less angry. “He brought you back. Did it occur to you that maybe He did this, so you could be the new sheriff upstairs?” He just needed to give Castiel what he needed to hear, most of it he had either already thought or heard. It just needed to be organized for the angel in the right way. Really, that was what selling was all about – giving people what they wanted; sometimes it was a matter of giving them permission for what they wanted.

Castiel knew what Crowley was doing, turning his own words back on him, but who else was there to do it? The world was running out of butterflies. “This is ridiculous. I mean, the amount of power that it would take to mount a war...”

Crowley rolled his eyes, knowing he had Castiel on his hook. “More than either of us have ever seen, yeah.” He paused, taking a breath. “But what if I said I knew how to go nuclear?” He smiled.

Castiel didn’t like the look of that particular smile. “What do you mean?”

“Purgatory, my fine feathered friend. Purgatory.” Now that he had the angel on the hook, he began to reel. He walked forward, leading his new partner in crime around a literal and figurative corner, away from the line of sinners. “Just think about it. An untapped oil well of every fanged, clawed soul. I mean, what's that over the years? 30 million? 40? Just sitting there, plump an-and rich for the taking.”

“And how would you find it when no one ever has?” Castiel asked ever practical.

“We’ll need expert help.”

“From whom?” Castiel responded with a tone of ‘yeah right’.

“From experts, of course. I know of two eerily suited Teen Beat models with time on their hands.” Crowley came to a stop in front of a framed large black-and-white portrait of himself in Nazi uniform.

“No,” Castiel insisted. “Not Dean. He’s retired, and he’s to stay that way.” It was what Sam had wanted for Dean when he chose to take his swan dive. It was the life Dean had never been able to have because Heaven and Hell had interfered in his life before he was even born. He had given enough, and he was out of it now. Castiel was going to give him the chance to stay that way.

“Fine,” Crowley growled. “Then I know of a certain big, bald patriarch I can take off the bench. The point. Is...”

Castiel looked grouchily uncomfortable with the whole thing, but he was still listening.

Crowley continued, “They can get us to the monsters. The monsters can get us to Purgatory. I know it.”

“And what's your...your price in all of this?” There had to be a catch. Crowley was a crossroads demon at heart, after all, and Castiel was an angel; he really didn’t have a soul of his own to give.

“Just half.”

“Half!”

“My position isn’t all that stable, ducky,” the new King of Hell admitted in all seriousness. “Those souls would help, just like they’d help you. Besides, wouldn’t you rather have me in charge down here? The devil you know...”

Castiel considered the plan, realizing the time and effort the whole thing would take. He turned to face down the empty hall. “This is pointless. Your plan would take months, and I need help now.” Raphael was demanding he bow to his leadership yesterday even. He could not keep hiding long enough for them to find Purgatory.

“Granted, yes. But just to show you how serious I am about this scheme...How about I float you a little loan? Say, 50 large? 50,000 souls from the pit. You can take them up to Heaven. Make quite a showing.” He paused for effect, taking a deep breath. He pulled out his last card, the one he knew would do in the angel. “It’s either this, or the Apocalypse all. Over. Again. Everything you’ve worked for – everything that Sam and Dean have worked for – gone...You can save us, Castiel. God. Chose. You to save us. And I think...Deep down...You know that.”

Crowley had been selling sin to Saints and Saints to sinners for centuries. Selling an ego to one lost angel turned out to be far easier; unfortunately for Crowley, he was a little too good.

Early November, 2011[‡]

Ghost Town, Bitter Creek, Texas[§]

There was no honor among demons. It was a time-honored stereotype or a self-fulfilling prophesy. Either way, Meg figured it was all right there in the name. Basically, with demons, anything went and the meaner and nastier to each other, the more respected you were. However, she thought this whole ‘no honor among angels’ thing was a new development, and it sort of surprised and delighted her. She found it fascinating, the same way a moth finds candlelight irresistible. First Clarence, now this one. The walls of Heaven might just tumble down from the inside, just like Rome and then the demons could just walk on in and enjoy the leftovers.

She grinned to herself, giddy at the thought as she sauntered down the middle of what had once been Main Street a hundred years ago. Two of her minions flanked her sides. They were not the quality she used to summon at a snap of her fingers --- not like back in Azazel’s day, or last year, when she was one of Lucifer’s generals. However, they would do for fodder.

A prim black woman in a designer gray suit approached her from the other direction. Two angels taking fashion advice from Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones walked on either side of her. Not a one of them showed any sign of emotion beneath the noon sun in a clear Texas sky. They all stood out like sore thumbs in contrast to the dilapidated, abandoned town, if one could call the few remaining buildings around them, that.

The three demons came to a stop a few feet away from the three angels in the middle of the dirt road. Meg and Raphael each took a few extra steps closer but not close enough.

“Well, isn’t this cozy?” Meg greeted.

Raphael glared at Meg as if she were the vermin that dare not even grace the gum beneath her designer shoes. “This is...temporarily convenient.”

Meg smirked. “Yeah, yeah. That’s what all you Next Top Angels are saying these days. You all want to be seen as John Paul II, but you’re secretly harboring Jimmy Swaggart, aren’t ya?”

Raphael clenched a fist at the insult and took a step forward, prepared to smite the insolent little slut-demon.

Meg turned as if to leave. “Look, you asked for the pow-wow. I have more important things-“

“More important than revenge?” Raphael replied, getting herself in control.

Meg snorted again. “Who’s revenge? I’m not your Hell Hound, Omarosa.”

“How about revenge for your daddy?” Raphael replied.

Meg opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before folding her arms across her chest. The Winchesters were a thorn in her side, it was true. She should have dispatched them ages ago, but sometimes they were fun to play with, and sometimes they were useful, and sometimes they annoyingly beat her at her own game, which she hated. Most recently, they had a similar itch to scratch, but Crowley’s bones had been burnt, and now the joint itching was over and done; the Winchesters were fair game. “I’m listening.”

Raphael smirked. “Naomi Moir.”

Meg tilted her head in puzzlement. “Who?”

“Naomi Moir. She is the woman who set John Winchester on Azazel’s trail. She told him about Azazel’s psychic kids. If it weren’t for her, he would never have gone after Azazel, and Dean Winchester would never have ended up with The Colt at the Devil’s Gate,” Raphael explained.

“How?” Meg asked, voice breaking. She thought back to those days, to hunting John’s friends and allies. She vaguely recalled something about some hunters named Moir, but before she had gotten to them, John had promised to bring The Colt and Azazel had sent her to get both The Colt and the pain-in-the-ass hunter. She seethed. If she had known, she would have started with them instead of the priest.

Raphael knew he had made the sell now. “She’s a witch. She used her magic to help Winchester.”

“And what do you get from passing on this information?” Meg asked suspiciously.

“Let’s just say, that any dangerous interest in her will be a distraction to a certain problem of mine,” Raphael replied.

Meg eyed the cold, calculating angel in front of her. So, Clarence has a special interest in this witch. She was uncertain which was more intriguing, the fact that Clarence was somehow especially interested in a witch or the fact that she cared. “I see...”

Room #5, Clean Stay Inn, Kingsland, GA[**]

“It really isn’t.”

“It really, really is,” Dean laughed, glancing back over his shoulder at his brother, who was so covered in red Georgia mud even after a toweling off twenty minutes ago that the stuff squirted out of his shoes with every step. “Come on, the guy thought he got a picture of Bigfoot, Sasquatch.” Dean broke into a whole new round of giggles.

Sam sighed helplessly and just shoved his brother with one hand toward the hotel room door. “It’s still not any more funny than the last six times you said it.”

“Sure, it’s funny. It’s hilarious.” Dean slotted the key into the lock and grinned to himself. Despite the mud, this was his old Sam, his Sam, and it felt like old times, before the Apocalypse, before the angels, before Ruby and the psychic shit, before Hell, just before. Dean glanced over his shoulder again and chuckled at Sam’s impatient face as he turned the knob and pushed the door open.

Dean knew by the expression on Sam’s face the hotel room was not empty. He was pulling out his ivory-handled Colt 1911 as he turned when Sam grabbed his arm. “Cas,” Sam said in a soft, calming voice.

Castiel turned from the window he had been brooding at without seeing through it. “Sam,” he greeted with a grim nod. “Hello, Dean.” He nervously shoved his hands in his coat pockets.

Caught off-guard, Dean hesitated a second before sliding the gun away. “Oh, hey, Cas.” He stepped further into the room so Sam could follow and close the door. He wanted to still be mad at the angel for telling his brother about the year and a half without his soul, but something about his friend’s somber expression told him now was not the moment. “What’s going on? I take it this isn’t a social visit.”

Sam cleared his voice and gestured at his muddy self. “’Scuse me while I change into something more comfortable.” He trudged toward the bathroom, grabbing his duffle bag on the way. He left the bathroom door open a crack so he could hear the conversation. A moment later, the sound of the shower running spilled into the room.

“So?” Dean prodded.

Castiel took a few steps forward. “Dean, remember when you offered to help with-“

“Yeah, of course, Cas. You don’t need to remind me,” Dean waved off the preamble. “Get to the point.” He wandered over to the room’s small refrigerator and pulled out a cold beer thanks to his thoughtful pre-planning last night. He gave himself a mental pat on the back for that as he popped it open and took a pull.

“I need your help.”

“Yeah, I got that. What kind of help?”

“A woman named Naomi Moir is in danger. I need you to find her,” Castiel appealed.

Dean looked thoughtful. “Naomi Moir. I know that name.”

“You should. You and Sam are wearing her handiwork.”

Dean glanced down at himself, and then gave Castiel a puzzled look. “What?”

“Your tattoos. She designed the spell work,” Castiel explained.

Dean absently placed his right hand above his heart. “Oh, right. That Naomi Moir.” He dropped his hand, vaguely recalling the odd pair of cousins from New Orleans he and Sam met in Louisville several years back after Sam’s run-in with Meg. One was just delivering the ink and the design and the other was the tattoo artist, but neither had been this Naomi. “Why do you need us to find her? Can’t you just zero in with angel radar?”

The water in the shower was shut off and random sounds indicating movement in the bathroom could be heard through the crack in the door.

With a distressed grimace, Castiel shook his head. “No, I can’t.” He began to pace. “She must be using magic to hide herself from angels and probably demons, too.”

Dean hesitated mid-sip. He took a long, deep swallow of the beer before asking the obvious question. “Why would she hide from angels?” After hearing the words out loud, he reconsidered the question; after all, if her experience was anything like his, hiding from angels was just as smart as hiding from demons.

“Who’s hiding from angels?” Sam asked, stepping into the room, looking far cleaner than when he left, now dressed in a plain red t-shirt and a clean pair of jeans.

“The chick who did our tattoos,” Dean replied as a means of catching his brother up quickly.

Sam managed to look both thoughtful and puzzled at the same time. He eyed Castiel who at least had stopped pacing.

“Naomi was one of my charges before the Apocalypse,” Castiel explained. “And Raphael has recently made a target of her as a means of distracting me from the war.”

“So, what? You were like her Guardian Angel or something?” Dean asked, amused.

“No, Dean,” Castiel glowered at the man. “As I’ve explained before, angels aren’t here to follow you around and serve you...” He bowed his head somewhat repentantly before glancing at a curious Sam. “She could hear and understand angels in their true visage, before she could even speak. She was like you, Dean – only she was born in the service of angels rather than called later.”

“What? Like some sort of angel errand girl?” Sam asked.

Castiel shifted uncomfortably. “That’s...what she referred to herself as on occasion, yes.”

Dean grew angry. “Okay, let’s forget for a moment that you guys basically conscripted some poor little girl into slavery...why exactly does Raphael have a hard-on for her? I mean, it sounds like she’s pretty much brainwashed to the angel agenda.”

Castiel shook his head. “No, Dean, she’s like you.” Castiel glared at Dean, saying so much more with one look than he could say with words. It had taken him thirty years to realize it, but despite being deceptively agreeable, Naomi had her own opinions about “destiny” and “fate” and she had rebelled in her own unique way. To an archangel like Raphael her willful if subtle assistance in stopping the Apocalypse was unforgivable.

A light bulb went on in Sam’s head. “I get it.”

Dean and the angel turned to look where he was still standing by the bathroom door.

“She’s pro-Cas,” Sam said with a shrug. “Raphael wants to make an example of her, and it’s a bonus if Cas is distracted from leading the revolution while she’s in danger.”

Dean quirked an eyebrow. “It’s not that simple, is it? I mean, that can’t be all of it.” He studied the angel.

“No, that’s not all of it, but the nitpicky details of the politics involved really aren’t that necessary are they?” Castiel asked. “After all, it’s not like it’s one of your cases? You aren’t trying to solve a big mystery here. You’re just trying to find a missing person and make sure she’s safe.” Castiel really was not sure when it had become so easy to tell the Winchesters half-truths and white lies.

Dean and Sam looked at each other as they considered whether or not they had enough information. Sam made a face and shrugged. Dean nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Any idea where to start looking?” Sam asked as he headed toward his laptop.

“New York City,” Castiel replied.

“That’s a big apple,” Dean replied. “Any chance you can give us a core area to start with?”

“The city morgue.”

“Excuse me?” Sam coughed.

“Six hours ago, Joshua Moir turned up D.O.A. in New York Downtown’s E.R. Since he and his sister have almost never been more than fifty miles apart since they were born, I’d start there.” Castiel schooled his expression, reliving the heartbreak all over again. He was uncertain which was worse – discovering how Joshua died or discovering him in Heaven without his sister.

Impala, road from Kingsland, GA to New York City, NY

“Yeah, okay, thanks, Bobby. Yeah. Talk to you later.” Sam ended the call and glanced over at Dean in his accustomed place behind the wheel.

During a quick glance away from the road, Dean quirked an eyebrow at him. “So?”

Sam turned in the seat so he was comfortably facing Dean. “Well, the family hasn’t heard from her. In fact, Elijah says the twins were in Italy two days ago. Supposedly, they haven’t even been stateside since right after Katrina.”

“Huh...Did Elijah know why they might’ve hopped across the pond on a whim?”

Sam scratched behind his ear. “Well...Bobby said the family just learned one of the cousins needs a heart transplant, and apparently, this Naomi girl is particularly fond of her.” Sam looked at the phone in his hand. He cleared his throat, bracing himself for the more unpleasant part of the conversation. “They think Joshua could have been a match but his torso was so mangled that there was no way to harvest anything.”

Dean grimaced. After a few moments of just the radio softly playing music from a station with no commercials from nine to eleven in the a.m., he asked, “So...what? You think keeping him from giving his 7 pounds or whatever was done on purpose?”

Turning to stare out the passenger window, Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible. They are a hunting family. Hunters make enemies.”

“I thought we were just dealing with angel Agent 47s here.”

Sam worried his bottom lip and shook his head in uncertainty. “Yeah. No. I don’t know. Maybe there’s more to this than Cas let on.”

Dean ground his jaw, but didn’t reply. Castiel had been a little flaky for a while, but it wasn’t anything they talked about, especially because Castiel had plenty of excuses to be distracted these days. The important thing was that Castiel had been there for them during their darkest times, had gone to bat for them, had died – several times – for them. So, if their friend needed them right now during his stressful times, the least Dean and Sam could do was give him some breaks.

They fell into a familiar silence with the sound the radio and the feel of the tires on the asphalt and tar beneath them.

A plain ringtone from the glove box caught Sam’s attention just after they passed the line into Delaware. He popped it open and began rifling through the papers, guns, and other junk they kept crammed in there. He pulled out their dad’s old phone. Quirking an eyebrow at Dean, he flipped it open, “Hello?”

No one spoke on the end of the line, but there was the slight sound of a few ragged breathes.

“Hello?” Sam repeated a little more insistently.

“Is this Sam...or Dean? It’s Sam, isn’t it?” a female voice breathed into the phone.

“Naomi?” he asked, meeting Dean’s quizzical glance with his patented I-don’t-know expression and shrug.

“You first,” she replied.

He sighed, “Yes, I’m Sam.”

“Then I must be Naomi.”

“Naomi, where are you? Are you alright?”

“First, I have to ask you...are you alone? I mean, I know your brother’s there, but...obviously you were expecting my call, so you were given a head’s up by a little birdie or something with wings anyway...he’s not with you now, is he?” She sounded out of breath.

Sam shook his head. “Uh- No, Cas’s – he’s not here.” He met another of his brother’s puzzled looks with another of his own. “But I can-“

“No!” she replied adamantly. “No angels. And none of your other special friends either.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I know all about you boys, Sam, and you especially have a penchant for collecting a unique set of allies, but right now why don’t we limit the special to you, me, and Dean? Honestly, I think that’s all the special I can handle at the moment.”

“O...kay. No angels. No demons. Just you and us, but first, you need to tell us where you are.”

“Where are you?”

Sam blinked, growing frustrated with this conversation. He rubbed a long finger above his eye where a small pain was forming. “Uh...” He made an exasperated sound.

There was a soft chuckle on the other end of the phone. “You sound just like John. Tell me where you are, so I can figure out where we should meet.”

Sam closed his eyes at the explanation. At least that made sense. He had begun to feel as if she were playing some game. “We just passed the Delaware state line on 95.”

“Keep going North. I’ll text coordinates to this number in an hour.”

The line went dead before Sam could reply. Sam stared at the phone in his hand for a second before flipping it closed.

Dean shook his head with a big questioning look on his face. “What, Francis?”

With a relieved chuckled and an eye roll, he said. “She definitely knew Dad. She’s sending us coordinates in an hour.”

“Dude, she walked all over your ass," Dean smirked.

"Yeah?" Sam laughed. "Dude, it was like talking to a runaway horse. You think it's so funny. You talk to her next time."

"She’s just a girl, Sammy," Dean mocked. "Nothing to be afraid of, and nothing some good ole Winchester charm can't tame."

Sam quirked an eyebrow and made a ‘that's-lame’ face at his brother.

Glendale Drive-In, Pottersville, NY[††]

Her back felt the full impact of the aging drywall as her body slammed into it before she slid with a grunt to the dusty ground, arms and legs akimbo. Bracing herself on her elbows, Naomi pushed herself up enough to let her eyes focus on the thick, wet, droplets of red on the concrete. Absently, she pressed the back of her bandaged right hand to her lip and pulled it away to tentatively look at the smeared blood there. Her expression managed to remain interested but unconcerned.

"This isn't really a fair fight, you know," Naomi stated, voice low, as she crawled to her feet.

"Oh, yeah?" the smug, dark haired demon asked a she swaggered across what had once been something between a diner and a concession stand for the now abandoned drive-in theater.

"Yeah, you're all full of hate, and I can hardly be bothered to care." Naomi kept her head bowed a little, but her eyes were always on the demon. She just had to suck it up, ignore the pain, and draw things out. Good thing this skanky demon seemed to think they were characters from Buffy.

"Oh, you're gonna care, you little angel's bitch," she sneered, grabbing Naomi's leather jacket with both hands and hauling her upward.

With a yelp, Naomi chose that moment to kick outward at the woman's right knee and reached up with her left hand, gripping the woman's left wrist, pressing her thumb into the into the flesh between the thumb and the index finger and twisting.

"Bitch!" she screeched and flung Naomi unceremoniously toward the center of the room. "What the fuck was that?" She shook her hand and glared at the witch.

Naomi landed in a heap in the middle of the floor. She smirked, knowing her predator was complaining about the jolt of energy they had just shared. Now things were a little more fair. Wincing at the bruises, she started to climb to her feet again, but paused once she got her knees under her, trying to draw more strength from the things around her. This abandoned place had little to offer, no lingering warmth from years of patrons sharing their lives here, very little traces of nature preparing for the Winter, and, of course, her rock, her fountain of strength, her beloved brother nowhere anymore. "I don't know. Maybe we had some sort of connection there." Naomi looked up from under the hair that had fallen over her face and put on a sultry look.

"Don't try to out-bitch me, witch," Meg pointed a manicured black nail as she sashayed toward Naomi. "I've got your number, and you just aren't as good as you think you are." She was an overconfident cat amusing herself with her dinner.

"I know I'm not," the witch said, slowly pulling herself to her feet. "That's why Raphael called you in, Meg." She tried to flex her muscles, but everything just hurt. She had ached all over even before Meg tossed her around like a catnip toy. She would give anything right now to numb everything, inside and out, but Meg stood between her and her bag of tricks. "Gotta bring in a new bitch to fetch and heel when the old one can't do the job anymore."

Meg snorted as she circled Naomi, pulling a knife out of her boot. "Did you just call me Raphael's bitch?"

"If the leash fits." Naomi remained where she stood, only turning her head to watch Meg. She tried to keep her face free of emotion, only letting the same smugness that graced Meg's face reflect in her too pale, too thin, dirty one. "How does it feel, being at an archangel's beck and call? I mean, even I only ever got my marching orders from the lower ranks, so you must really be special."

"Shut your mouth."

"I bet it really gets you off thinking about how Heaven's last archangel chose you to handle his dirty work. Awww," Naomi tilts her head sympathetically, drawing out the last word. "Maybe you think this'll give you a backdoor into Heaven now that Lucifer and..." Her eyes widened a little as they focused clearly on the source of Meg's rage. "...and Azazel have let you down." She let the name drip off her tongue as if it tasted like liver and Brussels sprouts.

Meg's eyes narrowed, her lips curled into a sneer. "Don't you dare say his name without reverence." She pointed the knife at Naomi, coming to stop a few feet in front of the witch.

Naomi chuckled harshly. "I thought you understood. The whole reason you're here is I don't have any reverence." Naomi took a hesitant shuffle reflexively in reaction to the flash of anger across Meg's face.

Meg watched her with a sour smile. "No, the whole reason I'm here is we..." Meg gestured between the two of them with the knife. "...have unfinished business."

Naomi swallowed. She knew she should probably keep her mouth shut. The smart thing to do was run like hell, but whatever it was that drove her to play mind games with John Winchester and play endless games of word and wit with cousins, customers, and even Castiel compulsively, tempted fate. "I think I would remember if you and I had started any business, let alone left any unfinished."

Meg took two steps toward Naomi as the frightened human took two steps backward. Their steps were the precursor to a deadly dance. "Oh, yeah, you started it. You remember, don't ya? Helping John Winchester hunt down Azazel, plotting to stop his plan for his psychic kids?" Meg flipped the knife in her hand.

Naomi considered pointing out that technically she never hunted with John -- mostly because he was a macho sexist, who thought she was only good for research, development, and nursing. It was on the tip of her tongue really. It even sounded like something she would say, but, honestly, outside of the two people in a hotel room in Jericho, she had only told one other person and an angel about her hand in that. All included? Two of those people were dead, and she definitely had not blabbed. Therefore, either Castiel was a tattletale or Heaven had some prying eyes. Either way, she did not like it.

Naomi frowned. "Yeah? Well-" She turned on her sneakered heels and ran for the arched doorway. It was less of a run and more of a limp actually, but the pace was steady at first. The closer she got to the doorway, however, the more she felt a pressure in her chest pushing her back, making it difficult to breathe. She felt nausea building deep inside her, and a weight dragging on all of her limbs. She stumbled to a halt when she saw the piled line of dark granules stretched across the doorway.

Frowning, she glanced over her shoulder at Meg, who was sauntering toward her as if she had all the time in the world. "That's just an old wives' tale, you know." Naomi nodded toward the line of black salt. She held her bandaged hand to her chest, feeling a chill settle in her chest like a block of ice.

Meg smirked. "Don't be stupid. That ain't the cheap shit you sell in your charlatan stores."

Naomi worried her lip, glaring again at the black salt. She turned her back on the line as if not seeing it would make it go away by magic. "No?" She tried to sound innocently curious, but she knew Meg was telling the truth; the demon would not trap herself in the abandoned building with charcoal-colored rock salt.

"No, this black salt came from special lava rocks at a sacrificial site -- guaranteed to stop a white witch in her tracks." Meg snickered as she stepped in front of Naomi so they were no more than a foot a part. "The whiter the more deadly."

"Not so white," Naomi whispered with a slight tremble in her voice.

Meg caught her face with one hand, forcing Naomi to meet her hard, laughing gaze. "Awww, honey, you think you can bluff the black salt? I thought you were a true believer."

Meg's grip caused Naomi's busted lip to pool with fresh blood. She desperately clawed at Meg's hand, which had a firm grip on the underside of her jaw. Eyes widening as she realized Meg's intent, she choked, "No! N-no!"

Through brute strength, Meg forced Naomi backwards. Even before the coma, Naomi was never the fighter in the family. Now especially she was no match against a demon-possessed vessel. The closer to the black salt, the more crushing the weight in her chest, her head began to throb and pulse, a ringing rose in her ears, all of the air was sucked from her lungs, and she felt as if she were being squeezed between an invisible wall of pure despair, death, and violence, and Meg.

"Can you hear them?" Meg whispered in her ear. "Can you hear the cries of the slaves who begged for mercy before they were sacrificed to gods they didn't even know? Can you feel the blood of the ones who willingly sacrificed their lives, so their families could have a prosperous year?"

Naomi could. She could. They were killing her.

"Can you see the priests carving them up, ripping out their hearts, and honoring their ancestors?"

Panicked, Naomi clutched a hand over her heart. It was the only thing she had left.

Meg's lips spread into a wicked little smile. "Now you're getting it. You're going to learn some reverence, bitch." Meg lifted the knife, placing the tip at the hollow of Naomi's neck, just above the silver Templar's cross. "When all of you Moir's are good and dead, our business will be finished."

"Are you sure this is it?" Dean asked.

"Yes, Dean. I'm sure," Sam reiterated grumpily. "I do know how to read coordinates, you know."

"Okay, don't get snippy, Samantha," Dean snapped. "I was just askin'." He was bone tired. Heck, he knew Sam was tired and restless. Kingsland to Pottersville was almost a whole day's worth of driving, even with the way he drove. They had just finished a hunt when Cas put them on red alert and now they were sitting at a four-point stop in the middle of nowhere New York State, with only some abandoned buildings and what was left of a drive-in movie screen at the far end of an overgrown field of deadening grass and weeds. Dean pulled over to a dirt patch between the buildings and the road, cutting the engine and letting her roll to a stop. No other vehicles were parked in view. "How did she get out here?"

Sam's brow furrowed. He leaned forward as he took a better look at their surroundings. "Dunno. Hitchhike maybe?"

"Maybe," Dean mumbled, popping open the glove box to grab his favorite gun.

They stopped at the Impala's trunk so Sam could grab the sawed off shotgun, and as Dean slammed the trunk shut, he looked up at his brother and said, "Well, let's go meet Bewitched."

A few feet from the building with a faded, lopsided sign announcing "Refreshments",they caught the sounds of a struggle spilling through one of the broken windows. They hesitated.

Eyes alert and sweeping the area, Dean withdrew his gun from inside his jacket.

Sam silently signaled he was moving closer to the building under the window.

Dean nodded his understanding and signaled he would continue toward the back where they had assumed the door was.

"I think I would remember if you and I had started any business, let alone left any unfinished," an unfamiliar female voice said.

"Oh, yeah, you started it. You remember, don't ya? Helping John Winchester hunt down Azazel, plotting to stop his plan for his psychic kids?" Meg.

Dean stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes met Sam's eyes. Meg was here. That bitch. He so owed her a million times over, even if she had helped with Crowley. She had murdered Jo and Ellen and Pastor Jim and Caleb and so many more. His face grew hard. He could not even begin to think about what she was saying, but he could tell Sam was. With a steely look he shook his head at Sam, willing him to focus.

"Yeah? Well-” The sound of running followed by the sound of stumbling brought the brothers back to the task at hand and they began to stealthily edge toward the door. "That's just an old wives' tale, you know."

"Don't be stupid. That ain't the cheap shit you sell in your charlatan stores." Meg again.

"No?"

"No, this black salt came from special lava rocks at a sacrificial site -- guaranteed to stop a white witch in her tracks." Meg snickered. "The whiter the more deadly."

When they reached the door, Dean silently signaled to Sam a hasty plan.

Sam really wished he could thank Dad for all of those years of training he hated, because this right here? Being able to practically read Dean's mind in a dangerous situation like it was instinct? It was priceless. Sliding Ruby's knife out of his jacket, Sam nodded his understanding.

"Not so white."

"Awww, honey, you think you can bluff the black salt? I thought you were a true believer."

Dean positioned himself to the right of the sliding door, while Sam prepared to slide the door further to the left, widening the entrance.

"No! N-no!"

The sounds of the scuffle drowned out the scrape of the door opening. Dean immediately stepped inside with his gun drawn and ready to fire, checking in both directions for threats. He stepped far enough to the side to allow Sam to enter the dimly lit building. Light flittering from filthy skylights above illuminated the dusty scene before them. The door could open wider, if they wanted it to on the walkway they were now standing in -- to their left was the old countertop for the concession stand that served the drive-in faithful and to their right were a series of large archways done up to look like Greek or Roman décor. Beyond the arches were the remnants of what had once been a Friday night hang-out with a jukebox and a small tiled dance floor surrounded by tables and mix-matched chairs, but now there were just a few tables, some overturned, and a few broken chairs; the jukebox was long gone, and everything was covered in a few layers of dust and dirt -- except where it was disturbed by the demon and the witch.

...And to the far right through the haze of the filtered sunlight and dust, the brothers could see Meg bent over a dark-haired woman, who has clearly been contorted into an uncomfortable position by the way Meg is holding her. Meg's lips spread into a wicked little smile. "Now you're getting it. You're going to learn some reverence, bitch." Meg lifted the knife, placing the tip at the hollow of Naomi's neck, just above the silver Templar's cross. "When all of you Moir's are good and dead, our business will be finished."

Both Winchesters took aim simultaneously, walking forward with purpose.

"Meg!" Dean shouted. "Get your hands off her, you evil bitch!" All he could think of is one thing. Kill Meg. For everything she had ever done to their family. Everything. Just get close enough for Sam to use the knife.

Meg glanced up at the Winchesters, making a frustrated sound deep in the back of her throat. Meeting Naomi's eyes for a brief second, she conveyed to the witch that they were far from finished. Twisting Naomi around so her back was flush against Meg's front and the edge of Meg's blade was against Naomi's neck. "How chivalrous. The cavalry's here."

Naomi thought she might be sick from the sudden spinning motion on top of still being so close to the black salt. Her nose was bleeding, a clear sign that everything was not all right, and she felt as if her head might explode. Her eyes could not focus, and she could swear there were four Winchesters rather than two, which would actually be handy in this particular situation. She smirked at the thought and suppressed a giggle at how inappropriate the smirk was.

"Meg, let. Her. Go," Sam reiterated forcefully, making a show of the shotgun and keeping the knife up his sleeve, literally.

"Awww, so manly," Meg grinned. "I don't see what my motivation here is. No matter how this turns out, whether I kill a hostage or you just go away, she's still going to end up with her heart cut out."

Naomi shivered at the statement. She closed her eyes and tried to let everything come together. With all of the distractions and all the pain, it was so hard, harder than ever, but she felt a tickling of something in the back of her awareness. Quiet so only Meg can hear, she whispered, "You can't salvage anything he worked for, until that Scottish devil has lost it all."

Meg's smirk froze on her face. She turned to look at the witch, standing limp in her arms, channeling something. "What the hell are you talking about?" she demanded in not quite a whisper but not her normal speaking voice either.

The brothers were a few feet away now. Sam tilted his head, his face scrunched as he studied the bloody, dirty, now limp hostage. Her eyes were closed, and her face serious.

"Meg..." Dean warned, cocking the gun, aiming for Meg's forehead. He wished he brought The Colt.

"I mean, if you really want your revenge on all of them, you'll let them hang themselves, and their little Scottish dog too."

"But he-" Meg started to point out that Crowley was dead, that his bones had been burned, that she had witnessed it in all its wonderful glory, but at that very moment, Naomi opened her eyes and met her gaze. For a moment, Meg felt as if she were falling and shooting upward at the same time; she felt as if she were spinning out of control. However, she could see it plain as day, what Naomi could see and all she had to do was let things be.

Dean made a frustrated sound. He didn’t like whatever was happening. He had already warned Meg, and he was antsy. Sam was inching his way through one of the arches to circle to Meg's other side, but Dean didn’t want to wait.

"We still have unfinished business," Meg stated, pressing the edge of the blade into Naomi's skin, making the witch flinch. She gave Dean a lustful look, "Maybe we'll make it a threesome."

As soon as Meg released her hold on Naomi, she was falling. Her legs had no strength left to support her.

"Naomi!" Sam called as he moved quickly to try to catch her. The shotgun clattered to the floor.

"Shit! FuckingBitch!" Dean swore as his target was simply there one minute and gone the next. He hated when they did that. What had Ruby called it? The Super Bowl Jet Pack?

Naomi groaned as she once again found herself on her hands and knees. The jolt of the impact rippled through her body. Sam was suddenly right there, his big hands helping her up. His eyes scanned her for obvious injuries. She was so much smaller than him, than either of them. She brought a hand to the blood trickling from her nose.

"Hey, she's gone. Are you okay?" Sam asked.

Dean paced the floor, attempting to redirect the built up energy and hate. He felt a rant coming on, but he pushed it down like a good Winchester, saving it for later when there were too many to contain and they all came spilling out in the wrong direction.

"I- uh- yeah, just..." Naomi glanced at the line of black salt and gripping Sam's arms, tried to move further into the room away from the arches. "I have to get out of here."

Sam followed the movement of her eyes. He had overheard the conversation about the powder, though he never had heard of such a thing before today. Frowning, he nodded, "Yeah, okay...do you have any stuff?"

She nodded. "I'll just-" She gestured toward the kitchen where she had stashed her bag.

"I'll get it," Dean announced so gruffly that it startled her, making her look at him as if she just noticed he was there. He shrugged at Sam before he stalked into the kitchen.

Sam went to the nearest arch and used his booted foot to scrape a wide path in the black salt.

Watching him with somewhat unfocused eyes, she was leaning on the edge of one of the turned over tables. Her arms were folded across her chest, except the bandaged hand was toying with the silver cross around her neck.

"So...I've seen black salt in occult stores before, but I always thought it was one of those snake oil items like -um - snake oil." He peered back at her from under his bangs.

She chuckled silently, her lips curling at the corners. "Yeah, me too. Usually, the stuff in the stores is...fake. Just table salt rubbed with charcoal." She bowed her head. "To hurt a true white witch, you need powder made from stones or rock embedded in unholy sacred ground -- the more blood spilt there in reverence of the unholy, the more powerful the ground. The negative energy from the souls that died and the violence..." She shuddered.

Dean pushed the swinging doors open, carrying a small leather duffle bag with a now somewhat familiar emblem etched into it -- a Templar shield overlaid with a pentagram flanked by geometric angel wings. "Okay. This place is creepy. Let's get out of here before Wicked gets back with her flying monkeys. Besides, you look like you could use an I-Hop or a Denny's or about five shots of Tequila," Dean said to Naomi.

Surprised by the sudden mood change, Naomi quirked an eyebrow and glanced at Sam. "Okay..."

Sam gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile as he bent down to recover the shotgun. "I suggest a motel first, because while the two of you may be able to go from your day jobs straight to after work entertaining, I need to freshen up a bit."

Naomi looked a little relieved. She was fairly certain she looked like she had just gone five rounds with a...well, a demon. She was sure she looked like the little boy who was raised by wolves. She stood a little unsteadily.

"Here." Dean slid an arm around her waist to support her. "Fine," he said louder as he led her out of the building. "But the two of you better not dally with all of your beautifying. Apparently chivalry is hungry work."Gotta love Dean and his appetite.

Friendly’s, Utica, NY[‡‡]

Sitting at a table in the back of a Friendly’s, Dean watched as Sam followed a cleaned up Naomi through the restaurant like a giant bodyguard. With all of the dirt and blood gone, it was easier to see she was unwell, and in the motel he thought he’d seen her hiding some sort of medical bottle in her bag. She was too thin, her eyes were sunken, and she sometimes sounded out of breath just talking to them, and those were just the few things he had picked up in the few hours since they had found her.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said cheekily when she and Sam arrived at the table. “There was a line of ten year old princesses who had to do everything together but in shifts that only made sense to them.”

Dean stared at her with his mouth open a little.

“Dude, there’s a whole room full of little girls in tiaras and tutus next door.” Sam thumbed in the direction of the roped off dining room. “They streamed out of that bathroom like clowns coming out of a VW bug. They’re terrifying.”

Dean smirked as the pair took their seats. “The clowns or the little girls?”

“Dude...” Sam warned.

Ignoring his brother, Dean turned his attention to Naomi. “Look, I gotta ask...” He reached over and pulled up the long sleeve on her left arm, revealing writing in various languages and symbols in henna. “What the hell?”

Sam looked intrigued as he studied the writing, trying to place the different languages, recognizing Latin, Enochian, and Sanskrit.

Naomi worried her bottom lip, looking around to check the location of their waitress. “Yeah, warding spells.” She pulled the other sleeve up so they could see above the bandaged right hand and then lifted the hem of her shirt to reveal her midriff – all of it covered in writing in henna. “My back too, where there wasn’t already a tattoo. Only something must not be right. Either my translation’s wrong or the guy I hired to copy to the parts I couldn’t reach didn’t copy exact.”

Dean’s brain was still sorting out the flash of skin and the thought that all of her skin was covered in writing, not just what she’d exposed. He had a very vivid imagination, and it was more than capable of filling in the blanks, so to speak.

“You mean, because of Meg?” Sam guessed, intrigued.

“Naomi nodded. “I’ve never had a warding spell fail before. I mean, I’ve had them broken by outside sources, but never outright fail. I have no other excuse for how she found me.” She bowed her head, ashamed of her mistake.

Dean’s brain stuttered to life. “But Sam gave you one of the hex bags, right?” He looked to his brother to verify. “Right, Sam?” At Sam’s nod, he continued. “So, that should cover both demons and angels from here on out.”

Their waitress Starlet suddenly appeared with a tray and their dinners. After she finished flirting with both boys, laying it on particularly thick, she bounced off toward the kitchen, leaving them to enjoy their meal and think about desert.

After a few minutes of companionable silence while they did in fact enjoy their meals, Sam could not resist the questions weighing on his mind. “So, how did you know our dad?”

Naomi paused and set her soup spoon back in the bowl. “Are you asking how we met or what the nature of our relationship was?” she replied with a hint of suggestion.

Dean choked on his burger. He kept coughing on the food that was determined to go down the wrong pipe, until Sam lent over and slapped him hard on the back a couple of times. He chased the discomfort in his throat and his mind down with a gulp of his beer. With a pleading expression on his face, he whined, “You weren’t- I mean, you and Dad-“

Sam cleared his throat uncomfortably.

Naomi looked like the cat who swallowed the canary. Finally, she put them both out of their misery. She shook her head, “No. God, he was old enough to be my father!” She managed to make it sound like it should have been obvious.

The brothers Winchester both looked relieved, because thinking about your father having sex with anyone is kind of nasty but thinking about him with some girl your own age is downright creepy.

“But you were friends? How come we never heard of you?” Sam prodded, grabbing a French fry.

“Define ‘friends’,” Naomi replied. She reached up and absently held the silver cross between her index finger and her thumb, letting her thumb caress over the ornamental lines. “I think we all can agree that, in this business, the term ‘friend’ is very broad.” She studied them to be certain they were on the same page. “I don’t think I have to tell you that your father rubbed a lot of people the wrong way with his obsession and his stubborn attitude.”

Both of them had heard it time and again from other hunters since John’s death – John was considered to be a good hunter, one of the best, but he appeared to have had a falling out with pretty much everyone at some point. He was just too opinionated, stubborn, and driven to be a people person. Heck, Sam knew that last part all too well.

“My family thought John was using me, because of what I could do for him as a clairvoyant and a witch.” She shrugged. “And they were right, he was, but I knew that from the start.”

“But if you knew-” Sam started to ask.

She smiled fondly at Sam. “No matter what anyone tells you, Sam, every relationship, healthy or unhealthy, is about give and take to some degree.” Considering her words carefully, she hesitated, “As for John and me, I would say that we both got what we were looking for out of it.”

Dean narrowed his eyes as he watched her dance around the topic with deliberate steps. “What was that exactly?”

She sighed, bowing her head slightly, feeling uneasy. She had wanted to wait until later in the trip for true confessions, until she got a better feel for them, until she decided whether or not she liked Dean Winchester, angel thief. “Frankly, I’m surprised Castiel didn’t tell you. John begged me to help him find whatever killed your mother, and in 2005, I gave in to the pressure.“

“What do you mean ‘gave in’?” Sam asked.

She swallowed, feeling the color decorate her cheeks. “It was right after Katrina, and I was seeing hints of...of evil taking a real hold in the world.” She glanced at Sam, thinking about how young he had looked at Stanford, innocent yet tainted by a demon’s touch. “They weren’t just possible futures anymore. They were unfolding in front of me, but the demon was powerful enough to obscure himself and his actions in darkness, making it impossible to know who he was, or what he had planned. At first, I didn’t even connect the dots to John.” She took a big breath and confessed. “I broke my own rules...to find out the name of the demon, to get just a hint of what he was up to, I...might have performed a few spells that fell into the realm of dark magic, relying a little bit on spirits and negative energy – both very dangerous things to open myself up to.” She never had admitted to anyone exactly how she had hypocritically come across the information on Azazel, how performing the rituals had terrified her, or how she felt exhilarated by just that little taste of power, and that scared her most of all.

Dean and Sam caught each other’s eye. It seemed a bit melodramatic to Dean, but he was still waiting on the punch line. “So...when Meg said you helped Dad hunt Yellow-eyes, she meant?” Dean asked.

She blinked, wondering how much of the conversation in the drive-in they had heard. “Oh. Um. Technically she was wrong. I never helped John hunt anything.”

The brothers could tell the answer was a defensive reflex and they let that show on their faces.

Fidgeting, she continued, “Once I knew what I had, I handed it over to John. I knew he wanted it more than anything and he would do whatever it took to get the job done.”

“When was this?” Sam asked, considering the timeline. Her family had said she and her brother left for Europe right after Katrina, but she was talking about giving John information to help on his hunt for the demon, which had to have been before the following July, when he died. Their dad had just picked up on his crazy one-man hunt right before the Halloween after Katrina...

Dean eyed Sam and caught on to his thoughts. Eyes lighting up, he turned a questioning gaze on their companion.

She watched them warily, wincing when she bit her bottom lip and the split broke open again, bringing fresh blood to the surface. She licked the coppery liquid away before she nodded in assent. “I went to see John before Josh and I left for Europe. He was working a case in Jericho, California, toward the end of October in 2005...”

“You were in Jericho?” Dean spit out angrily. “What the fuck? What happened there?”

She flinched.

“Dean.” Sam put a calming hand on his brother’s arm. He understood the sentiment. He wanted answers too. What exactly had caused their father to just walk away from everything, leave everything behind, half done, unexplained, and unplanned? He had never adequately explained even once they caught up with him. Sam nodded to Naomi to continue.

“Look, I don’t know what to tell you,” she said quietly, a careful white lie. “I gave him everything I had on Azazel, all the info I had on a possible trail, and I...warned John that if he went after the demon he would be in danger and he would be putting everyone close to him in danger. I told him that they would hunt him down, and, if it were me and my kids, I’d go find a place where no one could find us to hide, until everything was over.” She looked between them. “But he said he wasn’t a coward, and he didn’t raise cowards. He was so proud of you both,” she smiled fondly at both of them. “He had a lot of faith in you. You know, everything he did from there on out was for you.”

“What?” Dean replied like that was the stupidest thing he had ever heard. “Oh, bullshit! Everything he did was about killing the demon. That was the priority. Sam and me were important, sure, but if it were a choice between killing the demon and saving one of us, he would have killed the demon.”

“Dean!” Sam reproached.

“You’re wrong!” she retorted angrily, needing to justify what she’d done through justifying John’s actions. “John might have had a screwed up way of showing how he felt about you, but don’t you misunderstand me, Dean Winchester, he loved both of you, and when he realized it wasn’t just that demon we all had to be worried about, he started worrying that he hadn’t prepared the two of you enough to handle it without him, just like any parent worries about their children’s future, and in the end, when it came down to it, he made the choice every parent would make – to give up everything so his boys could live...he believed in you. He believed you were going to do great things, Dean.”

Dean snorted. “Yeah, ‘great things’.” He still felt angry...at her and Dad, and Dad was not around to take it out on.

“Well, haven’t you?”

Dean blinked at her.

“Stopping the Apocalypse would probably be included in that.”

Sam smirked at Dean, knowing his brother had been thinking about “apple pie life” kind of “great things”, the sort of things mundane people used to compare their lives.

“You’re saying Dad knew about the Apocalypse?” Dean replied in disbelief.

“No, I’m saying, he believed you’d be able to handle whatever got thrown at you – as long as the two of you faced it together,” she smirked.

“So what? The whole walking away thing was like a set-up to get us back together?” Sam asked.

Naomi shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t really know what exactly was going through his mind when he did that. I can only speculate.” But she imagined that was exactly what was going through John’s mind when it happened.

I-90 on the road from Utica, NY to Memphis, MO

Five hours into the drive to Missouri, the pain at the base of her neck started creeping upward winding a path through the blood vessels in her brain. If she closed her eyes, she could see the blood pulsing through each vessel all the way to the tip. One minute she thought she would be able to suffer through the migraine in silence in the backseat of the Impala and the next she could hear herself tearfully begging Dean to pull the car over “right the hell now.” Then she was on her hands and knees on the side of the I-90 in New York emptying her stomach of what little she had managed to swallow from breakfast.

As Dean stepped around the front of the iconic black car, Sam sat back down on the edge of the front seat. He leaned forward to tentatively rub Naomi’s back because he knew he liked it when Dean did that when he was unwell. He flashed Dean a concerned look. Dean mirrored his expression as he approached.

Naomi straightened up and wiped her mouth with the back of her unbandaged hand, grimacing at the bitter, acidic taste left in her mouth. She was thankful she’d had the forethought to put her hair in a French braid as she checked herself for reminders of this embarrassing episode. Her head continued to throb but at least her stomach had nothing left to share in the misery. She bowed her head as she sensed them both behind her, watching her.

Dean took a step forward and handed her a bottle of water before she had even turned to face them. “Here.”

She looked up into his gold-flecked green eyes and realized to her shame how genuine his concern was. Of course, Dean was not just John Winchester’s oldest son, or Michael’s vessel or Castiel’s favorite. He was still the boy who came to the rescue when he could have looked the other way, who righted wrongs, and who rescued damsels in distress whether he was 32 or 12. “I’m sorry.” She took the bottle of water and looked away.

Nothing Fancy Motel, Lima, OH

“I hope this is okay. There wasn’t any ginger ale in the machine,” Dean said, holding out a bottle of 7Up. “And this was the only thing without caffeine.”

Naomi opened her eyes and looked up at him from the bed. There was only one of him now which was an improvement. “Yeah, that’s perfect,” she replied. “Thanks.” She tried to push herself up so she could sit, but the wave of dizziness, caused her to slip.

“Woah, careful,” Dean warned her. He set the soda on the bedside table and gently helped her lean forward. He rearranged the pillows on the hotel bed so she could prop herself up and sip the drink.

“Thanks,” she said again.

“No problem,” he dismissed as he shrugged off his jacket and headed over to the other bed to sit.

“Where’s Sam?”

“Supply run,” he replied. Sam had taken the Impala to get dinner and a few odds and ends and left Dean to do the babysitting.

“I’m sorry we had to stop. I know you wanted to keep going.” She took a sip of the cold soda, reveling in the temperature change spreading through her body. The fever had come down a little after she’d stood under a cold shower for ten minutes, but the shot of morphine was what was helping the most.

Dean waved a hand with the shake of his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’d rather you puke in here than in the car...unless you can do that nose twitch thing to clean everything up.” He kind of smiled at his own joke, but then he frowned. “No, even then, I’d rather you puke in here.”

“Please stop saying ‘puke’,” she said, making an unpleasant face, like just the word might trigger another episode.

“Fair enough.” He was quiet for a moment, watching her sip the cold drink. Then he said, “Can you?”

“Can I what?”

“Twitch your nose and clean everything up?” He opened the soda he’d gotten for himself and took a long pull. It wasn’t as good as a beer, but it would do until Sam got back.

She studied him a moment and then half laughed. “I’m not that kind of witch, Dean.”

He shrugged. “A boy can dream.”

“If only magic worked as easily as that,” she sighed. “But magic’s is just as much a capitalist as the next guy.”

Dean looked intrigued as he pulled off his boots. “What’d you mean?”

“You can’t get nothing for free, right? Everything has a cost.” She sipped the 7Up and waited for his nod to indicate he understood, thinking of the two brothers, he certainly had the same color as his father’s eyes but there was more depth there, a different kind of intelligence, certainly more compassion. No wonder Castiel was drawn to him. “Well, you know, to do a spell, you need the right ingredients, the right words, the right ritual...”

“Yeah, we’ve done plenty of spells before, but those are just spells. We’re not witches or warlocks or whatever,” Dean said.

She nodded. “The dark magic witches usually bind themselves to a demon, sell their soul, make a deal of some sort for the kind of magic they practice – sometimes they don’t even realize until it’s too late, but the power they tap into...it’s...” She searched her mind for a word for it. “It’s addictive, heady, seemingly limitless and therefore easily misunderstood as stronger than white or blood or angel magic, but, honestly, in the end, dark magic, is consuming and karmic as much as you take from it, it takes from you. It feeds off of you.”

“Like Darth Vader,” Dean said.

“What?” she startled, toying with the silver chain around her neck nervously.

“You know, how he ended up a machine instead of human because of all the dark force power he used,” Dean said, sort of tripping over the words with a little uncertainty.

She eyed him a little as she considered what he said and tilted her head a little. “I saw those movies once...I never thought about that before, but I think that’s a good analysis,” she nodded.

He stared at her a little surprised at her admission of seeing the Star Wars movies “once”. “Okay...so that’s dark magic, but you’re supposed to be a white witch, right?”

She nodded. “There’s still the ebb and flow of energy. It’s all give and take, a matter of controlling it as it flows in through you and out of you. And there’s the matter of avoiding the negative energies around you, which is difficult when you’re reaching into the metaphysical to spellcast. Spellcasting still costs energy, it can be very tiring to a clairvoyant like me who can’t turn off the gift.”

“Is that why you’re so sick? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking,” he said.

She sighed, knew she was going to have to explain something at some point, was surprised either of them had waited this long to ask. “Sort of. Without Josh around for me to draw strength from, I just can’t protect myself from energy surges or damage done to my body by them over the years.”

“I don’t understand,” he said with concern. “How did your brother help? I thought he didn’t use magic.”

“No, he didn’t,” she chewed her bottom lip as she considered what to tell him. Finally, she said, “Do you see this tattoo?” She tried to lean forward a little, pointing to the one non-henna tattoo on her back. She was wearing a black spaghetti strapped camisole t-shirt and the geometric wings on either side of the Templar shield with the gold pentagram were easy to see in contrast to the brown lettering that covered the rest of her skin.

“Yeah...I’ve seen it somewhere before,” he said thoughtfully.

She semi-smiled. “Yeah, we met once over 10 years ago, right after I got it.” When she saw him looking confused, she added, “In Bobby Singer’s yard. Couldn’t have been more than 5 minutes in passing, but I was so excited about it I was showing it to everyone, and it was pissing my brother off because I practically had to take my top off to do it every time.” She grinned.

He chuckled. “I remember now. I think he made some threatening comment to my brother.”

“Sounds like Josh. He was overly protective back then and extra pissy because we were on our way to-“ She clamped her mouth shut. They’d been on their way to see John, and Josh and John never got along. “Never mind,” she frowned. “Anyway...Josh has – had one too. The tattoo.”

Dean looked surprised.

She nodded. “They were a spell, a bind.” She looked down at her fingers around the bottle. “You know there are a lot of studies about twins having preternatural connection, but really it’s a whole bloodline with siblings with the same parental genetics being the closest. That’s why there are whole chapters in the Old Testament that are just who begat who, and often it’s just the maternal bloodlines because there’s no real way to be certain of the paternal heritage,” she rambled. She looked up at him and saw he was just staring at her. She rubbed her forehead with two fingers. “Sorry, sometimes the drugs make it hard to focus...anyway, the binding spell made it so we could draw on each other’s strength, both mentally and physically. The closer we were in proximity, the stronger the bond...you know what it was like? It was like Red Rover.”

“What?”

“That game Red Rover? When you’re a kid and two groups of kids line up on either side of the playground and link arms? Then one group yells ‘Red Rover, Red Rover, send Freddy right over!’ Then Freddy leaves the other group and runs toward the other line and tries to break through the linked arms. If he makes it, he gets to take someone back, but if not, he has to stay...well, the bond was like we had invisible linked arms between us and the closer we got, the stronger the link.”

Dean was quiet a few minutes. He took a long drink from his soda, nearly finishing it. He thought that it had nearly killed him losing Sam every time, but if he’d had some sort of psychic link to him as well for ten years and then lost Sam that would have destroyed him, been worse than Hell. Finally he said, “I’m sorry about your brother.”

She nodded. “Thank you.” She wanted to add that she was sorry about his brother too, but then she’d have to explain why and she didn’t want to right then.

They fell into a companionable silence until Dean turned on the television as they waited for Sam to return.

I-70 on the road from Utica, NY to Memphis, MO[§§]

An hour into Indiana, Sam broke the silence. “You never said what you got from the friendship.”

“Excuse me?” Naomi asked from the passenger seat after realizing he was speaking to her. Of course he had to be talking to her. Dean was passed out in the backseat in some impossibly uncomfortable position from what she could tell.

“At Friendly’s, you said your friendship with our dad was mutually beneficial and that Dad got the intel about hunting Yellow-eyes from you, but you never said what you got out of it.” Sam glanced at her before turning his attention quickly back to the road. He could tell that whatever medication she had taken for the migraine was still in effect. She seemed relaxed and a little dazed still.

She hummed, staring out the passenger window. She took so long to answer that he thought she probably wasn’t going to when she suddenly looked at him and asked, “You used to get psychic visions?”

Sam startled a little, glancing at her again. Then he reflexively replied, “Yeah, but not since the demon was killed.”

“But you have some idea then...how morbid it can be.”

“Uh...yeah, in my experience, they were all pretty morbid.”

She nodded and turned back to the window, falling silent again.

Sam frowned and wondered if that was the end of the conversation. For a minute or two, all he heard was the sound of the Impala’s tires on the asphalt and Dean’s steady breathing in the backseat. He thought about turning the radio back on low, but the thought of arguing over the radio station again didn’t appeal to him.

“I don’t have any control over my visions. It wasn’t something I was born with, and no matter what Castiel says, I really don’t think it’s a natural ability that advanced too quickly or whatever.” She frowned, glaring out the window at the passing landscape. “It’s a divinity spell that went wild...I have three kinds.” She looked over at Sam in the driver’s seat and shifted, so she was leaning against the door. “One kind is remote viewing – those are of something that’s occurring right at that moment, but those come at random, for a random length of time, and they always come with physical pain, and I’m usually sick for a while afterwards.”

Sam frowned and nodded, willing her to continue.

“Then there are the ones that are precognitions, but they’re usually a hundred versions of the same future all in the space of a few seconds – all the variants of choices people can make. Possibilities and consequences. I can see someone make the same mistake ninety-nine times and walk away once. It’s so depressing sometimes...most times.”

Sam shivered at the thought of the things she might have seen over the years, especially the last six or seven years – having seen one version of the Apocalypse was a nightmare; he couldn’t imagine seeing a hundred.

“Then there are the precognitions that are just harbingers. I don’t know if they’re warnings from The Fates or whoever, but they’re usually things that really are going to happen, unless someone can find a way to stop them. The problem is that they’re never really very clear. It’s like they come in code, and I have to translate them or figure out the puzzle before the time is up.”

Sam gave her a quizzical look. “Like?”

“Like the day I met John in the store...I remember...” She closed her eyes as if reliving the moment. “When I touched his hand I had a flash of myself in about ten years, standing in front of one of those oval, free-standing mirrors, and John came in the room and walked past me. He stepped into the mirror. I remember seeing blood trickling out of the bottom of the mirror, though I couldn’t see into it, and as my future self watched whatever was happening in the mirror, I saw a Reaper step out of the mirror and reach for me.” Naomi studied Sam’s grim face, but her own remained neutral.

Sam looked troubled.

Naomi shifted so she could once again stare out the passenger window.

“Naomi...Dad died in Memphis.”

“I know, Sam.”

“Then why are we going there?”

“Because my daughter’s in the hospital and I don’t have much time left.”

Scotland County Hospital, Memphis, MO[***]

“God, I hate this place,” Dean grumbled as the threesome looked around the hospital lobby. He never felt comfortable in any of the many hospitals the Winchesters had been to over the years, either as patients or hunters, but this one in particular he had never wanted to see again. He resented that the small county hospital had apparently made some changes in the few years since their last visit, obviously wanting to make the facility appear cheerier and more welcoming, with brighter colors, better lighting and fresh décor.

“Should we – uh – ask what room they’re in?” Sam suggested indicating the Information Desk.

Shouldering her bag, Naomi shook her head. “No. There’s something I need to do first. Someone I need to say good-bye to.” She headed toward the granite stairs.

“Naomi,” Sam pleaded following her. For such a short, ill woman she was quick when she wanted to be.

“Wait –what?” Dean asked as what she said registered after a short delay. He quickly followed, scowling at his brother’s back.

Winding her way through the maze of halls on the second floor, ignoring the heated whispers of the brothers Winchester behind her, Naomi looked for an empty patient room. She quickly ducked inside one and set her bag on the empty bed.

“Naomi, what is going on?” Dean demanded, following her into the room with Sam on his heels.

“Shut the door,” she replied, digging an ink bottle and a brush out of her bag.

Dean spun around to glare at Sam who looked a little guilty as he closed the door, though admittedly he didn’t know why they were in the empty room.

“Naomi, where’s Levi?” Sam asked.

“Somewhere on the Pediatrics Wing, I imagine,” she replied, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu.

“Where’s your brother?”

“Somewhere between the Missouri state line and here, I imagine.”

“Well, aren’t we going up there?” Sam asked.

She didn’t answer. Instead she finished unscrewing the top of the bottle and set it on the bedside table. She reached for the hem of her t-shirt and pulled it up, pulling the shirt over her head, revealing a sports bra underneath, and plenty of pale skin covered in henna writing as well as the tattoo across her back shoulders.

“Woah! Woahwoahwoah!” Dean called out, waving his arms about like a referee calling for a halt to the game.

That at least got Naomi’s attention. She paused long enough to hear what he had to say.

“Not that I’m ever against a plan for less clothes, more skin,” he said with a smirk, “but what the hell is going on. I thought we were just getting you safely to family.”

She bit her bottom lip and stared at the floor. “You are, Dean...just...” Not all of me. “I just need to do one more thing first.”

Dean stared at her in confusion as she dipped the brush in the henna ink and then began to carefully strike an ink line through some of the written spells on her abdomen and hip.

Within thirty seconds there was the familiar flutter of wings, and when the three scanned the room, they saw a haggard Castiel.

“Cas!” Dean and Sam said in sync.

“Dean. Sam.” The angel nodded to each in greeting before turning his intense gaze on Naomi, who he had not seen since that day in the restaurant almost a year and a half ago. “Naomi,” he said more softly.

Naomi set the brush down and stepped over to the angel who had been a part of her life just as long as her brother had. “Castiel, my angel,” she replied softly, taking in how conflicted and burdened he appeared to be. She ran her hands over the lapel of his trench coat, straightening them, flattening them against his chest.

“Naomi, I want to say-“

She shook her head. “It’s time to keep your promise,” she said, cutting off whatever he was going to say. She did not want apologies for how he’d trained her, how he’d raised her. Whatever things she’d done in her life were her sins by her own decisions and actions. Whatever good intentions she might have had, she’d chosen her path. She only hoped that he would learn from her mistakes.

“You have to promise me that my little girl isn’t going to be an Angel’s errand girl or have premonitions or something just as preternatural or extraordinary. Let her be ordinary. I’ll -- I’ll send her to live with Levi and Julie, and they’ll keep her safe. She doesn’t have to know about monsters or hunting or all the scary things that have just become so common place to me. She’ll just be a normal little girl who I can give my heart to.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want, Naomi?”

“More than anything. I want something different for my daughter.”

“As you wish.”

He had been about to apologize for the last time they met, but instead, he nodded at her. “Yes, of course.”

Leaning in so her lips almost brushed his ear, she whispered so low only he could hear, “I know what you’re doing with that demon, Castiel. If you think you have good intentions, think again.”

Castiel stiffened. This was one of the reasons he had stayed away from her after making his decision to work with Crowley. She would have known right away, and she would not understand. She probably thought he was a hypocrite.

“Naomi-“

Naomi gripped his collar, yanked him forward and kissed him, feeling that same shocking jolt of overwhelming energy she had felt that day in Hungary. It flooded through her, all of those centuries of memories, all of those possible futures. Stunned for a moment, she was still in Castiel’s arms. Then with a slight smirk she said, “I always wanted to do that.”

Looking uncomfortable, Castiel glanced at the brothers. It was embarrassingly one thing to experimentally allow himself to briefly succumb to the lusts of the flesh with a temptress demon like Meg, but to have Naomi, who was almost like daughter to him, kiss him...and in front of the Winchesters...again...

Sam, who of course, did not remember the whole “I learned it from the pizza man” incident, looked honestly, curiously amused and intrigued. Dean on the other hand was starting to worry about Castiel, who used to be so innocent, and who had been run out of a brothel for telling a girl it wasn’t her fault her father left, and who was now making out with demons and witches at every turn.

Holding her, Castiel quietly said, “You were the butterfly.”

The pain that had been coursing through her brain for days suddenly dissipated, and in her mind’s eye, she could see it happening like water finally pushing through a clog in a pipe – breaking through the pipe itself, spilling over the edges into the expanse around it, filling up every available space. And really, that was the last thing she felt.

Dean,

I know you’re angry. I hope one day you’ll be able to let that go. I didn’t want to tell you I knew I was going to die, because I worried that you might try to play the hero and save me. But you’ve already saved me more times than you know, and somewhere along the way, I forgot about that too – for which I’m sorry, sorry for feeling jealous of your bond with Castiel.

I think maybe you understand more than anyone how painful it is to survive your sibling and best friend. Josh and I were born minutes apart, and we spent our lives looking after each other. We were bound to each other through blood, through our Mother’s Covenant with Heaven, and by magic, and when Meg killed him...the thought of continuing without him was just unbearable. It made my decision easier.

And I’ve known for a long time that it would come to this, here in Memphis, where John died. He and I were performing a strange dance, two parents, caught up in a world few ever truly see, who loved their children more than their own selves, willing to do anything to be certain their children survived the darkness so they could live. I knew it the day we met, and I have waited all of these years since his death for my turn.

It’s a little known family secret that my cousin Levi adopted my daughter and moved her to Missouri. When they learned she needed a heart transplant, I knew that was it was my time, the one thing I had to offer. And I am okay with that. Now I can be with her always, and I don’t have to worry anymore about Apocalypses, demons, zombie uprisings, and the rest of the things most people only think about in 2 hour increments. I’ve had my life, and I’m ready to move on to whatever is next. It can’t be worse than dreaming of thousands of different Apocalypses for half a lifetime.

Remember to live,

Naomi

[*] References to events in episode 5x22 "Swan Song" and 6x20 “The Man Who Would Be King” of Supernatural and the previous conversation between Naomi and John in Pre-Series [Part II] time-stamped October 28, 2005.

[†] The dialog during the scene between Crowley and Castiel is borrowed from episode 6x20 “The Man Who Would Be King” of Supernatural; however, the author of this fan fiction has made great use of literary license to fill in all descriptive details and interpret all thoughts, motives, and emotions.

[‡] Takes place between 6x12 “Like a Virgin” and 6x13 “Unforgiven” of Supernatural. Special Note: According to continuity, a year passed between 5x22 “Swan Song” and 6x01 “Exile on Main St.”, though the show’s prop staff appear to have “misplaced” that year into the space time continuum, the dates have been correctly addressed in this fan fiction story.

[§] References to events in episodes 5x10 “Abandon All Hope” and 6x10 “Caged Heat” of Supernatural. References the previous conversation between Naomi and John in Pre-Series [Part II] time-stamped October 28, 2005.

[**] References events that took place in Supernatural episode 2x14 "Born Under a Bad Sign," where Meg possessed Sam for a week, and refers to the tattoos first seen in 3x12 “Jus in Bello” and mentioned in Season Two time-stamped February 2007.

[††] References the previous conversation between Naomi and John in Pre-Series [Part II] time-stamped October 28, 2005.

[‡‡] References the previous conversation between Naomi and John in Pre-Series [Part II] time-stamped October 28, 2005.

[§§] References the events from Pre-Series [Part I] time-stamped Fall 1996 and the events in 2x01 “In My Time of Dying” of Supernatural.

[***] References events from Pre-Series [Part I] time-stamped August 1991 and January 1992 plus Pre-Series [Part II] time-stamped December 1999 and in 2x01 “In My Time of Dying”, 6x10 “Caged Heat”, and 6x20 “The Man Who Would Be King” of Supernatural.

Chapter Text

epilogue

February, 2012[*]

Castiel’s War Room, Heaven

“So, Cas, babe, I’ve been thinking about this power problem of yours,” Balthazar said, leaning over the plans on the table.

Feeling cranky from his latest encounter with Crowley, Castiel growled, “What about it?”

“Well, remember what you were saying about that whole, butterfly-flapping-in-the-wind-theory, thing?”

Castiel glared at his friend, mostly because he knew that Balthazar actually was saying it incorrectly just to irritate him. “The Chaos Theory.”

“Right, right. That whole idea that if Ashton Kutcher says Betty White is fly, then enough people on Twitter can get her on Saturday Night Live.”

Castiel looked pained. “I’m not following.”

“The point is your girl proved that if you change one thing in a timeline at one pressure point, then it could result in a positive change later...but she was toying with the future. What if we already knew the outcome and altered it in our favor?”

“What do you mean?”

“More lives, means more souls, means more power, right?” Balthazar grinned. “If we know of a point in time where a certain number of people were killed by some preventable disaster, we can alter history, so those lives aren’t lost, and you can have the souls of the survivors and their descendants to power up .”

“I’m listening.” There was a nagging in the back of Castiel’s brain, telling him that this was the wrong thing to do, but lately he had been doing a lot of things he shouldn't be doing. He just needed to finish the war, and then he could worry about how he got there.

fini

[*] References events that took place in Supernatural episode 6x17 "My Heart Will Go On" where Balthazar unsinks the Titanic.

Chapter Text

even angels fall soundtrack/fanmix

This story, of course, was inspired by the television show Supernatural and all of it's wonderful characters, creatures, and drama. However, while I was writing, I found myself drawn to certain songs that I felt spoke for the characters or expressed more than I could in just the short space I allowed myself. Over time, I collected them all together in a single playlist and now I'm sharing them with you. You can listen to them as you read or take them when you go. Whatever you do, I hope you too will find a little something of Naomi, Castiel, the Winchesters, and the LeCroixes in this fanmix.

And I have to say a special thank you to Mizra for creating this beautiful CD cover. You should drop by and tell her how gorgeous it is too. ;)

Download the soundtrack here.