But Not Forgotten: Part Four
Part Four
Sam would have loved this thing.
Dean sat on the floor next to the unconscious Donna Temple-Noble on the floor of a blue box that was way too big on the inside, and he thought of another red haired woman who’d once been so much more than human, and how badly returning to that state had fucked up her life. It was better than thinking of Sam, and how much he would have been geeking out. Donna hadn’t woken up yet, and according to the Doctor (“Just the Doctor,“ the geek had said when Dean had asked), she was going to stay drooling on Dean‘s flannel shirt, which had been repurposed as a pillow, because if she did wake up her head would explode. Castiel hadn’t been happy to hear that, and Dean could guess why.
Anything that Raphael could use against Cas, Cas could use against Raphael.
Only… exploding heads. Bad in a way that ranked right there with melting eyes out of heads, as far as Dean was concerned. Cas knew that, respected that, unlike that dick Raphael.
That, and there was the Doctor, who looked like the kind of son of a bitch who would start a fucking Apocalypse for someone he loved. Dean knew the type, and he was willing to bet he’d give any angel a hell of a fight.
Dean preferred to think about potential apocalypses than think about how he was going to explain what had happened to Lisa.
Cas and the Doctor had secluded themselves away from everyone else, talking in low voices that ceased whenever anyone got too close.
The angel was being a secretive bastard again. Dean didn’t like that.
The pretty red head sat down next to Dean and smiled, locking her arms around her legs as she glanced briefly at Donna. “So, you got any idea what’s going on?” she asked with one of those cute British accents that probably made guys buy her drinks the moment she opened her mouth. “Cause I’m a little lost.”
Dean smiled back -- hey, a pretty girl smiles at him, he was gonna smile back. It was the Dean Winchester way. “Well, the story I got was that my buddy over there was rescuing Sleeping Beauty from being used the restart the Apocalypse. You?”
“Old friend of the Doctor’s got snatched, time for us to ride to the rescue.” She extended a hand to Dean. “Amy Pond.”
Dean raised the proffered hand to his lips with an exaggerated eyebrow wiggle, kissing the knuckles. “Dean Winchester.”
“Rory Williams,” the gawky man lingering by the consol said, briefly taking his eyes off Castiel and the Doctor to look at Dean. “Her husband.” There was nothing angry in his tone, just a ‘just so you know’ kind of voice, like he had to do this a lot. Amy smiled and shrugged in a ‘yeah, what can you do?’ way, turning a little so that she could more easily look at Donna, smoothing the older woman‘s hair back.
“Wouldn’t she be more comfortable in a bed?” Amy asked, raising her voice enough that there was no way either the Doctor or Castiel could possibly miss it.
“I’d prefer Donna stay where I can see her, Amelia.”
All the accents, it was like being in one of those British TV shows Lisa liked.
Amy looked shocked, gaping at the Doctor as he returned to his hushed conversation with Castiel.
“I don’t like this,” Rory said. He stood surprisingly still, the way John Winchester used to sometimes. At first glance, Dean wouldn’t have begged Rory for any kind of soldier, but this was shaping up to be a day fill of surprises. And hell, Dean had seen guy hold off an angel not an hour ago.
“Your friend always like this?” Amy asked.
“Is yours?”
“No!” Now Amy was being defensive, which told Dean a lot.
“Sometimes,” Rory said at the same time, which told Dean even more.
***
The Doctor didn’t even try to be anything but when he spoke to Castiel. “I wasn’t aware that your kind was in the business of making deals.”
Castiel met the Time Lord’s eyes, uncowed by his anger and decidedly unimpressed. “I’m trying to stop the Apocalypse from being restarted by Raphael, who will be perfectly happy to chase Donna to the ends of the universe in order to get her. If you would rather not help, feel free to drop us off. Sioux Falls, if you don’t mind.” Castiel turned away from the Doctor, mentally ticking off the seconds. He was at three when the Doctor spoke again.
“You’re sure this wall of yours will hold?”
Castiel had rarely had cause to deal with the Time Lords of Gallifrey, and when he had, he’d found them arrogant to the point of being unbearable. He’d never heard one sound desperate before. “I am. The Time Lord part would remain sealed, but she would be able to remember the rest of what you tucked away. And she will be better able to protect herself if she is not unconscious.”
“I’d be taking away the life she has now,” the Doctor pointed out sadly. “How could she go back, knowing what’s out there?”
“Very easily,” Castiel said, watching Dean out of the corner of his eye, “if that’s what she wants.”
“I want her to be happy,” the Doctor sighed.
“I know.”
That got a knowing smile out of the Doctor, eyes flickering for a moment to Dean. “Ah.” Castiel’s jaw clenched, but the Doctor said nothing further on the subject of Dean Winchester. The Doctor made a noise that could only be made by something unbearably old, and he nodded. “Alright.”
“She’s probably going to slap you when she wakes up,” Castiel noted.
“Oh yes.”
***
Donna Temple-Noble woke up on an unfamiliar floor, looking up at a face that she was getting to know a little too well. “Scruffy,” she growled.
He backed away, just enough to be outside of her reach, like he was fully expecting her to slap him. “Hello, Donna.”
Castiel was edged out of Donna’s line of sight by a gangly young man with floppy brown hair that fell in his face even after he pushed it out of the way. Unlike the angel, no one had stolen this man’s razor In fact, it looked like when he’d finished with his chin, he’d gone after his eyebrows. The new man looked scared and worried and maybe just a little bit hopeful, like a puppy hoping for a treat but expecting a kick. Donna didn’t know the face, but she knew those eyes, so sad and lonely and old. “Doctor,” she said, feeling like the breath was being driven out of her.
“Hello, Donna.” The Doctor smiled sadly as he helped Donna sit up. The world spun dangerously for a moment as Donna reoriented herself, both the change of position and the changes within her own head. Memories crashed together like the sea against a rocky coastline -- like that moon that was all oceans except for a few mountains thrusting out like islands, she thought -- confusing and disorienting and utterly world changing. The Doctor’s had rested lightly on the middle of her back, steadying her.
“You redecorated,” Donna murmured, looking around the TARDIS consol room. She ignored everyone and everything but the Doctor. There was time for scruffy angels and their pretty boys, and new ginger girls and men with impressive noses later. She grabbed hold of the Doctor and pulled him in to a crushing hug. “God, you’re still skinny! Don’t you eat?” Donna thrust the Doctor back to arm’s length, giving him a shake and ignoring his murmured ‘Still not ginger, either’. “I should strangle you with that stupid bow tie!”
Donna was aware of tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. “Bow ties are cool,” the Doctor protested weakly.
Donna sniffled. “No, Skinny, they aren’t.”
“It’ll grow on you,” the young red head told Donna, drawing her attention.
“This the new model, then?” Donna asked with mock anger. The Doctor still flinched.
“As if anyone could replace you,” he said gently, cupping Donna’s face in his hands.
Castiel cleared his throat pointedly, earning himself a death glare from Donna as she blinked back her tears. “Shove it, Scruffy, we’re trying to have a moment, here!”
***
Hell was not a truly physical place. Much like Heaven, it was perceived through the lenses of the souls that filled it, and each soul saw it differently. This was true even of the demons. For all their power, they were still small, limited things. This was one of Nathaniel’s three advantages.
The second was that, as angels went, Nathaniel was a small thing -- a cherubim, considered little better than the Cupids who shared her rank. Thus, she was easily missed in the face of greater powers. While her more impressive Seraph brothers rattled their swords and made a fuss elsewhere, Nathaniel was able to move about relatively unmolested through Hell. She hardly even needed to suppress her Grace.
Nathaniel’s third advantage was that she knew exactly where she was going. The last time angels had come to Hell, in search of the Righteous Man, it had taken a whole garrison years just to find Dean Winchester, fighting off demons all the while. But there was only one place Sam Winchester could be.
The Cage.
One could argue that the whole of Hell was meant to be Lucifer’s cage, but The Cage was something special, made to contain the overwhelming power of archangels. Inside, Michael and Lucifer were locked in combat, making the Cage easily found. And while they fought, neither Michael nor Lucifer would be bothered to notice a lowly Cherubim.
The Cage was not unguarded, even with everyone else rushing to deal with the angels storming the gates. Crowley had chosen carefully when he’d stepped up to fill the power vacuum left by Lucifer’s imprisonment; demons loyal to their own best interests, who enjoyed their new place in Hell’s hierarchy. But the demons were blinded and deafened by the battle of the archangels. What was Nathaniel in the wake of that? It was like trying to see the light from a torch at high noon. Nathaniel’s second advantage at play again, also letting her slip past the bars of the Cage. It was a construct that was as much an idea as a physical cage, never meant to hold something as inconsequential as a cherubim. Or a human.
Please, Father, let me take him and go.
Nathaniel couldn’t help but be in awe of her brothers as they battled. Michael was as magnificent as a storm sweeping across the grassy plains, and even fallen, Lucifer was the most beautiful of the angels.
Caught between the warring brothers were two small beings, their vessels. The sons of John Winchester.
Nathaniel paid Adam no mind. Dean Winchester would not give up Donna for the sake of a half brother who was a near stranger. But for Sam, he’d slit the woman’s throat, if that’s what was called for.
For once, the universe seemed to be working in Nathaniel’s favor; Lucifer remained too distracted by Michael to notice as Nathaniel cut Sam free. She did not count on her luck holding much longer, so the moment Sam was free, she took hold of the human and fled as fast as her wings could carry her. No longer bothering to suppress her Grace, Nathaniel burned a path out of Hell. It would be centuries before the demons would be able to put the angelic fires out.
In the Cage, Lucifer roared.
In the corner of Hell Crowley had claimed for his “office”, the new King of Hell watched his Hell burn, and he seethed.
“Find them,” he said. “Bring them to me. Whole enough to answer questions, but anything else is negotiable.”
***
The sky Sam Winchester opened his eyes to see was a startling blue, with only a few wispy white clouds drifting aimlessly across. He inhaled sharply, lungs filling with crisp, clean air for the first time in months. A face filled Sam’s field of vision, a plump young woman with brown hair and eyes. “Please be sane.”
“Wha-?” Sam struggled to sit up, and the woman knelt on the ground beside him.
“I have just gone through a great deal, you see, to bring you here. It would be very bad if you did not have your wits about you.”
Sam looked around as the woman babbled. He knew where he was -- Stull Cemetery. They were in the center of a circle of flattened dead grass and knocked over headstones. The air was warm, but there was a sharp hint to it that spoke of coming autumn. There was no one there except Sam and the woman.
“Where’s Dean?”
“Ah.” The woman frowned. “I don’t know.” She fiddled with the buttons of dark, slightly too large suit jacket, which Sam realized was actually smoldering in places. “That is partly why you are here now. He needs help, and I cannot find him.”
She sat too still, her gaze was too intense and unblinking. Sam knew what that meant, and a part of him was pleased that he was still able to put things together so easily. “You’re an angel,” he said, and the woman nodded.
“Nathaniel.” The angel rose to her feet, taking Sam’s hands and pulling him up with her. Sam towered over Nathaniel, but her angelic strength was more than enough to haul him around. “We must go. We were followed, and they will send others to look for us.” Sam braced himself to be teleported away, but strangely, he remained in the cemetery with the sun beating down on his shoulders. He looked around, then down at the angel, still holding on to his hands.
“Oh no,” Nathaniel whispered, letting Sam’s hands go. She looked like hell, now that Sam was actually taking a good hard look at her, kind of like how Sam felt after a week long hunt with no sleep, or how Cas had looked towards the end, as his Grace had drained away and left him human. In the distance, Sam could hear the roar of car engines, racing closer with every second.
Sam knew he should be asking more questions. Before he’d thrown himself into Hell with Lucifer, Michael, and Adam along for the ride, the angels had been gunning for him and Dean, with only Castiel standing by their side--
--oh God, a snap of his fingers and Cas blew up like a water balloon full of soup just the way Chuck had described --
and now there was this Nathaniel, grabbing him by the arm and urging him to run. Sam knew there were demons coming for them; he could remember the screams of the damned as he was yanked free from the cage, wrathful and pained and part of the mad jumble of memories that threatened to overwhelm Sam.
A slap jerked Sam out of the rising memories, bringing him back to the here and now. Nathaniel had grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him down to her eye level, and Sam’s cheek stung. “Sam Winchester, we do not have time for this! We must go!”
Sam needed to ask questions; he knew that. But first, he needed to survive.
***
“Martha, I’ve got a location, outside of… Stull.” Mickey’s voice sounded clearly in Martha’s ear through the little headset. She turned the motorbike sharply, heading east and in the general direction of Lawrence, following the GPS co-ordinates Mickey rattled off. “Looks like it’s some kind of cemetery.”
Martha laughed softly. “Great. Anything interesting there, Mickey?”
“Just the usual crap you hear about old cemeteries, according to Google. You okay going there by yourself?”
“Like I’ve got a lot of choice?” Martha sped up, racing down the highway. Mickey was laid up in the hotel room back in Topeka with a broken leg and cracked ribs from their last run in with the group they’d been tracking for the last two months.
Martha didn’t know what they were; when she and Mickey had started tracking them back in Cheddar, they’d been a bunch of middle aged prep school parents who had suddenly slaughtered their own children, then gone on a city wide rampage, demonstrating inexplicable strength and resistance to damage. The first time the duo had tried to stop the gang of murderous mums, half of them had vomited up black smoke and collapsed while the rest had fled. Only one of the women had still been alive, and she’d claimed to have been possessed by the devil before dying of absolutely massive internal injuries.
Martha and Mickey had been chasing the gang across two continents ever since, each run in leaving them more and more frustrated. Shoot them, stab them, catch them and tie them up, and they vomited up that black smoke, leaving Mickey and Martha with dead or dying people who didn’t know what had happened to them. And the next time they’d catch up with the gang, there would be a new face taking the place of the abandoned one. No matter what they did, these so-called demons always came out ahead. Not even UNIT’s resources put a stop to them.
Martha was ready to try giving the Doctor a call, much as she hated to admit it. She prided herself on being able to handle things without him, and she and Mickey really had managed just fine on their own until this, even with the constant shifting of their relationship. Friends to lovers and back to just friends, they’d managed to keep the monsters at bay.
“Stay safe, Martha.” Mickey’s tone was gentle, and tinged with worry.
“It’s just a little recon. They’ll never even know I’m there.”
“Oh God, babe, why’d you have to go and jinx it like that?”
Martha laughed again. “You know me, I like to live dangerously. That tracker still transmitting?”
“Loud and clear. And your tracker tells me you’re almost there.” Martha could hear Mickey moving about on his end, probably trying to shift his cast encased leg into a more comfortable position.
Martha could see one of the cars her quarry had stolen for their cross country murder spree… mostly because it was on fire. It had been crashed through the chain link fence someone had put up in an effort to ward off trespassers and driven deeper in, along with the van Mickey and Martha had managed to get a tracker on to and a little sports car that was also burning merrily. As Martha drove closer, she saw that her merry band of mayhem makers had surrounded a pair of people, a woman in a poorly tailored dark suit and a much taller man in flannel and jeans standing back to back within a ring of flaming grass. Martha could just make out the man shouting in what she realized was Latin as she tore off her helmet. The woman had a long silver sword in her hands, and she held it like she knew how to use it.
Martha drew her gun, training it on a young Asian man who had been a pre-school teacher before joining the band of killers. Beside the man in her sights, an old woman who’d poisoned the food being served at a community center’s grand opening screamed, an all too familiar cloud of black smoke erupting from her mouth. Martha expected the cloud to streak off into the sky like she’d seen dozens of times before. Instead, the cloud itself seemed to shriek as it was drawn down into the ground.
“Crowley only needs them alive, for fuck’s sake! It’s goddamn amazing what humans can live through!”
“There’s no need for that kind of language,” one of the others said chidingly.
Martha didn’t wait; she fired in to the Asian man, who was knocked off his feet, drawing the attention of the rest of the group to her. The former teacher sat up, smiling an awful, blood filled smile as he brushed at the holes that now filled his shirt, leaking blood. “Oh look. Someone we can kill. Boys, Christmas has c-” He never got to finish; Martha put a bullet between his eyes, and he collapsed again in a cloud of black smoke.
The woman with the silver sword moved fast, cutting the head off one of the circle of attackers in one smooth stroke, breaking the knee of another with a well placed kick that sent him to the ground with a sickening crunch of cartilage just before having the sword driven through his head. The tall man (and, Martha noted as she got closer, he was tall, close to two meters) continued to chant in Latin as he guarded the swordswoman’s back. The fire, as if alive, kept flaring up in the dead grass between the man and anyone who tried to attack him, catching one woman on fire just before Martha shot her, too.
When Martha looked back on it all later, she realized the whole fight only lasted a few minutes. Between the woman with the sword, Martha, and the chanting man, they made quick work of the monsters that had been plaguing Martha for months.
The swordswoman staggered, and her companion put a steadying arm around her shoulders, both of them watching Martha warily, just as Martha watched them. Slowly, Martha lowered her gun without putting it away; Mickey would have pitched a minor fit over her lowering the gun at all after all they’d been through, but for all the swordswoman’s speed, she looked like she was about to fall over, and the man was unarmed and far enough away that she could shoot him long before he could get close enough to use his size to his advantage.
“We need to go,” the swordswoman said urgently. “There will be more.”
The man looked down at his companion, then to Martha with big brown puppy eyes. “Lady, I really hope you’re on our side.”
So do I, Martha thought as she finally holstered her gun. “If that side’s ‘stop those black smoke things from killing people’, then yeah.” She approached them, extending her hand. “Martha Jones.”
The man shook her hand firmly. “Sam Winchester.”
Part Five
Sam would have loved this thing.
Dean sat on the floor next to the unconscious Donna Temple-Noble on the floor of a blue box that was way too big on the inside, and he thought of another red haired woman who’d once been so much more than human, and how badly returning to that state had fucked up her life. It was better than thinking of Sam, and how much he would have been geeking out. Donna hadn’t woken up yet, and according to the Doctor (“Just the Doctor,“ the geek had said when Dean had asked), she was going to stay drooling on Dean‘s flannel shirt, which had been repurposed as a pillow, because if she did wake up her head would explode. Castiel hadn’t been happy to hear that, and Dean could guess why.
Anything that Raphael could use against Cas, Cas could use against Raphael.
Only… exploding heads. Bad in a way that ranked right there with melting eyes out of heads, as far as Dean was concerned. Cas knew that, respected that, unlike that dick Raphael.
That, and there was the Doctor, who looked like the kind of son of a bitch who would start a fucking Apocalypse for someone he loved. Dean knew the type, and he was willing to bet he’d give any angel a hell of a fight.
Dean preferred to think about potential apocalypses than think about how he was going to explain what had happened to Lisa.
Cas and the Doctor had secluded themselves away from everyone else, talking in low voices that ceased whenever anyone got too close.
The angel was being a secretive bastard again. Dean didn’t like that.
The pretty red head sat down next to Dean and smiled, locking her arms around her legs as she glanced briefly at Donna. “So, you got any idea what’s going on?” she asked with one of those cute British accents that probably made guys buy her drinks the moment she opened her mouth. “Cause I’m a little lost.”
Dean smiled back -- hey, a pretty girl smiles at him, he was gonna smile back. It was the Dean Winchester way. “Well, the story I got was that my buddy over there was rescuing Sleeping Beauty from being used the restart the Apocalypse. You?”
“Old friend of the Doctor’s got snatched, time for us to ride to the rescue.” She extended a hand to Dean. “Amy Pond.”
Dean raised the proffered hand to his lips with an exaggerated eyebrow wiggle, kissing the knuckles. “Dean Winchester.”
“Rory Williams,” the gawky man lingering by the consol said, briefly taking his eyes off Castiel and the Doctor to look at Dean. “Her husband.” There was nothing angry in his tone, just a ‘just so you know’ kind of voice, like he had to do this a lot. Amy smiled and shrugged in a ‘yeah, what can you do?’ way, turning a little so that she could more easily look at Donna, smoothing the older woman‘s hair back.
“Wouldn’t she be more comfortable in a bed?” Amy asked, raising her voice enough that there was no way either the Doctor or Castiel could possibly miss it.
“I’d prefer Donna stay where I can see her, Amelia.”
All the accents, it was like being in one of those British TV shows Lisa liked.
Amy looked shocked, gaping at the Doctor as he returned to his hushed conversation with Castiel.
“I don’t like this,” Rory said. He stood surprisingly still, the way John Winchester used to sometimes. At first glance, Dean wouldn’t have begged Rory for any kind of soldier, but this was shaping up to be a day fill of surprises. And hell, Dean had seen guy hold off an angel not an hour ago.
“Your friend always like this?” Amy asked.
“Is yours?”
“No!” Now Amy was being defensive, which told Dean a lot.
“Sometimes,” Rory said at the same time, which told Dean even more.
***
The Doctor didn’t even try to be anything but when he spoke to Castiel. “I wasn’t aware that your kind was in the business of making deals.”
Castiel met the Time Lord’s eyes, uncowed by his anger and decidedly unimpressed. “I’m trying to stop the Apocalypse from being restarted by Raphael, who will be perfectly happy to chase Donna to the ends of the universe in order to get her. If you would rather not help, feel free to drop us off. Sioux Falls, if you don’t mind.” Castiel turned away from the Doctor, mentally ticking off the seconds. He was at three when the Doctor spoke again.
“You’re sure this wall of yours will hold?”
Castiel had rarely had cause to deal with the Time Lords of Gallifrey, and when he had, he’d found them arrogant to the point of being unbearable. He’d never heard one sound desperate before. “I am. The Time Lord part would remain sealed, but she would be able to remember the rest of what you tucked away. And she will be better able to protect herself if she is not unconscious.”
“I’d be taking away the life she has now,” the Doctor pointed out sadly. “How could she go back, knowing what’s out there?”
“Very easily,” Castiel said, watching Dean out of the corner of his eye, “if that’s what she wants.”
“I want her to be happy,” the Doctor sighed.
“I know.”
That got a knowing smile out of the Doctor, eyes flickering for a moment to Dean. “Ah.” Castiel’s jaw clenched, but the Doctor said nothing further on the subject of Dean Winchester. The Doctor made a noise that could only be made by something unbearably old, and he nodded. “Alright.”
“She’s probably going to slap you when she wakes up,” Castiel noted.
“Oh yes.”
***
Donna Temple-Noble woke up on an unfamiliar floor, looking up at a face that she was getting to know a little too well. “Scruffy,” she growled.
He backed away, just enough to be outside of her reach, like he was fully expecting her to slap him. “Hello, Donna.”
Castiel was edged out of Donna’s line of sight by a gangly young man with floppy brown hair that fell in his face even after he pushed it out of the way. Unlike the angel, no one had stolen this man’s razor In fact, it looked like when he’d finished with his chin, he’d gone after his eyebrows. The new man looked scared and worried and maybe just a little bit hopeful, like a puppy hoping for a treat but expecting a kick. Donna didn’t know the face, but she knew those eyes, so sad and lonely and old. “Doctor,” she said, feeling like the breath was being driven out of her.
“Hello, Donna.” The Doctor smiled sadly as he helped Donna sit up. The world spun dangerously for a moment as Donna reoriented herself, both the change of position and the changes within her own head. Memories crashed together like the sea against a rocky coastline -- like that moon that was all oceans except for a few mountains thrusting out like islands, she thought -- confusing and disorienting and utterly world changing. The Doctor’s had rested lightly on the middle of her back, steadying her.
“You redecorated,” Donna murmured, looking around the TARDIS consol room. She ignored everyone and everything but the Doctor. There was time for scruffy angels and their pretty boys, and new ginger girls and men with impressive noses later. She grabbed hold of the Doctor and pulled him in to a crushing hug. “God, you’re still skinny! Don’t you eat?” Donna thrust the Doctor back to arm’s length, giving him a shake and ignoring his murmured ‘Still not ginger, either’. “I should strangle you with that stupid bow tie!”
Donna was aware of tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. “Bow ties are cool,” the Doctor protested weakly.
Donna sniffled. “No, Skinny, they aren’t.”
“It’ll grow on you,” the young red head told Donna, drawing her attention.
“This the new model, then?” Donna asked with mock anger. The Doctor still flinched.
“As if anyone could replace you,” he said gently, cupping Donna’s face in his hands.
Castiel cleared his throat pointedly, earning himself a death glare from Donna as she blinked back her tears. “Shove it, Scruffy, we’re trying to have a moment, here!”
***
Hell was not a truly physical place. Much like Heaven, it was perceived through the lenses of the souls that filled it, and each soul saw it differently. This was true even of the demons. For all their power, they were still small, limited things. This was one of Nathaniel’s three advantages.
The second was that, as angels went, Nathaniel was a small thing -- a cherubim, considered little better than the Cupids who shared her rank. Thus, she was easily missed in the face of greater powers. While her more impressive Seraph brothers rattled their swords and made a fuss elsewhere, Nathaniel was able to move about relatively unmolested through Hell. She hardly even needed to suppress her Grace.
Nathaniel’s third advantage was that she knew exactly where she was going. The last time angels had come to Hell, in search of the Righteous Man, it had taken a whole garrison years just to find Dean Winchester, fighting off demons all the while. But there was only one place Sam Winchester could be.
The Cage.
One could argue that the whole of Hell was meant to be Lucifer’s cage, but The Cage was something special, made to contain the overwhelming power of archangels. Inside, Michael and Lucifer were locked in combat, making the Cage easily found. And while they fought, neither Michael nor Lucifer would be bothered to notice a lowly Cherubim.
The Cage was not unguarded, even with everyone else rushing to deal with the angels storming the gates. Crowley had chosen carefully when he’d stepped up to fill the power vacuum left by Lucifer’s imprisonment; demons loyal to their own best interests, who enjoyed their new place in Hell’s hierarchy. But the demons were blinded and deafened by the battle of the archangels. What was Nathaniel in the wake of that? It was like trying to see the light from a torch at high noon. Nathaniel’s second advantage at play again, also letting her slip past the bars of the Cage. It was a construct that was as much an idea as a physical cage, never meant to hold something as inconsequential as a cherubim. Or a human.
Please, Father, let me take him and go.
Nathaniel couldn’t help but be in awe of her brothers as they battled. Michael was as magnificent as a storm sweeping across the grassy plains, and even fallen, Lucifer was the most beautiful of the angels.
Caught between the warring brothers were two small beings, their vessels. The sons of John Winchester.
Nathaniel paid Adam no mind. Dean Winchester would not give up Donna for the sake of a half brother who was a near stranger. But for Sam, he’d slit the woman’s throat, if that’s what was called for.
For once, the universe seemed to be working in Nathaniel’s favor; Lucifer remained too distracted by Michael to notice as Nathaniel cut Sam free. She did not count on her luck holding much longer, so the moment Sam was free, she took hold of the human and fled as fast as her wings could carry her. No longer bothering to suppress her Grace, Nathaniel burned a path out of Hell. It would be centuries before the demons would be able to put the angelic fires out.
In the Cage, Lucifer roared.
In the corner of Hell Crowley had claimed for his “office”, the new King of Hell watched his Hell burn, and he seethed.
“Find them,” he said. “Bring them to me. Whole enough to answer questions, but anything else is negotiable.”
***
The sky Sam Winchester opened his eyes to see was a startling blue, with only a few wispy white clouds drifting aimlessly across. He inhaled sharply, lungs filling with crisp, clean air for the first time in months. A face filled Sam’s field of vision, a plump young woman with brown hair and eyes. “Please be sane.”
“Wha-?” Sam struggled to sit up, and the woman knelt on the ground beside him.
“I have just gone through a great deal, you see, to bring you here. It would be very bad if you did not have your wits about you.”
Sam looked around as the woman babbled. He knew where he was -- Stull Cemetery. They were in the center of a circle of flattened dead grass and knocked over headstones. The air was warm, but there was a sharp hint to it that spoke of coming autumn. There was no one there except Sam and the woman.
“Where’s Dean?”
“Ah.” The woman frowned. “I don’t know.” She fiddled with the buttons of dark, slightly too large suit jacket, which Sam realized was actually smoldering in places. “That is partly why you are here now. He needs help, and I cannot find him.”
She sat too still, her gaze was too intense and unblinking. Sam knew what that meant, and a part of him was pleased that he was still able to put things together so easily. “You’re an angel,” he said, and the woman nodded.
“Nathaniel.” The angel rose to her feet, taking Sam’s hands and pulling him up with her. Sam towered over Nathaniel, but her angelic strength was more than enough to haul him around. “We must go. We were followed, and they will send others to look for us.” Sam braced himself to be teleported away, but strangely, he remained in the cemetery with the sun beating down on his shoulders. He looked around, then down at the angel, still holding on to his hands.
“Oh no,” Nathaniel whispered, letting Sam’s hands go. She looked like hell, now that Sam was actually taking a good hard look at her, kind of like how Sam felt after a week long hunt with no sleep, or how Cas had looked towards the end, as his Grace had drained away and left him human. In the distance, Sam could hear the roar of car engines, racing closer with every second.
Sam knew he should be asking more questions. Before he’d thrown himself into Hell with Lucifer, Michael, and Adam along for the ride, the angels had been gunning for him and Dean, with only Castiel standing by their side--
--oh God, a snap of his fingers and Cas blew up like a water balloon full of soup just the way Chuck had described --
and now there was this Nathaniel, grabbing him by the arm and urging him to run. Sam knew there were demons coming for them; he could remember the screams of the damned as he was yanked free from the cage, wrathful and pained and part of the mad jumble of memories that threatened to overwhelm Sam.
A slap jerked Sam out of the rising memories, bringing him back to the here and now. Nathaniel had grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him down to her eye level, and Sam’s cheek stung. “Sam Winchester, we do not have time for this! We must go!”
Sam needed to ask questions; he knew that. But first, he needed to survive.
***
“Martha, I’ve got a location, outside of… Stull.” Mickey’s voice sounded clearly in Martha’s ear through the little headset. She turned the motorbike sharply, heading east and in the general direction of Lawrence, following the GPS co-ordinates Mickey rattled off. “Looks like it’s some kind of cemetery.”
Martha laughed softly. “Great. Anything interesting there, Mickey?”
“Just the usual crap you hear about old cemeteries, according to Google. You okay going there by yourself?”
“Like I’ve got a lot of choice?” Martha sped up, racing down the highway. Mickey was laid up in the hotel room back in Topeka with a broken leg and cracked ribs from their last run in with the group they’d been tracking for the last two months.
Martha didn’t know what they were; when she and Mickey had started tracking them back in Cheddar, they’d been a bunch of middle aged prep school parents who had suddenly slaughtered their own children, then gone on a city wide rampage, demonstrating inexplicable strength and resistance to damage. The first time the duo had tried to stop the gang of murderous mums, half of them had vomited up black smoke and collapsed while the rest had fled. Only one of the women had still been alive, and she’d claimed to have been possessed by the devil before dying of absolutely massive internal injuries.
Martha and Mickey had been chasing the gang across two continents ever since, each run in leaving them more and more frustrated. Shoot them, stab them, catch them and tie them up, and they vomited up that black smoke, leaving Mickey and Martha with dead or dying people who didn’t know what had happened to them. And the next time they’d catch up with the gang, there would be a new face taking the place of the abandoned one. No matter what they did, these so-called demons always came out ahead. Not even UNIT’s resources put a stop to them.
Martha was ready to try giving the Doctor a call, much as she hated to admit it. She prided herself on being able to handle things without him, and she and Mickey really had managed just fine on their own until this, even with the constant shifting of their relationship. Friends to lovers and back to just friends, they’d managed to keep the monsters at bay.
“Stay safe, Martha.” Mickey’s tone was gentle, and tinged with worry.
“It’s just a little recon. They’ll never even know I’m there.”
“Oh God, babe, why’d you have to go and jinx it like that?”
Martha laughed again. “You know me, I like to live dangerously. That tracker still transmitting?”
“Loud and clear. And your tracker tells me you’re almost there.” Martha could hear Mickey moving about on his end, probably trying to shift his cast encased leg into a more comfortable position.
Martha could see one of the cars her quarry had stolen for their cross country murder spree… mostly because it was on fire. It had been crashed through the chain link fence someone had put up in an effort to ward off trespassers and driven deeper in, along with the van Mickey and Martha had managed to get a tracker on to and a little sports car that was also burning merrily. As Martha drove closer, she saw that her merry band of mayhem makers had surrounded a pair of people, a woman in a poorly tailored dark suit and a much taller man in flannel and jeans standing back to back within a ring of flaming grass. Martha could just make out the man shouting in what she realized was Latin as she tore off her helmet. The woman had a long silver sword in her hands, and she held it like she knew how to use it.
Martha drew her gun, training it on a young Asian man who had been a pre-school teacher before joining the band of killers. Beside the man in her sights, an old woman who’d poisoned the food being served at a community center’s grand opening screamed, an all too familiar cloud of black smoke erupting from her mouth. Martha expected the cloud to streak off into the sky like she’d seen dozens of times before. Instead, the cloud itself seemed to shriek as it was drawn down into the ground.
“Crowley only needs them alive, for fuck’s sake! It’s goddamn amazing what humans can live through!”
“There’s no need for that kind of language,” one of the others said chidingly.
Martha didn’t wait; she fired in to the Asian man, who was knocked off his feet, drawing the attention of the rest of the group to her. The former teacher sat up, smiling an awful, blood filled smile as he brushed at the holes that now filled his shirt, leaking blood. “Oh look. Someone we can kill. Boys, Christmas has c-” He never got to finish; Martha put a bullet between his eyes, and he collapsed again in a cloud of black smoke.
The woman with the silver sword moved fast, cutting the head off one of the circle of attackers in one smooth stroke, breaking the knee of another with a well placed kick that sent him to the ground with a sickening crunch of cartilage just before having the sword driven through his head. The tall man (and, Martha noted as she got closer, he was tall, close to two meters) continued to chant in Latin as he guarded the swordswoman’s back. The fire, as if alive, kept flaring up in the dead grass between the man and anyone who tried to attack him, catching one woman on fire just before Martha shot her, too.
When Martha looked back on it all later, she realized the whole fight only lasted a few minutes. Between the woman with the sword, Martha, and the chanting man, they made quick work of the monsters that had been plaguing Martha for months.
The swordswoman staggered, and her companion put a steadying arm around her shoulders, both of them watching Martha warily, just as Martha watched them. Slowly, Martha lowered her gun without putting it away; Mickey would have pitched a minor fit over her lowering the gun at all after all they’d been through, but for all the swordswoman’s speed, she looked like she was about to fall over, and the man was unarmed and far enough away that she could shoot him long before he could get close enough to use his size to his advantage.
“We need to go,” the swordswoman said urgently. “There will be more.”
The man looked down at his companion, then to Martha with big brown puppy eyes. “Lady, I really hope you’re on our side.”
So do I, Martha thought as she finally holstered her gun. “If that side’s ‘stop those black smoke things from killing people’, then yeah.” She approached them, extending her hand. “Martha Jones.”
The man shook her hand firmly. “Sam Winchester.”
Part Five