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Dean sits atop the war room table. An unopened beer is perched beside collections of books and loose papers scattered around him. Amongst the usual scene, he exhales deeply and closes his eyes. His palms press together in a prayer.
“Jack,” he says, “God...I know you just left, that we may have won, but...there’s so much doing that needs to be done.”
The air is quiet. No whistle enters Dean’s ears.
He continues, “I know you said you’re taking a hands-off approach, but...I left some things unsaid. People died that shouldn’t have died. So much has been lost that I’m not sure what’s left of this world.”
Dean tells himself to get to the point, already. He takes a breath.
“Cas is still in the Empty,” Dean says, “and I refuse to rest until he’s back here. With me. Could you maybe...please...help with that?”
A firecracker sound has Dean’s eyes snapping open.
Jack stands in front of the war room table. He holds up his hand, fingers spread apart in his awkward greeting. “Hello, Dean.”
His jovial expression does nothing to indicate that Jack would proceed to whip out a sword glowing blue with angel grace.
Dean scoots back in a recoil, eyes widened at the machete-like curve of the blade. Jack held it so precariously, too, that it is cause for alarm.
“So,” Jack chimes, “would you like to help me rescue him?”
Staring at the glowing blade, Dean says, “uh...yes?”
“Oh,” Jack holds the blade horizontally, offering it to Dean, “this is for you. My power should give your swing an extra...oomph.”
Dean points a finger at the sword. “I get to have this?”
Jack grins gleefully. “You’ll need it to kill the reapers.”
Since he doesn’t want to ask how that particular plot point happened, Dean grasps the weapon. He nearly drops it at the energy thrumming within the metal.
Echoing footsteps carry and pause upon entering the room. “Uh...what’s going on?”
Dean regards Sam’s confused face. “I have one more mission left. I can’t ask you to come, Sammy-”
“Cas,” Sam’s gaze solidifies with determination, “yeah, I’ll come with you.”
“Oh,” Jack snaps his fingers, “that reminds me! I have a surprise for you, Sam. Let me just,” he makes a motion by circling an index finger, “here we are.”
The bunker door swings open with a creak of heavy metal. They freeze in their tracks as footsteps descend from the balcony above them.
A figure rounds the staircase and becomes visible.
Sam inhales a sharp breath. “Eileen?”
The woman smiles and signs a hello. Dean observes Sam sweep her up in a teary-eyed hug.
Jack smiles. “Now we’ve got a team!”
Dean tears his eyes from the scene to give Sam and Eileen a moment of privacy. Jack’s upbeat behavior, even after all this time, takes Dean aback. He is glad that it is Jack who absorbed the power of God; no one else deserved it.
Jack procures a glowing weapon shaped like an angel blade and a machete. It catches Sam’s attention, and Eileen’s as well. The couple advances.
Jack holds them out. “We’re going to save Cas. Choose one, please.”
Sam takes the angel blade, and Eileen picks the machete. They each hold a weapon in their hands.
With a grip on his sword, Dean hops off the war room table. He joins the gathering in the middle of the room.
Jack addresses them promptly. “Our journey is not far. I should be able to fix your interdimensional telescope to take us there and leave a portal open.”
“Wait,” Dean points and gapes at the device that had always sat in the bunker like a prop, “that portal crap was for real?”
“Certainly, Dean,” Jack replies, “after I open the portal, we should move quickly. My powers cannot tell me what lies inside the Empty, but we have to grab Cas and bring him back as soon as possible.”
Jack falls suspiciously silent. Something lingers in his gaze.
“What?” Dean asks.
“If Cas wants to come with us,” Jack says, “I fear he will lose his powers.”
There is a beat of contemplation.
“As long as Cas lives,” Sam says, “I want my friend back.”
Dean nods once. “I want him back too.”
Sam arches a brow at the ambiguous wording, but says nothing on the matter.
“Okay,” Jack turns and guides them across the war room, “your weapons should be light, but they are powerful. One swing should be enough to destroy any creation on the other side of it.”
The group stands before the telescope. They enter the small area that is left open by a set of curtains.
Once they are beside the telescope, Jack unlatches the curtains. They are bathed in a layer of dust as they are closed.
Coughing and swatting dust away, Jack asks, “has no one really cleaned these?”
Sam shoots Dean a look. Dean sticks out his tongue.
Jack sweeps his hands across the ceiling as if cleaning a car windshield. The metal dome plating retracts at the silent command.
Light slivers pierce their vision, and they squint to accommodate for the sunshine.
“I’ve jogged all around this place,” Sam says, “and I’ve never seen an exterior dome.”
When Dean glances to Jack for an explanation, he provides none. The group observes the cloudy blue sky and gnarly tree branches around the edges of the dome.
“Close your eyes,” Jack tells Dean, Sam, and Eileen. “Things are about to get weird.”
Dean complies, holding onto his angel grace sword extra tight. There are whooshing sounds, as if they are moving, but no air hits his face. Everything is still and quiet.
And then, a wave of cold prickles his skin. He releases a breath that he didn’t know he was holding. Pinpricks of ice needle at his stubble.
“We’re here,” Jack says, “open your eyes.”
Dean is greeted with blankness. Blackness. The glow of his sword brightens in the space.
“Reapers are coming,” Jack tenses, “I sense them.”
Dean raises his sword, checking up on Sam and Eileen, who take the same stance behind him. The couple stands back-to-back, Dean standing near Jack to protect him from a sneak attack.
Whispers growing closer precede the formation of oily shadows. Liquid forms into a blob of solid humanoid mass. A hole meant to be a mouth lets out a series of hisses.
Eileen is the first to react, the edge of her thrown angel grace dagger piercing into the face of a sludge monster. It fades into demon-esque dark mist, leaving the dagger.
Eileen crosses the area to swipe it up, Sam guarding her back. He beheads a reaper that gets too close.
Dean springs into action alongside Jack. He swings the sword in the general direction of where a humanoid limb would be in order to kill each monster, and it works; they collapse into mist that seeps into the floor.
The crowd of reapers thickens. Dean backs away blindly, saving Jack from near-hits. Not that he expects Jack to be affected by a wound, but he can’t be too careful.
As more and more reapers fade, Dean bathing in dark mist, the Empty lightens.
What is black becomes white. The pigment of the floor, the endless shadows, turn white as if flipping a switch.
After blinking away the jarring motion, Dean locates Sam and Eileen standing near him and Jack. They wait.
Jack steps forward, in the direction where the brightness originated. “Cas is near. He knows I’m here.”
Dean allows for Jack to take the lead, sword still raised, instincts heightened. Sam and Eileen take the rear, each choosing a side to focus their attention.
After a long stretch of silence save for footsteps, a figure comes into view. A body carves itself out amongst the white. It moves closer, closer, ever closer. Dean’s heart jumps in anticipation. All of his willpower is needed to prevent from rushing forward, but he knows it is a foolish idea; they are in a dangerous hellscape.
The figure is beige and white. Dark hair and tan skin and a beige trench coat. Dean exhales shallowly, hope creeping into his chest.
Then, a spear of blackness slices between them. A scream followed by a shadow had both sides jolting to a stop.
The reaper flies for Jack like a battering ram. Dean’s eyes widen and he pushes ahead, standing with his shoulders squared next to Jack. He arches up the angel grace sword.
The tip of an angel blade, burning bright silver-blue, sinks into the reaper’s ribcage. Its hole mouth emits a dying screech, echoing throughout the void.
It crashes down to the floor, fading away slower than the rest. The mist disperses like lingering fog.
The glowing angel blade clatters to the ground. The person behind the throw appears behind the visage.
Cas grinds his run to a halt. He exhales a relieved breath, gaze sweeping across the assembled group. He arches down and snatches his powered blade.
When Dean lifts his eyes to Cas’s face, he notes the shock, the confusion, the suspended disbelief.
Cas’s eyes prickle with wetness, fixating on him. His voice is as gruff as ever. “Dean.”
The emotions that Dean had been struggling to keep inside rush out of him. Dean seems to breathe for the first time in weeks, his heart thumping in answer.
“Cas,” his voice is a quiet breath, labored and wrecked, but he does not care, repeating it a second time to solidify his presence, “Cas.”
Dean steps over the dark spot as it blends into pure white. He drops his weapon beside his boots. Cas’s gaze flits across his at the sudden closeness. Wetness reaches Dean’s lips, salt on his tongue; he doesn’t know when he started to cry, but he didn’t want to stop it, didn’t want to stop this for anything, didn’t want to stop until he finally, finally said it:
“Cas,” he breathes a third time, “you didn’t let me say it back.”
Cas’s mouth parts in an inhale. He holds his breath, eyes darting fervently across Dean’s face.
“I love you too,” Dean says.
It is the easiest words he’s ever verbalized. A weight on his mind, on his chest, lifts away and melts as if never there at all.
“I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love you,” Dean confesses, holding out his sword hand, offering his outstretched palm, “please come back with me.” He sniffles, the tears drying on his cheeks. “Please.”
Cas lets out his breath. In the span of an exhale, Cas’s hand laces through Dean’s fingers. He is closer than ever. Dean sighs audibly upon inhaling the familiar scent of Cas’s trench coat.
A teasing smile reaches one side of Cas’s lips. “I’m not living in that bunker with you. We’re getting a house of our own.”
Dean smiles easily, crow’s feet surely creeping around his eyes and mouth. “Whatever you want.”
And he means it. If he weren’t so gone on Cas, hadn’t been gone for years, this would scare him. But it doesn’t. This is the kind of normal that he could support.
“I want enough land for a garden,” Cas says, “a big garden.”
Dean nods. “So long as I get a big garage.”
“Deal.” Cas squeezes his hand.
A series of screeches reverberate off to the side. Dean drops Cas’s hand as Cas turns in the same westward direction.
“Now’s the time,” Jack announces, “where we run.”
Reapers approach as if guiding a tsunami. They all pick their weapons up and raise them.
The group runs, one eye on the oncoming wave, the other on pushing ahead. The portal is not too far away.
The wave eats up the white void. Cas keeps pace with Dean. Sam and Eileen lead the way while Jack uses his powers to push the reapers back.
Eileen reaches the portal first. “CAS!”
Cas reaches her at a breakneck pace. They hop through the portal together, Dean exhaling in relief.
Sam shares a look with Dean as Jack is the last to catch up. “I knew it.”
Dean smacks his shoulder. “Shut up.”
Sam cackles.
Jack turns his back to them. His eyes glow as he sets up a shield. “I’m right behind you!”
Dean and Sam take the prompt, walking into the portal. Dean closes his eyes as his body is catapulted back to the bunker.
When he lands on his feet, he opens his eyes slowly. He drops the sword and hugs himself, checking for wounds. When he finds none, he hears Jack close the portal beside him and Sam.
Dean studies Cas, examining for injuries. When Cas simply smiles back, he advances. Based on the way Sam, Eileen, and Jack mumble, they are unhurt as well.
Dean is the one to sweep up Cas in an embrace. His hands rest on Cas’s waistline, invisible due to the thick clothing and trench coat. When the action is not protested, he blushes at Cas.
“About that house,” Dean murmurs, Cas’s forehead tipping against his, “I think I already have a couple ideas.”
Cas’s eyes are nebulas when they are an inch apart. When his lashes bat, Dean is struck by electricity. A shiver races down his spine.
“I think I do too,” Cas says, his deep voice rattling Dean’s senses in the best way.
Dean leans in at the exact second Cas does. When their lips touch, Dean swears it’s the best feeling that he’s ever felt.
————
Once the barn and its accompanying country house is found on the outskirts of Kansas, they waste no time. They paint over the sigils and overhaul the furniture. They clear out the old and start anew.
The barn becomes a garage. Baby is its crowning jewel, but other cars are available for replacement parts. A wall is covered in tools and it becomes a mechanic’s garage for those who live in the area, welcome to all.
The fields become a garden. It is meticulously cared for by its owner. There are patches for vegetables, an orchard for fruit trees, a massive well-kept bird bath surrounded by flowers in every color of the rainbow.
The house is where Dean and Castiel Winchester spend the rest of their lives. Boringly human and blissfully married. Sam and Eileen Winchester visit frequently with their children, as do their hunter friends in South Dakota and all over the country.
In the place where Dean and Cas met, there is endless peace.