But Not Forgotten: Part Five
Part Five
“I,” Mickey said, “have seen a lot of weird things in my life. Which is the only reason I’m not calling the nice young men in the clean white coats, understand?”
Sam stretched his legs out in front of him, nodding in acknowledgment of the truth of the other man’s words. Despite Nathaniel’s insistence that they needed to leave, Sam, the angel, and Martha had been forced to wade through two more waves of demons before Martha’s partner had arrived with a van. Sam blessed the fact that everyone was too tired to do more than climb in, saving him from having to explain anything until they reached the outskirts of Topeka.
Then Martha had started asking him about demons, and it all started to spill out. Sam managed to keep to generalities about demons and angels until they got to the hotel; at that point he’d actually started repeating himself a bit, losing his train of thought out of sheer exhaustion. Mickey and Martha were set up in a nice hotel, the kind Sam hadn’t made use of until he’s started going to Stanford, and hadn’t seen the inside of since he’d gone back on the road with Dean. Sam had half collapsed on one of the beds while the others had spread out around the room, Nathaniel perching by the window while Mickey and Martha took the table.
“You do not believe,” Nathaniel said, sounding almost heartbroken.
Mickey drummed his fingers on his cast as Martha cracked open a can of soda and looked anywhere but at the angel. Sam had a horrible feeling he knew what was about to happen, but he couldn’t see any way to really stop it. Hell, at the moment he wasn’t even sure his legs would support his weight if he tried to get up and come between the two.
“Well, I think you buy it,” Mickey said, completely unaware of the giant can of worms he was opening up.
“I am an angel.”
Sam had thought it better not the mention that. Clearly, Nathaniel felt otherwise.
Martha and Mickey wore nearly identical expressions of skepticism as both of them studied Nathaniel. Sam was the first to admit that she wasn’t impressive looking, especially not in her burned and dirty suit. She looked like some college freshman who’d been bullied into someone else’s clothes for a job interview and had managed to run through a burning building along the way. Even Castiel had managed a kind of majesty most of the time, that certain aura hung about all the other angels Sam had met like a cloak. Nathaniel just looked annoyed and tired.
“So that means you’re wearing someone else’s body?” Mickey asked. “Like those things we’ve been chasing all over the world?” He gave Martha a pointed look before glancing back to Nathaniel.
The angel shifted her weight slightly. “My vessel gave her consent,” she said coldly.
Martha looked from Mickey, who continued to look skeptical, to Sam, who could do nothing but nod. “That’s how they work,” he said, his heart twisting at the memory of Jimmy Novak. The girl Nathaniel had taken the body of probably had no clue what she was really letting herself in for when she said yes. “And she is.”
“Prove it,” Mickey challenged.
Sam winced.
Nathaniel rose from her perch, approaching Mickey with a dark expression and leaning in close. “I,” Nathaniel said, her tone still chilly, “do not need to prove myself to you. You may believe whatever you wish.” She returned to her perch with a little flounce, staring pointedly out the window as Mickey cleared his throat, sitting up a little straighter, and Sam let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“What were you two doing in that cemetery, anyway?” Martha asked. “Why are the demons after you?”
Sam licked his lips. “That’s a long story.”
“I pulled Sam out of Hell,” Nathaniel said, proving Sam wrong. Martha took a long pull from her soda, and Mickey pulled a face.
“You resurrected him?” Mickey asked incredulously.
Nathaniel shook her head. “Resurrection is beyond my powers. But as Sam was alive when he went in to the Pit, I was able to bring him back out.” An almost-smile twitched across her face when she turned away from the window to look at Sam. He managed a weak smile in return.
Mickey and Martha were starting to look at them both like they were crazy. Of course, Sam knew how crazy it sounded to someone who hadn’t lived it. Hell, it sounded pretty damn crazy to him, and he had lived it. Sam tried to come up with something to say that would break the tension. Before his swan dive into the Pit, he would have been able to come up with something clever to put their minds at ease. But now his brain felt so scrambled, with nothing to distract him from the memories of Hell. And he still had no idea what had happened to Dean, or how much trouble his brother was in this time, where he even was. He couldn’t even grill the angel about what had happened, not in front of Mickey and Martha.
“You would think,” Nathaniel sniffed, “that someone who had spent time in an alternate reality would be a bit more open minded. The universe is infinite in it’s miracles.”
Silence ruled the room, broken by Mickey after a few moments. “Okay, you can read minds. Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Martha chuckled. “Careful, she might decide to smite you after all.”
“This is ridiculous,” Nathaniel muttered, looking to Sam again. “I know that you would prefer your privacy in this matter but I am…” she looked down at her ruined suit, “diminished, you are recovering, and they are the only help we are going to find.” Nathaniel did her best to straighten her jacket, only to have the hem rip in her hands. “Sam and his brother Dean were central in stopping Lucifer and the archangel Michael from ending the world four months ago. Since then, the angels have split into two factions. The followers of the Archangel Raphael wish to get the Apocalypse back on track. The followers of Castiel do not.”
“But I saw Cas die,” Sam said, straightening up. “I- Lucifer killed him.”
“He was restored -- no one actually knows how. Please do not interrupt, I am trying to explain.” Nathaniel unbuttoned her jacket, inspecting it critically. “Raphael has found something he can use, and Dean has become involved, putting him in far more danger than he realizes. Already Raphael’s forces hunt for him, and this time they have no reason to keep him alive when they catch him. I cannot find him, but you, Sam, you know him better than anyone. You know where he would go.” She turned to Martha and Mickey. “As for you… you will help us because the demons are just as interested in these events, and they will be hunting us. You wish to put an end to them, and I can think of no better way to get them than to travel with the people they wish to find most. Until we can find Dean, Sam and I will make for excellent bait. Also, you might want to learn how to actually stop them, rather than just slowing them down a little.” Nathaniel seemed pleased by this little bit of logic, judging by her little smile as the jacket in her hands restored itself to pristine condition.
“What are you getting out of this?” Martha asked. “Why don’t you just get the other angels to help you?”
“If I sent out a call for aid, the other side would also hear me, and they would find us. They would not hesitate to kill us all in the name of their cause.” Nathaniel folded her jacket up. “My brothers and sisters are killing each other because of Raphael’s war with Castiel, and I want it to stop. If I can find Dean, I can get the weapon into the right hands, and it can all finally be over.” She swept her hands over the singed shirt she wore, returning it to pristine white. “Together, you once stopped the Apocalypse. Reunited, you will stop this war, too.”
Sam’s guts twisted like he was about to be sick. “Dean was supposed to get out of this,” he mumbled, resting his head in his hands. The whole world seemed to tilt ominously, fading into darkness. Sam was dimly aware of Martha calling his name, and of Mickey cursing somewhere in the distance.
“Oh. This may be more difficult than I first thought.” Sam heard Nathaniel say before the darkness swallowed him up completely.
***
Donna grabbed Dean by the arm, pulling him along with her. “If I have to smell smoke much longer, I’m gonna be sick!” she announced. “C’mon, Pretty Boy.”
“You keep this up, Red, and I’m gonna forget that you’re a lady.”
Donna just snorted, pulling Dean out into a seemingly endless hallway. She lead Dean unerringly through a series of twists and turned, finally pushing open a door and marching inside, Dean still in tow.
Dean had to stop then, marveling at the sheer size of the room in spite of himself. He was in what was probably the universe’s largest closet, and it was filled to bursting with every kind of clothing, most of it impossibly tacky. “I’m sure there’s some flannel somewhere about,” Donna said, diving right in to the racks of clothing and grinning at Dean over her shoulder.
“You’re a real laugh riot, Red.” Dean strode across the closet floor and started hunting through the racks for something he wouldn’t shoot himself for wearing. “Who the hell needs all this crap?“
“People tend to build up clutter when they have a place to store it.” Donna help up a green t-shirt, eyeing it critically before she threw it at Dean’s head. “That’ll bring out your eyes, Pretty Boy.”
Dean pulled the shirt off his head, laying it over his shoulders in case he couldn't find anything he actually liked. "I don't build up clutter," he murmured, holding a pink and yellow plaid shirt at arms length. "I need a lighter, this needs to die."
"Well of course not. That wasn't your home," Donna said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Dean let the unholy pink flannel shirt drop, eyes narrowed as he looked at Donna. She met his gaze with a challenging expression, as if daring him to say she was wrong as she held a lavender tunic against her chest to see if it was close to the right size. Dean wanted to tell Donna she was wrong, or at least come up with an explanation for why he'd never put much of a stamp on the house he had shared with Lisa.
Instead, he looked away, digging back into the racks of clothes until he found a pair of jeans that looked like they were about his size.
"I think you two are gonna get on famously," Donna went on. "He never stops running either."
***
Martha pressed an open bottle of water into Sam’s hands, helping him sit up. “When’s the last time you ate something?” she asked. Sam started to answer, then stopped, drinking from the bottle to cover his pause.
“Four months,” Nathaniel supplied helpfully. “Not taking in to account that time moves differently in the Pit.”
“Mickey’s getting food,” the Englishwoman said, thankfully not asking any questions about it. “Until then…” she handed him an energy bar. “You scared your friend over there for a minute,” Martha said with a little smile.
“I thought you were reliving Hell memories. Praise be to Father, humans have astounding abilities to ignore things their minds were not meant to handle,” the angel said brightly.
Sam smiled weakly. “Uh, thanks Nathie.”
The angel looked puzzled as Sam slowly chewed his way through the energy bar. “‘Nathie’?”
“I can’t really go around calling you ‘Nathaniel’,” Sam explained around a mouthful of peanuts and whatever they’d used to glue them together. “It’s a guy’s name. It‘s kinda weird. Besides, you don‘t really look like a Nathaniel.”
“It’s my name.” Nathaniel’s expression remained puzzled as she cocked her head to one side.
“‘Nathaniel’ is a bit of a mouthful,” Martha mused. “But I don’t think ‘Nathie’ would be better.”
“I don’t like ‘Nathie’,” Nathaniel agreed, the name rolling off her tongue as if it tasted bad.
Sam pursed his lips and frowned thoughtfully while Martha stifled a giggle with her hand. “Nath?” he suggested. “Nat?” He snapped his fingers and grinned. “Natalie!”
“My name is Nathaniel.” Suddenly, the room seemed much warmer, and the angel much larger. “It means Gift of God. It was given to me by Father on the moment of my creation.” Nathaniel never raised her voice. She didn‘t need to. “When you are addressing me, you will call me Nathaniel, and nothing else. Am I clear?” Sam shifted uncomfortably on the bed as beside him, Martha’s body language went from relaxed to wary. It was, Sam thought, like dealing with Cas in the early days.
Nathaniel, clearly satisfied that she had made her point, returned to looking out the window as she… the only way Sam could describe it was ‘deflated’. It wasn’t really what happened, but there was no other way to explain it. One moment, Nathaniel was something large and magnificent, the next she was small and ordinary and unremarkable.
“Why’d Mickey go get the food?” Sam asked, his voice dropping to a near whisper in spite of himself; he knew Nathaniel could still hear him. Dean would have said something about scary nerd angels, but Dean was only God knew where. Only Sam’s faith in his brother’s ability to take care of himself was keeping Sam from leaving right then. Running in half cocked would only get them both killed.
“Because I think Nathaniel was about to smite him,” Martha whispered back.
***
Castiel watched as Dean paced around the control room, sniping back and forth with Donna. The Doctor folded up his long limbs and settled next to Castiel, smiling that far too knowing smile. “Reunions are nice,” he said casually. Castiel said nothing, so the Doctor, in the way of all things mortal, felt the need to fill the silence with chatter. “I’d have thought you wouldn’t let Dean out of your sight. You lot were always very protective of what you claimed.”
Castiel was tempted to glare at the Time Lord, but decided that he wasn’t going to give the man the satisfaction. Still, anyone else seeing the expression on Castiel’s face would have dropped the subject. Not the Doctor. “He must be something special. But they all are, aren’t they?” His expression turned wistful as Donna accused Dean of being a pig, and he responded with oinking noises.
Castiel watched the Doctor out of the corner of his eye. “As soon as this is over,” the angel said firmly, “Dean is going back to his life.” There it was again, that damn knowing smile. “We have a battle to plan, Doctor.”
The smile stayed in place. “Of course.”
***
“He’s taking too long,” Nathaniel said, giving voice to the thought that had been running through everyone’s minds.
Neither Sam nor Martha protested that Mickey might be taking so long because of his broken leg. There was something in the air, and both the humans were too smart and too paranoid not to notice.
“You feeling up to looking for Mickey, Nathaniel?” Sam asked, getting to his feet. Martha was already arming herself when the knocking started. Two knocks. A pause. Seven knocks. Another pause. One knock. Martha started to relax, reaching for the door handle, but Nathaniel caught her by the hand, and Sam shook his head. The knocks repeated in the same sequence, the one Mickey and Martha had agreed on before he’d left. Sam backed away from the door, peeking out the window that opened onto the fire escape. The parking lot below was full of people, and there was no logical reason for it. Only a horrifying one. “Dammit,” Sam muttered.
“We can’t leave Mickey,” Martha stated, the look on her face making it clear she was expecting a fight from them.
“They’ll have taken him,” Nathaniel told her. “What’s on the other side of the door may look like him, but it’s just his flesh being used.”
“But he’s still in there, right?” Martha asked, snatching up a tranq gun. She knew they’d have to abandon most of the gear in the room; God willing, they’d be able to get to the van and everything that was there. She’d hate to lose the bike and the gear in the van; it’d be nearly impossible to get replacements from UNIT or Torchwood. Even she could get only so much from them when she was freelance. But Mickey was even less replaceable. “I’m not going to just leave him.”
“If we can get him, we can exorcize him,” Sam agreed.
“Fine. Good. But we need to go,” Nathaniel said sharply, going to the window. “Grab him if you can. I’ll clear us a path.” She threw open the window and jumped out, letting out a noise that made the glass shatter as the demons on the other side of the door started breaking it down.
***
"Do you want some pointers with that?"
Dean stopped in mid thrust, the angel blade threatening to slip out of his grip again. Donna had abandoned him in the practice room after he'd growled at her the second time Dean had dropped the sword while trying to slice off the practice dummy's head. It was just that Dean was used to way more hacking, like with a machete or an axe. The angel blade was made for stabbing and precision strikes instead of just plowing through whatever was in the way. Dean didn't know how Cas made it look so damn easy.
And now, somehow, Rory had managed to sneak up on Dean. The damn sword dropped out of Dean's fingers again as he turned towards the scrawny man, and he swore, scooping the weapon back up. "I got it."
He caught Rory's skeptical expression in the mirrors that liked the room, but Dean ignored it and turned back to the gently mauled practice dummy. Dean had no idea why this crazy place had a mirror lined room full of beat up dummies, but it made about as much sense as having a closet the size of Lisa's house, so he just went with it. He figured it was kinda like the angels' green room; there because something wanted it there.
“You’re more likely to hurt yourself with that than to hurt anyone else,” Rory pointed out helpfully.”
“I could show you how much damage I could do to someone else,” Dean growled under his breath.
“You could try.”
Okay, that was it. Dean turned away from the practice dummy and towards the dumb, skinny bastard, his wiser instincts screaming at him to stop. “Yeah?” he challenged, smirking.
Turned out, the scrawny English guy was fast. Not supernaturally fast, but still pretty damn quick. The fight lasted all of ten seconds, during which Dean managed to clock Rory in the face, and Rory managed to snatch the sword out of Dean’s hand and embed it in the practice dummy’s ‘heart’. It vibrated slightly from the force of the impact, making a noise like a wet finger being run over crystal.
“Jesus Christ, man! What are you, some kind of super-soldier from the future?”
Rory rubbed his jaw, probing for lose teeth with his tongue. “I’m a nurse, actually.”
“Space nurse?” Dean asked hopefully.
“From Leadworth.” Rory smiled thinly. “In the southwest part of England. Now, about the sword…”
***
“It’s not Mickey. Remember that,” Sam whispered to Martha, running his thumb over the rosary Nathaniel had procured when she’d gotten the holy water and salt. At least the angel was recovering her strength; it had only taken her a few seconds to get Sam everything he needed, and it’d taken her less time to slaughter a parking lot full of demons than it’d taken Sam and Martha to subdue the demon riding Mickey and the demons he’d brought along with him. The angel had attributed her swift victory to ‘An Ode to the Dawn’.
All Sam really knew was that he’d stepped in exploded head bits while carrying Mickey’s unconscious body across the parking lot.
“Martha?” the demon whimpered with Mickey’s voice. “Martha, baby, don’t listen to him! You know me!”
“Should have left the gag in,” Nathaniel said from her perch. The demon struggled against the duct tape binding him to the chair. Not that getting free of the chair would have done him much good -- they’d put the chair in the middle of a Devil’s Trap.
“He was choking on the gag!” Martha snapped at the angel.
“You could drug him again,” Nathaniel suggested.
“He’d overdose.”
“Martha, please! You saw what these psychos did to those people, they’ll do the same thing to me! Look, look, remember the Medusa Cascade, we helped defeat the Daleks! We flew the Earth back into place with the TARDIS, you and me and Rose and Donna and two of those daft Doctor. Rose’s mum Jackie was there and the Doctor wouldn’t let her near the consol, remember? And Jack, oh Christ, Jack Harkness, he-!”
Sam threw holy water on the demon, making him shriek like he’d been doused with boiling water. Mickey’s eyes turned black, and he hissed, “This is why no one stays, Martha! Not the Doctor, not your Tom, not me! Because you hurt them until they can’t stand the sight of you any more! He’ll leave too, Martha, just like everyone else! You’ll end up sad and alone, just like that shrill old whore you call a mother!”
That firmed Martha’s resolve, and she picked up the bible Nathaniel had brought with her. “Teach me how to do this.”
Sam smiled grimly. “Watch and learn.”
***
Amy grinned, swinging her legs back and forth like a schoolgirl as Donna passed the popcorn to her. “That’s my husband,” she said proudly as Rory knocked the sword out of Dean’s hand again.
“Nicely done,” Donna commented.
“Want one?” Amy asked teasingly.
Donna laughed, stealing some of the popcorn back. “My Shaun may not be a super soldier, but I wouldn’t trade him for anything.” She smiled fondly. “Major upgrade from the first time. That one was just using me for an evil spider woman.” She popped a few kernels into her mouth. “Lucky for me the stuff he was putting in my coffee made me pop up right in the TARDIS.”
Amy rested her chin on her hand, turning towards Donna. “The look on the Doctor’s face must have been priceless,” she giggled.
“Well, he looked a lot less goofy then, more eyebrows and a bit less chin, but oh yeah. There I was, kitted out in my wedding dress and mad enough to spit nails-”
“Your wedding dress?” Amy laughed. “He didn’t-!”
“On my wedding day,” Donna confirmed, shaking her head.
That got a sharp laugh from Rory as he disarmed Dean again. “I see this is something he makes a habit of,” the young man noted, handing the sword back to Dean.
“Twice isn’t a habit!” Amy protested.
“You too?” Donna asked sympathetically.
“Night before, actually, but twice still isn’t a habit.”
“How do you know it’s only been twice?” Dean asked. “Maybe there are more that he never told you about.”
“A whole room full of ginger brides,” Rory agreed. “Just waiting to be discovered, like a closet full of dolls.”
***
“Why didn’t you do that earlier?” Mickey demanded to know, shaking the remnants of his cast off his leg.
“I was weakened while rescuing Sam,” Nathaniel said primly, unrepentant. “Be glad I healed you at all.” She turned to Sam and Martha. “We must go. Your insistence on exorcizing the demon means there is now one in the Pit who knows exactly where we are.”
“We know, Nathaniel,” Sam groaned. “We’ll head south for now, then make for Bobby’s. Dean’ll probably be there, and if he’s not, at least we’ll be somewhere demon-proof.” He grimaced as Martha helped Mickey to the van, their heads close together. Physically, Mickey was pretty much at factory settings, but angelic healing wouldn’t wipe away the awful feeling that being possessed left behind, like you’d been permanently stained, and you‘d never be clean again. “It never ends, does it?” he muttered to himself.
To Sam’s surprise, Nathaniel grabbed his hand. “I promise you,” the angel said, gazing up at Sam with earnest brown eyes, “when you and your brother are reunited, you will be free to go. I will do everything in my power to see that you and Dean can go wherever you want, free of Heaven’s interference.”
Sam looked down at the tiny hands clasping his own, unsure of what to say. “Uh, thanks.”
“I mean it, Sam. I understand how badly you want the fighting to be over. When we find your brother, for you the battle is done.”
“You two coming or what?” Mickey yelled from the van.
As the hunter and the angel climbed into the van, Martha said, “First stop we make, I need to make a call.”
Part Six
“I,” Mickey said, “have seen a lot of weird things in my life. Which is the only reason I’m not calling the nice young men in the clean white coats, understand?”
Sam stretched his legs out in front of him, nodding in acknowledgment of the truth of the other man’s words. Despite Nathaniel’s insistence that they needed to leave, Sam, the angel, and Martha had been forced to wade through two more waves of demons before Martha’s partner had arrived with a van. Sam blessed the fact that everyone was too tired to do more than climb in, saving him from having to explain anything until they reached the outskirts of Topeka.
Then Martha had started asking him about demons, and it all started to spill out. Sam managed to keep to generalities about demons and angels until they got to the hotel; at that point he’d actually started repeating himself a bit, losing his train of thought out of sheer exhaustion. Mickey and Martha were set up in a nice hotel, the kind Sam hadn’t made use of until he’s started going to Stanford, and hadn’t seen the inside of since he’d gone back on the road with Dean. Sam had half collapsed on one of the beds while the others had spread out around the room, Nathaniel perching by the window while Mickey and Martha took the table.
“You do not believe,” Nathaniel said, sounding almost heartbroken.
Mickey drummed his fingers on his cast as Martha cracked open a can of soda and looked anywhere but at the angel. Sam had a horrible feeling he knew what was about to happen, but he couldn’t see any way to really stop it. Hell, at the moment he wasn’t even sure his legs would support his weight if he tried to get up and come between the two.
“Well, I think you buy it,” Mickey said, completely unaware of the giant can of worms he was opening up.
“I am an angel.”
Sam had thought it better not the mention that. Clearly, Nathaniel felt otherwise.
Martha and Mickey wore nearly identical expressions of skepticism as both of them studied Nathaniel. Sam was the first to admit that she wasn’t impressive looking, especially not in her burned and dirty suit. She looked like some college freshman who’d been bullied into someone else’s clothes for a job interview and had managed to run through a burning building along the way. Even Castiel had managed a kind of majesty most of the time, that certain aura hung about all the other angels Sam had met like a cloak. Nathaniel just looked annoyed and tired.
“So that means you’re wearing someone else’s body?” Mickey asked. “Like those things we’ve been chasing all over the world?” He gave Martha a pointed look before glancing back to Nathaniel.
The angel shifted her weight slightly. “My vessel gave her consent,” she said coldly.
Martha looked from Mickey, who continued to look skeptical, to Sam, who could do nothing but nod. “That’s how they work,” he said, his heart twisting at the memory of Jimmy Novak. The girl Nathaniel had taken the body of probably had no clue what she was really letting herself in for when she said yes. “And she is.”
“Prove it,” Mickey challenged.
Sam winced.
Nathaniel rose from her perch, approaching Mickey with a dark expression and leaning in close. “I,” Nathaniel said, her tone still chilly, “do not need to prove myself to you. You may believe whatever you wish.” She returned to her perch with a little flounce, staring pointedly out the window as Mickey cleared his throat, sitting up a little straighter, and Sam let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“What were you two doing in that cemetery, anyway?” Martha asked. “Why are the demons after you?”
Sam licked his lips. “That’s a long story.”
“I pulled Sam out of Hell,” Nathaniel said, proving Sam wrong. Martha took a long pull from her soda, and Mickey pulled a face.
“You resurrected him?” Mickey asked incredulously.
Nathaniel shook her head. “Resurrection is beyond my powers. But as Sam was alive when he went in to the Pit, I was able to bring him back out.” An almost-smile twitched across her face when she turned away from the window to look at Sam. He managed a weak smile in return.
Mickey and Martha were starting to look at them both like they were crazy. Of course, Sam knew how crazy it sounded to someone who hadn’t lived it. Hell, it sounded pretty damn crazy to him, and he had lived it. Sam tried to come up with something to say that would break the tension. Before his swan dive into the Pit, he would have been able to come up with something clever to put their minds at ease. But now his brain felt so scrambled, with nothing to distract him from the memories of Hell. And he still had no idea what had happened to Dean, or how much trouble his brother was in this time, where he even was. He couldn’t even grill the angel about what had happened, not in front of Mickey and Martha.
“You would think,” Nathaniel sniffed, “that someone who had spent time in an alternate reality would be a bit more open minded. The universe is infinite in it’s miracles.”
Silence ruled the room, broken by Mickey after a few moments. “Okay, you can read minds. Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Martha chuckled. “Careful, she might decide to smite you after all.”
“This is ridiculous,” Nathaniel muttered, looking to Sam again. “I know that you would prefer your privacy in this matter but I am…” she looked down at her ruined suit, “diminished, you are recovering, and they are the only help we are going to find.” Nathaniel did her best to straighten her jacket, only to have the hem rip in her hands. “Sam and his brother Dean were central in stopping Lucifer and the archangel Michael from ending the world four months ago. Since then, the angels have split into two factions. The followers of the Archangel Raphael wish to get the Apocalypse back on track. The followers of Castiel do not.”
“But I saw Cas die,” Sam said, straightening up. “I- Lucifer killed him.”
“He was restored -- no one actually knows how. Please do not interrupt, I am trying to explain.” Nathaniel unbuttoned her jacket, inspecting it critically. “Raphael has found something he can use, and Dean has become involved, putting him in far more danger than he realizes. Already Raphael’s forces hunt for him, and this time they have no reason to keep him alive when they catch him. I cannot find him, but you, Sam, you know him better than anyone. You know where he would go.” She turned to Martha and Mickey. “As for you… you will help us because the demons are just as interested in these events, and they will be hunting us. You wish to put an end to them, and I can think of no better way to get them than to travel with the people they wish to find most. Until we can find Dean, Sam and I will make for excellent bait. Also, you might want to learn how to actually stop them, rather than just slowing them down a little.” Nathaniel seemed pleased by this little bit of logic, judging by her little smile as the jacket in her hands restored itself to pristine condition.
“What are you getting out of this?” Martha asked. “Why don’t you just get the other angels to help you?”
“If I sent out a call for aid, the other side would also hear me, and they would find us. They would not hesitate to kill us all in the name of their cause.” Nathaniel folded her jacket up. “My brothers and sisters are killing each other because of Raphael’s war with Castiel, and I want it to stop. If I can find Dean, I can get the weapon into the right hands, and it can all finally be over.” She swept her hands over the singed shirt she wore, returning it to pristine white. “Together, you once stopped the Apocalypse. Reunited, you will stop this war, too.”
Sam’s guts twisted like he was about to be sick. “Dean was supposed to get out of this,” he mumbled, resting his head in his hands. The whole world seemed to tilt ominously, fading into darkness. Sam was dimly aware of Martha calling his name, and of Mickey cursing somewhere in the distance.
“Oh. This may be more difficult than I first thought.” Sam heard Nathaniel say before the darkness swallowed him up completely.
***
Donna grabbed Dean by the arm, pulling him along with her. “If I have to smell smoke much longer, I’m gonna be sick!” she announced. “C’mon, Pretty Boy.”
“You keep this up, Red, and I’m gonna forget that you’re a lady.”
Donna just snorted, pulling Dean out into a seemingly endless hallway. She lead Dean unerringly through a series of twists and turned, finally pushing open a door and marching inside, Dean still in tow.
Dean had to stop then, marveling at the sheer size of the room in spite of himself. He was in what was probably the universe’s largest closet, and it was filled to bursting with every kind of clothing, most of it impossibly tacky. “I’m sure there’s some flannel somewhere about,” Donna said, diving right in to the racks of clothing and grinning at Dean over her shoulder.
“You’re a real laugh riot, Red.” Dean strode across the closet floor and started hunting through the racks for something he wouldn’t shoot himself for wearing. “Who the hell needs all this crap?“
“People tend to build up clutter when they have a place to store it.” Donna help up a green t-shirt, eyeing it critically before she threw it at Dean’s head. “That’ll bring out your eyes, Pretty Boy.”
Dean pulled the shirt off his head, laying it over his shoulders in case he couldn't find anything he actually liked. "I don't build up clutter," he murmured, holding a pink and yellow plaid shirt at arms length. "I need a lighter, this needs to die."
"Well of course not. That wasn't your home," Donna said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Dean let the unholy pink flannel shirt drop, eyes narrowed as he looked at Donna. She met his gaze with a challenging expression, as if daring him to say she was wrong as she held a lavender tunic against her chest to see if it was close to the right size. Dean wanted to tell Donna she was wrong, or at least come up with an explanation for why he'd never put much of a stamp on the house he had shared with Lisa.
Instead, he looked away, digging back into the racks of clothes until he found a pair of jeans that looked like they were about his size.
"I think you two are gonna get on famously," Donna went on. "He never stops running either."
***
Martha pressed an open bottle of water into Sam’s hands, helping him sit up. “When’s the last time you ate something?” she asked. Sam started to answer, then stopped, drinking from the bottle to cover his pause.
“Four months,” Nathaniel supplied helpfully. “Not taking in to account that time moves differently in the Pit.”
“Mickey’s getting food,” the Englishwoman said, thankfully not asking any questions about it. “Until then…” she handed him an energy bar. “You scared your friend over there for a minute,” Martha said with a little smile.
“I thought you were reliving Hell memories. Praise be to Father, humans have astounding abilities to ignore things their minds were not meant to handle,” the angel said brightly.
Sam smiled weakly. “Uh, thanks Nathie.”
The angel looked puzzled as Sam slowly chewed his way through the energy bar. “‘Nathie’?”
“I can’t really go around calling you ‘Nathaniel’,” Sam explained around a mouthful of peanuts and whatever they’d used to glue them together. “It’s a guy’s name. It‘s kinda weird. Besides, you don‘t really look like a Nathaniel.”
“It’s my name.” Nathaniel’s expression remained puzzled as she cocked her head to one side.
“‘Nathaniel’ is a bit of a mouthful,” Martha mused. “But I don’t think ‘Nathie’ would be better.”
“I don’t like ‘Nathie’,” Nathaniel agreed, the name rolling off her tongue as if it tasted bad.
Sam pursed his lips and frowned thoughtfully while Martha stifled a giggle with her hand. “Nath?” he suggested. “Nat?” He snapped his fingers and grinned. “Natalie!”
“My name is Nathaniel.” Suddenly, the room seemed much warmer, and the angel much larger. “It means Gift of God. It was given to me by Father on the moment of my creation.” Nathaniel never raised her voice. She didn‘t need to. “When you are addressing me, you will call me Nathaniel, and nothing else. Am I clear?” Sam shifted uncomfortably on the bed as beside him, Martha’s body language went from relaxed to wary. It was, Sam thought, like dealing with Cas in the early days.
Nathaniel, clearly satisfied that she had made her point, returned to looking out the window as she… the only way Sam could describe it was ‘deflated’. It wasn’t really what happened, but there was no other way to explain it. One moment, Nathaniel was something large and magnificent, the next she was small and ordinary and unremarkable.
“Why’d Mickey go get the food?” Sam asked, his voice dropping to a near whisper in spite of himself; he knew Nathaniel could still hear him. Dean would have said something about scary nerd angels, but Dean was only God knew where. Only Sam’s faith in his brother’s ability to take care of himself was keeping Sam from leaving right then. Running in half cocked would only get them both killed.
“Because I think Nathaniel was about to smite him,” Martha whispered back.
***
Castiel watched as Dean paced around the control room, sniping back and forth with Donna. The Doctor folded up his long limbs and settled next to Castiel, smiling that far too knowing smile. “Reunions are nice,” he said casually. Castiel said nothing, so the Doctor, in the way of all things mortal, felt the need to fill the silence with chatter. “I’d have thought you wouldn’t let Dean out of your sight. You lot were always very protective of what you claimed.”
Castiel was tempted to glare at the Time Lord, but decided that he wasn’t going to give the man the satisfaction. Still, anyone else seeing the expression on Castiel’s face would have dropped the subject. Not the Doctor. “He must be something special. But they all are, aren’t they?” His expression turned wistful as Donna accused Dean of being a pig, and he responded with oinking noises.
Castiel watched the Doctor out of the corner of his eye. “As soon as this is over,” the angel said firmly, “Dean is going back to his life.” There it was again, that damn knowing smile. “We have a battle to plan, Doctor.”
The smile stayed in place. “Of course.”
***
“He’s taking too long,” Nathaniel said, giving voice to the thought that had been running through everyone’s minds.
Neither Sam nor Martha protested that Mickey might be taking so long because of his broken leg. There was something in the air, and both the humans were too smart and too paranoid not to notice.
“You feeling up to looking for Mickey, Nathaniel?” Sam asked, getting to his feet. Martha was already arming herself when the knocking started. Two knocks. A pause. Seven knocks. Another pause. One knock. Martha started to relax, reaching for the door handle, but Nathaniel caught her by the hand, and Sam shook his head. The knocks repeated in the same sequence, the one Mickey and Martha had agreed on before he’d left. Sam backed away from the door, peeking out the window that opened onto the fire escape. The parking lot below was full of people, and there was no logical reason for it. Only a horrifying one. “Dammit,” Sam muttered.
“We can’t leave Mickey,” Martha stated, the look on her face making it clear she was expecting a fight from them.
“They’ll have taken him,” Nathaniel told her. “What’s on the other side of the door may look like him, but it’s just his flesh being used.”
“But he’s still in there, right?” Martha asked, snatching up a tranq gun. She knew they’d have to abandon most of the gear in the room; God willing, they’d be able to get to the van and everything that was there. She’d hate to lose the bike and the gear in the van; it’d be nearly impossible to get replacements from UNIT or Torchwood. Even she could get only so much from them when she was freelance. But Mickey was even less replaceable. “I’m not going to just leave him.”
“If we can get him, we can exorcize him,” Sam agreed.
“Fine. Good. But we need to go,” Nathaniel said sharply, going to the window. “Grab him if you can. I’ll clear us a path.” She threw open the window and jumped out, letting out a noise that made the glass shatter as the demons on the other side of the door started breaking it down.
***
"Do you want some pointers with that?"
Dean stopped in mid thrust, the angel blade threatening to slip out of his grip again. Donna had abandoned him in the practice room after he'd growled at her the second time Dean had dropped the sword while trying to slice off the practice dummy's head. It was just that Dean was used to way more hacking, like with a machete or an axe. The angel blade was made for stabbing and precision strikes instead of just plowing through whatever was in the way. Dean didn't know how Cas made it look so damn easy.
And now, somehow, Rory had managed to sneak up on Dean. The damn sword dropped out of Dean's fingers again as he turned towards the scrawny man, and he swore, scooping the weapon back up. "I got it."
He caught Rory's skeptical expression in the mirrors that liked the room, but Dean ignored it and turned back to the gently mauled practice dummy. Dean had no idea why this crazy place had a mirror lined room full of beat up dummies, but it made about as much sense as having a closet the size of Lisa's house, so he just went with it. He figured it was kinda like the angels' green room; there because something wanted it there.
“You’re more likely to hurt yourself with that than to hurt anyone else,” Rory pointed out helpfully.”
“I could show you how much damage I could do to someone else,” Dean growled under his breath.
“You could try.”
Okay, that was it. Dean turned away from the practice dummy and towards the dumb, skinny bastard, his wiser instincts screaming at him to stop. “Yeah?” he challenged, smirking.
Turned out, the scrawny English guy was fast. Not supernaturally fast, but still pretty damn quick. The fight lasted all of ten seconds, during which Dean managed to clock Rory in the face, and Rory managed to snatch the sword out of Dean’s hand and embed it in the practice dummy’s ‘heart’. It vibrated slightly from the force of the impact, making a noise like a wet finger being run over crystal.
“Jesus Christ, man! What are you, some kind of super-soldier from the future?”
Rory rubbed his jaw, probing for lose teeth with his tongue. “I’m a nurse, actually.”
“Space nurse?” Dean asked hopefully.
“From Leadworth.” Rory smiled thinly. “In the southwest part of England. Now, about the sword…”
***
“It’s not Mickey. Remember that,” Sam whispered to Martha, running his thumb over the rosary Nathaniel had procured when she’d gotten the holy water and salt. At least the angel was recovering her strength; it had only taken her a few seconds to get Sam everything he needed, and it’d taken her less time to slaughter a parking lot full of demons than it’d taken Sam and Martha to subdue the demon riding Mickey and the demons he’d brought along with him. The angel had attributed her swift victory to ‘An Ode to the Dawn’.
All Sam really knew was that he’d stepped in exploded head bits while carrying Mickey’s unconscious body across the parking lot.
“Martha?” the demon whimpered with Mickey’s voice. “Martha, baby, don’t listen to him! You know me!”
“Should have left the gag in,” Nathaniel said from her perch. The demon struggled against the duct tape binding him to the chair. Not that getting free of the chair would have done him much good -- they’d put the chair in the middle of a Devil’s Trap.
“He was choking on the gag!” Martha snapped at the angel.
“You could drug him again,” Nathaniel suggested.
“He’d overdose.”
“Martha, please! You saw what these psychos did to those people, they’ll do the same thing to me! Look, look, remember the Medusa Cascade, we helped defeat the Daleks! We flew the Earth back into place with the TARDIS, you and me and Rose and Donna and two of those daft Doctor. Rose’s mum Jackie was there and the Doctor wouldn’t let her near the consol, remember? And Jack, oh Christ, Jack Harkness, he-!”
Sam threw holy water on the demon, making him shriek like he’d been doused with boiling water. Mickey’s eyes turned black, and he hissed, “This is why no one stays, Martha! Not the Doctor, not your Tom, not me! Because you hurt them until they can’t stand the sight of you any more! He’ll leave too, Martha, just like everyone else! You’ll end up sad and alone, just like that shrill old whore you call a mother!”
That firmed Martha’s resolve, and she picked up the bible Nathaniel had brought with her. “Teach me how to do this.”
Sam smiled grimly. “Watch and learn.”
***
Amy grinned, swinging her legs back and forth like a schoolgirl as Donna passed the popcorn to her. “That’s my husband,” she said proudly as Rory knocked the sword out of Dean’s hand again.
“Nicely done,” Donna commented.
“Want one?” Amy asked teasingly.
Donna laughed, stealing some of the popcorn back. “My Shaun may not be a super soldier, but I wouldn’t trade him for anything.” She smiled fondly. “Major upgrade from the first time. That one was just using me for an evil spider woman.” She popped a few kernels into her mouth. “Lucky for me the stuff he was putting in my coffee made me pop up right in the TARDIS.”
Amy rested her chin on her hand, turning towards Donna. “The look on the Doctor’s face must have been priceless,” she giggled.
“Well, he looked a lot less goofy then, more eyebrows and a bit less chin, but oh yeah. There I was, kitted out in my wedding dress and mad enough to spit nails-”
“Your wedding dress?” Amy laughed. “He didn’t-!”
“On my wedding day,” Donna confirmed, shaking her head.
That got a sharp laugh from Rory as he disarmed Dean again. “I see this is something he makes a habit of,” the young man noted, handing the sword back to Dean.
“Twice isn’t a habit!” Amy protested.
“You too?” Donna asked sympathetically.
“Night before, actually, but twice still isn’t a habit.”
“How do you know it’s only been twice?” Dean asked. “Maybe there are more that he never told you about.”
“A whole room full of ginger brides,” Rory agreed. “Just waiting to be discovered, like a closet full of dolls.”
***
“Why didn’t you do that earlier?” Mickey demanded to know, shaking the remnants of his cast off his leg.
“I was weakened while rescuing Sam,” Nathaniel said primly, unrepentant. “Be glad I healed you at all.” She turned to Sam and Martha. “We must go. Your insistence on exorcizing the demon means there is now one in the Pit who knows exactly where we are.”
“We know, Nathaniel,” Sam groaned. “We’ll head south for now, then make for Bobby’s. Dean’ll probably be there, and if he’s not, at least we’ll be somewhere demon-proof.” He grimaced as Martha helped Mickey to the van, their heads close together. Physically, Mickey was pretty much at factory settings, but angelic healing wouldn’t wipe away the awful feeling that being possessed left behind, like you’d been permanently stained, and you‘d never be clean again. “It never ends, does it?” he muttered to himself.
To Sam’s surprise, Nathaniel grabbed his hand. “I promise you,” the angel said, gazing up at Sam with earnest brown eyes, “when you and your brother are reunited, you will be free to go. I will do everything in my power to see that you and Dean can go wherever you want, free of Heaven’s interference.”
Sam looked down at the tiny hands clasping his own, unsure of what to say. “Uh, thanks.”
“I mean it, Sam. I understand how badly you want the fighting to be over. When we find your brother, for you the battle is done.”
“You two coming or what?” Mickey yelled from the van.
As the hunter and the angel climbed into the van, Martha said, “First stop we make, I need to make a call.”
Part Six