Episode 24: Redemption (Part III Continued)

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Outside is cold, and Dean's breath puffs out warm on the frosty air. In the back of his mind he supposes that Ruby could be lying in wait for him but he isn't really sure if he cares, and some small part of him wonders if he might welcome the oblivion of death at her hands, even if he's beginning to think he may never rest in peace or otherwise without someone waking him.

He stands and stares at his car, his eyes running over her battered carcass. He swallows thickly, thinks abstractedly of the differences his brother spoke of and wonders if leaving his baby here might be another deviation that could change it all.

When he hears the scuff of footsteps, the deja vu is so strong he swings around on a yelped-out expletive, half-expecting his 2014 doppelganger to loom up out of the night and clock him. When he sees who it is he jumps back like a scalded cat, because there's only one angel whose no-fly zone he has any business being in and this isn't him.

"You made it out then," he offers, once he can find his voice. "We weren't sure."

Gabriel ignores the question, just jerks his head towards the battered hulk of the Impala. "You're thinking of leaving her behind, aren't you?"

After taking a second to compose himself, Dean goes for false bravado and counters harshly, "It's not like I have a choice, is it?" And he doesn't, not really, and he isn't going to dwell on the fact that some small part of him wants to walk away from her ruined corpse. "I mean, I can't-"

"Know what I think?"

Gabriel's eyes are gleaming bright with something Dean damn well hopes isn't mischief. "Enlighten me," he says reluctantly.

"I think it'd be a big mistake." Gabriel leans to look around Dean, and scrunches up his face in mock sympathy. "Oh, I can see why you would, don't get me wrong. Ghost of 2014."

Dean feels a flare of anger sear through him again. "You know about that?" he snaps instead.

"Hive mind," Gabriel trips back easily. "And I was banging the same drum as Zachariah there for a while, don't forget." He airquotes, "Play your roles," before flapping his hands up and out. "Anyhoo. You think walking away from her can change the future, give you that easy ending wrapped up in a bow. But don't make the mistake of thinking geography makes a difference. It isn't where she is. It's what she is."

Dean snorts. "Which is?" He doesn't really know what he's expecting to hear, but he definitely isn't expecting the mocking tone in the angel's voice to suddenly turn melancholy.

"Home. Family. A symbol of everything you hold dear, everything you love." Gabriel tilts his head, his eyes narrowing to serious. "And that other Dean let her rot, let all of that rot. Are you going to do the same?"

Stung by that, Dean huffs out his annoyance. "Exactly how am I supposed to-"

"Mind you, fixing her…man, it'd be a chore." Gabriel studies the car, hisses through bared teeth. "Now, I could do it for you. I've been back upstairs, I'm fully charged. I could make her mint, make her look like she just rolled off the production line."

There's a second when Dean is tempted, when he thinks it would be so easy, when he imagines himself tooling out under the gate of Bobby's lot for one last time, in fuckin' style; and the picture is undercut with sheer wrongness, for some reason he can't fathom. But before he can reject the offer or even make the decision that he will, Gabriel starts in again, like he's reading exactly what's on Dean's mind.

"But this is your fate, something you have to work at. All of you. Don't just sit there and take it, be proactive. This is your redemption, kiddo. So use some of that free will you love so much to make sure it plays out different from what Zachariah showed you."

A whole what the fuck? cascade of thoughts explodes in Dean's mind at the angel's words, and he has to cast his mental net wide to snag his disbelief, his dismay, his disappointment and his derision, and gather them all into something vaguely coherent as whatever adrenaline high has been driving him for the last few hours finally crashes and burns.

"Redemption?" he asks, and he can hear the raw, bitter edge of resentment in his tone. "This world is screwed sideways and dry because of me, because I didn't kill that thing when I was supposed to. I screwed it all up, like I always do. And you call-"

Gabriel cuts him off with an exasperated clucking sound. "This world is still here. It's different, and it's harder, but it's something to be going on with. And, hey - what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Dean can feel his blood pressure spiking even higher as Gabriel speaks, and he finds he's having to subdue the desire for fast, savage violence, the urge to let rip a right hook into the angel's jaw even if he knows the blow would likely shatter his hand. "And you call this my redemption?" he continues, caustic and uncaring if it gets his ass smited. "Is that some kind of fuckin' joke?"

Gabriel's eyes are oddly knowledgeable in a way that makes Dean wonder if this angel can get inside his head too, see all the crap that is laid and overlaid in there. And maybe he can, because he puts up a hand as Dean starts to burst out another bitter protest, and his tone goes abruptly menacing, like he's crossing the threshold of his tolerance.

"You finished what you started. Better late than never." Gabriel pauses then, contemplates Dean for a few seconds, and then awards him a cheerful, lopsided grin that is at odds with his previous coldness. "You gave yourself, for us. You paid the price. And down there, you were worthy."

All it does is spark that same pang of confused need to know, to remember that this time it was different, that he didn't grow a yellow streak a mile wide down his back. "I was worthy?" Dean chokes out. "All I can remember is being shit-scared. All I can remember is running away and hiding."

Gabriel tilts his head, so like Castiel, rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet for a moment, and Dean sees something he never expected to see in this angel's eyes. It's sympathy, and before Dean can react, can reach his hand up to deflect the touch, Gabriel's hand is streaking out and up, fingers extended, and Dean is-

-jump-starting into motion, hurtling through time and space unfettered, like a comet, until he comes to a skittering halt in the memory of Hell and he sees the Beast.

It is made of flames, its orange-red glow reflecting off the sword in Dean's hand, and its lipless mouth is stretched out like a jagged horizon line, its teeth bared to swallow Dean whole. Beyond it, Dean sees Castiel, struggling frenziedly in his brothers' arms, fighting to follow Dean into the fire, his eyes molten but his face set serene with intent.

There is a shout, "light the sword, Righteous Man," but it rings meaningless through Dean's fear-muddled head, for the Righteous Man is long dead and buried in the feral half-demon creature he is now, running from shadow to shadow and rock to rock, the heat of the conflagration burning holes into him. He is a tattered, terrified primitive, a sword slapped into his hand as though any part of him could rise up from his atavism to understand what he was meant to do.

"You don't have to be the Righteous Man, Dean. You can be your own man. It will be enough…"

With those words, something significant, something sentient, floods back into what remains of him. It reawakens a vague recall of his human self, fractured and worn away to trace elements by centuries spent lost in the Lake of Fire; reawakens a dormant memory of love too, and he remembers that he always defined love by action, not words. When he carried Sam from the burning building, it was love. When he spent night after night scouring the land for his father, it was love. When he sold his soul to bring his brother back, it was love. His damnation was proof of love. And his redemption from Hell was love, a love that will gather the broken fragments of his soul together and bring him home again as it did before; and as Dean realizes this and remembers, the scalding flames of Hell blur into the warm, peaceful glow that radiated from the angel who gripped him tight and raised him from Perdition.

It isn't anger that surges from Dean's heart through his arm and into the blade. It is love, the elemental spark that soldered an angel's grace to his soul, and for a moment it unites them in a ring of blinding light and thunder, a flash that shines bright over the darkest planes of Hell, silencing the distant cries of demon-things loping through the desolate landscape.

"You can be your own man…"

There is no ending this on a sobbed out yes and a demon blade pressed lovingly into his hand. He will take up this sword and fight, and go down fighting if he has to, and as Dean's mind forms the thought, the sword bursts into flame. He has no time to marvel that it doesn't burn, because it feels perfect and balanced in his fist as he turns to face the monster and says, "No."

He is his own man, and he's going to cut a path into the center of this thing and drive it back into the dark, to end the hurt, to end the pain; and when he is finished, he's going to have the fucking thing stuffed and mounted, and he's going to give it Castiel as a fucking birthday present.

He senses a shared inhalation from the angels, as though they pool together an invisible strength, and he siphons it from them with a breath, uses it and is intoxicated by it, as he drives forward and sinks the sword into the monster. He cauterizes its evil with love, and it throws itself forward into the path of the blade as though it has been waiting for this, as though it has been expecting Dean and dreaming of this moment. And Dean realizes that this is what the monster has wanted all along: rest. Peace, and in his confusion and his guilt, he could not intuit it, could not comprehend the hurt inside the monster; the hurt in every monster, including his own self.

The blade cuts deep and flames erupt and buffet outwards in a howling wind that rises up like a tornado. Dean feels the crushing embrace of Castiel's arms, yanking him out of the blaze as it detonates, plucking him from the whirlwind, and the backdraft scatters them like kites cutting away into the wind. Dean is boneless and delirious with the power of the sword, the knowledge of what it is like to be an archangel, to be Michael, the one who is like God. He isn't afraid anymore; he laughs wildly in Castiel's arms, even if they are to be lost here in perpetuity, for there is no fear. Why should there be? No matter where he ends up, he will just start over. He will plant his flag in the land and declare it his kingdom, even if that kingdom is Hell, and make it new, in his name, in his image-

"Careful, there," a voice is saying, its tone sing-song and mocking. "That sounds an awful lot like God to me. That's what too much angel mojo can do to you if you don't know how to hold it-"

"Jesus."

Dean comes back to himself off-kilter, dizzy and dazed, one hand on his car and the other, his right hand, held out in front of him. He looks at it as he swallows back his gasp and tries to get a hold of his racing heart and breath, the hand that held Michael's sword and slew the Beast, and he flexes his fist, thinks of sanctified fire, a fire that does not burn. "I was worthy," he marvels in a whisper. "I was in control. I was myself. And I ended it."

When he looks up, Gabriel is watching him, smiling in a way that seems genuine, maybe even affectionate, his sharp features softened. "You saved us all, Dean," he says again. "You faced down the monster and you said no. And so, we're redeemed. All of us. Including you. And here…"

The angel snaps his fingers, and suddenly there are four wheels and a car door lying on the ground a few feet away from Dean, along with a motley pile of smaller metal parts. "Didn't say I wouldn't give you a head start," Gabriel offers, and he folds his arms and smirks. "Call it an apology for all those Tuesdays."

Dean doesn't thank him, doesn't thank him for the memory, vision, flashback or whatever it was either, because he somehow knows his thanks is unnecessary and out of place. "Will it work?" he asks instead. He's not really sure if he wants to hear the answer, but he plows on regardless. "Are there enough differences? Will it change anything? What Zachariah showed me…" He has to stop as his voice runs dry and cracks on the vision of his brother but not; Lucifer, his soft tone dripping contempt. He pulls his control back. "Lucifer told me that no matter what I did, no matter what details I altered, we'd always end up there."

Gabriel shrugs. "Lucifer is in the cage. So there's that."

It's an answer, Dean supposes, but at the same time it isn't. "Until one of his demon drones decides to let him out again," he retorts. "Or one of you guys does."

"Always in motion is the future," the archangel bats back amiably, and his slight frame is already tensing in the way Castiel's does before he takes flight. "We'll drive off that bridge when we get to it."

"What about Cas?" Dean blurts out, just as the air starts to bend. "In the future he was fallen, human. He was…" Hapless, hopeless, and the memory hurts Dean as much as his recall of how the devil studied him so clinically through his brother's eyes. "Will he lose his grace?" he manages. "All of it? That other Cas said it was because the angels flew home and pulled up the ladder."

Gabriel pauses, considers Dean for a long moment before he responds. "He won't ever be what he was. He'll hurt, he'll get sick. If he chooses to stay here, he'll age. But we aren't going anywhere, so he won't lose all of it. I'll see to that."

"What about-" The sudden thickness in his throat squeezes the words back down for a second, before Dean swallows and forces them back up and out of himself, even if the thought of what the answer might be terrifies him. "What about the end? What happens to him? He has no soul, and even if he's still got some of his grace, he'll be fallen. A traitor, and-"

"He's not headed back to the Lake of Fire," Gabriel says. "He's redeemed, like we all are. At the end, you'll be together."

It's said with a gentle openness Dean didn't see coming at all, and the gratitude he feels swell inside him is pathetic, but he doesn't honestly give a shit. "Thank you," he croaks, before he carries on, a little breathless. "And is it true? About the planes bleeding into each other?"

On a sigh that seems like genuine regret, Gabriel nods. "It looks that way."

"What can we do about it? Is there a way to stop it, to reverse it?" Dean ignores how the angel's features fall into seriousness, presses him again. "There's always a way, isn't there?"

Gabriel gives him a measured look. "Where there's a will."

Jesus, Dean thinks, and it's an unpleasant reminder of this angel's modus operandi. "Cryptic much?" he snaps before he can help himself.

The angel stiffens, his nostrils flare a little, and he bristles obvious annoyance. "I'll be in touch when I know more."

He half-turns, shoulders going taut again. It reminds Dean that there is no real trust here and there might even still be some dislike, but he doesn't let himself be intimidated. He takes a step closer, says, "We're pulling out of here, tonight. And we'll be warded against everything we can think of, including you guys. So - Swan River wildlife refuge, Montana. Hunter camp near Flathead Lake. That's where we're headed. That's the plan, anyway."

Maybe Dean is doing it for when the angel knows more, or maybe he's doing it for Castiel, he doesn't really know, but Gabriel nods slowly, so Dean keeps going. "What will you do?"

The grin that flashes back at him is sly. "Use my time more wisely than before."

He's gone then, in a flurry of dust.

Dean looks at the air the archangel filled for a moment, runs Gabriel's words through his mind a couple more times, before he packages them neatly and ships them out to the Nome, Alaska of his brain so he can focus on something he has some degree of control over. He shuffles over to the haphazard collection of metal Gabriel left behind, toes it with his boot, and then glances at his car. Out of nowhere, it occurs to him that her curb weight is four thousand, three hundred forty pounds or thereabouts, and he slants his eyes over to the two-ramp trailer Bobby keeps parked in the lot and sighs. "Could have loaded her up for me," he grouses. "Douchenozzle."

He's making his way back towards the house when he scents the demon's sulfur taint, and a split second afterwards he feels the same twitching feeling between his shoulder blades that he felt the first time she snuck up on him, in a motel parking lot three months before his deal came due.

He turns, and she's leaning on his baby's remains, waiting. She pushes up and takes a few steps away from the car as he approaches, her teeth flashing white as he slows to a stop and they face each other.

There's a skitter of nerves at the base of his spine, but Dean forces himself to ignore it. "Pretty risky," he notes, "showing up here when there's an archangel flapping about up there."

She puts a hand up to her neck, hooks a small cloth bag on a cord out from under her shirt. "It's the extra-crunchy kind."

Dean didn't really need the confirmation, and he doesn't dwell on the paradox that is his brother sitting in Bobby's kitchen, carefully preparing the same small cloth pouches that might just wipe them off her demonic radar once they hit the road.

He came out here prepared, and he reaches behind himself to ease the Colt out the back of his jeans, even though he knows she will vanish if he does so much as raise it. "Push my buttons," he dares her. "I will go off like a Patriot fuckin' missile, and I will take you out."

She studies him, her expression bored. "You can send me back to Monsterville as often as you like, Dean," she replies casually. "It might buy you some time, but there are so many paths now and you can forget immigration control. I'll be crawling out of there and skipping through Hell to the nearest exit before you know it. And then I'll be coming for you, when you least expect it. I'll toss you back down into the Pit so fast you won't know what hit you, and as for Sam…"

She smiles almost fondly, and some tiny, detached part of Dean's brain notices that she's pretty this time round too, that she's gone for that sultry, dark look his brother seems to have leaned towards since Jess died, and he wonders if that's why she chose the body she's wearing. The thought of her anywhere near Sam is enough to unbalance him for a second, and he has to take another one to breathe through it, to regain his equilibrium and make her his mission. And he does it, because this is about control and he's taking that back, just like he did down in the Pit when he used the sword.

"Oh, you'll be coming for me?" he taunts, his voice dangerous. "Well take a number and wait in line. You don't faze me…not you, not Yellow Eyes, not Alastair. You give me purpose, and fuck knows, I needed it. You give me clarity. You remind me why I'm here, which is to hunt and kill as many of you sonsofbitches as I can." There is a sterility in the pure bloodthirst that sweeps through Dean at the realization, and it hits him then, the sheer irony of the fact that her rebirth doesn't matter. Only his own does, and he gives a wry chuckle at how ridiculous and perfect it is. "The family business…and that fucked-up world out there? That's my killing field as much as it is yours."

He cocks his head, revels in the satisfaction he feels as her expression betrays a flicker of unease. "So you can send me back to Monsterville as often as you like," he continues, wickedly soft. "It might buy you some time, but like you said, there's a shit-ton of paths out of there now and I'll be skipping through Hell to the nearest exit before you know it. And then I'll be coming for you. When you least expect it."

He swings the gun up, squeezing the trigger, and like he knew she would, she flickers and is gone before the hammer clicks on the empty chamber.



The world is on fire.

A '76 Pontiac Firebird purrs downs the broken pavement of an old county road that cuts through fields of burning corn and wheat. No one knows who set the fires but they turn the sky from red to orange to yellow to pink.

The man at the wheel of the car doesn't drive her like a sports car, he does her good, like a Sunday ride, like the world isn't going up in flames around them all, like his straight course isn't blocked every now and then by a stumbling figure made of fish scales and sucking lips, or by some warped, grotesque nightmare-beast that crawled from another dimension to prey on everything in its path. He doesn't let them bother his leisurely road trip, just guns the engine and mows them down, and if that doesn't do the job, he aims the flat snub of his Sig Sauer out the window and fires, adding more color to the post-apocalyptic atmosphere.

He's a happy man, a man at home in a world falling apart. And while he can't say for sure what his destination is, he veers down side roads and back onto main drags as though he knows exactly where he's going, no matter how circuitous the route, straightening the car and making a center line over the double-yellow stripes with reckless abandon.

A crystal angel dangles from the rear view mirror. Every once in a while he taps it and laughs to himself, a private joke between him and the figurine that swings back and forth.

Like he knew it would, the day comes when an improbable hourglass curve of a woman in a red dress appears on the road ahead of him. She walks along the shoulder with a jacket slung over her back, and there's a come-hither sway to her hips that speaks of dances long forgotten, dances that shake it out and shake the world. She's got movements in her to charm snakes and cull fire, and the wind that curls around her lifts the aroma of cardamom and cinnamon from her skin, old-world scents in a new world setting. The man doesn't have to see her up close to know that her eyes are ancient, a testament to the fact her roots are somewhere in the cradle of civilization, or maybe even older than it.

The man pulls past her, swirls the car around in a screech of brakes and a cloud of road dust and rolls down his window, grinning like a boy who can barely contain his excitement.

The woman stiffens, reaches up to pull away the dark veil that hangs over her face like a shroud of smoke, and her lips part like the petals of a flower.

"Need a lift, lady?" Gabriel asks. He gestures with his hand and the car door opens itself to her with a creak of metal and chrome.

Turns out, it's just the ride she's been looking for.



Episode 24: Redemption (Epilogue)