Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jack is beginning to think that godhood should come with an instructional video.  He’d been led to believe that all-knowing and all-powerful meant all-knowing and all-powerful.  Reality is proving a bit more… inconsistent.

He remembers how impossibly easy fixing the Earth had seemed.  Standing there with Sam and Dean, he had just… wanted.  And then he’d known how.  He’d even given a passing thought to making a few changes himself before considering his history of judgement wasn’t the best.  Non-intervention was truly the safest policy, and he’s going to stick to it.  The whole universe is reset like Chuck’s temper tantrum never happened, save a few hunter memories.

But he could have done anything.  Easily.

It was a good start to the eternal godhood of Jack Kline, given the situation at hand.  Until he tried to move onto the next task.

Chuck had really done a number on the fundamental balance of, well, everything.  Jack can’t explain the problems, even to himself, but he’s instantly aware of which ones are his responsibly and which would be interference under his new policy.  Hell is a bit shaken, but Rowena’s efforts will keep it okay until he gets around to it.  Dean would have likened it to a really good duct tape fix.  Purgatory is similar.  Death’s library needs some investigation, but every time he thinks about it, he just fundamentally knows it’s not time to go there yet.  He’s restored some miscellaneous magical dimensions that just needed to be nudged back in sync with everything else.  He’s pretty sure he did, at least.  It’s hard to focus on all the smaller problems when he looks at the massive spiderweb of energy-leaking planar cracks that he now recognizes as Heaven.

That, uh… that should probably be fixed.

If only he knew how to even start.

Godhood lets Jack know the exact blueprint of any given celestial being.  He’s not sure humanity has words to even approach how grace functions, but Jack can twine some around his fingers just to look at it.  He can name every angel who has existed since the beginning, what order they were created in, and how they died.  He knows exactly what complicated magical alchemy allowed an archangel Nephilim to replace literal God.  Heck, he even knows that Lucifer and Michael didn’t actually have a choice when it came to helping Chuck at the end (and he’s definitely still weighing if maybe he should take some time to try and reconstruct Michael – as an apology for thinking badly of him during that and an apology to Adam).

Jack knows how Heaven functions better than any angel who has ever walked its halls (or its garden, or its rooms, or its multi-dimensional boundaries), and absolutely none of that knowledge tells him what the right way to stop the impending meltdown is.  It’s very frustrating.

His first thought is to consult someone older.  Oldest, actually.  He wasn’t lying to Dean when he said Amara was with him.  He can feel her so distinctly, a constant presence that isn’t remotely him.  Stepping back and talking to her should be easy, right?

Wrong.

He doesn’t know what Chuck did to combine them, and it really throws a roadblock in his plan to… unmerge.  Jack can’t talk to Amara.  He can’t put her in charge.  He’s not even sure she’s aware of what’s happening, even though being unaware as a being like them should be impossible in its own right.  It’s very disheartening to find the boundaries of all-knowingness within a day of obtaining it, but he can’t really do anything about it.

Perturbed, he moves onto the next plan.

His list of beings almost as old as Amara is… very short.  He still feels like he shouldn’t talk to the Reapers, and after Billie he doesn’t really trust them anyway.  This may be an unfounded skepticism – more instant knowledge shows some distinctive Chuck fingerprints on Billie’s actions that he should really think more on later – but he feels like he can be a little bitter.  In his own head, at least.  Not that they could lie to him, but still.  The handful of remaining angels are also questionably trustworthy, but thinking about them just reminds of him of the angel he did trust… bringing him to his current dilemma.

The Empty makes Jack nervous.

He hadn’t hesitated when promising to retrieve Castiel the moment they had come up with their insane plan.  Dean hadn’t even made it through the whole question.  Of course Jack would bring him back.  Cas didn’t deserve to suffer.  He doesn’t deserve to suffer.  It has been such an obvious sword hanging over their heads.  The shadow of expectation behind all of their conversations.  Dean and Sam are waiting on the news right now, both afraid to jinx it by speaking it aloud.  And Jack even knows how to do it!  He could snatch his father-figure from the Empty yet again without ever setting foot in it.  Except that the Empty is possibly just as destabilized as Heaven, and Jack feels personally responsible for that one.

Being a good God means fixing your universe altering mistakes from the time you attempted to murder your predecessor.

It means going into the Empty and talking to it.

Jack swallows.  Godhood should really be an automatic cure for nerves.

A voice in the back of his mind that sounds a lot like Sam and Dean tells Jack it’s time to suck it up and embrace his godly power, but, like, encouragingly.  Sure, he doesn’t really have power over the Empty, but it can’t hurt him either.  And his all-knowing powers do tell him how to get there and back.  Cas is waiting.  Heaven needs help.  The Empty even needs help.  Jack can do this.  And once he decides, it’s done.  Earth blinks away and Jack is behind the veil.

---

The Empty is loud.

It’s not noise – not really – but it’s echoing in Jack’s brain regardless, only compounded by the oppressive silence.  If this is what he did by detonating here… it’s no wonder the Empty is so mad.  It’s somehow unbearable even as he sets it out of mind and tries to pay attention to what’s in front of him.

Jack’s perception is… indescribable.

It occurs to him that this is his first trip off Earth since attaining godhood.  He’d mistakenly believed that being technically everywhere would have taken the shock out of his non-human senses.  It does not.  Not even remotely.

The Empty’s manifestation is clearly that – so connected to and reflected in the endless nothingness-that-isn’t-nothing around them that he can’t even pretend the Shadow is actually a being of its own.  It looks like Meg, black slime, living shadow, a noisy overlay of every being it contains, nothing at all, and so much more and less, all at once.  Jack can focus on the layers but he can’t dismiss the whole.  He knows that Chuck and Amara made a point to avoid this place, and he’s suspecting that having to perceive it might have had something to do with that.  He wants to leave already, but his reason for reaching out is laying at the – he decides that the Meg face is the most familiar – Meg/Empty’s feet.

Castiel is also a new twist to his perceptive ability.  As a Nephilim, Jack had always seen the jagged halo and occasionally caught glimpses of the afterimage of Cas’s bloodied and stripped wings.  Seeing him in his massive six-winged entirety – overlaid on a scaled-yet-not projection of the same familiar, human form Jack’s been missing – is… odd.  Didn’t Jack used to have something like that inside him?  Does he still?  Huh.  Another limit of all-knowing power.  What does God truly look like when he used to be kinda human and kinda angel?

Jack’s getting distracted.  Focus.

Fortunately, a new benefit of godhood is that stuff tends to happen to Jack at whatever pace is most convenient.  He’s still hovering comfortably in the moment he first stepped in, and the Empty has yet to properly notice his not-quite-completed intrusion.  But he can’t talk until he technically arrives, so his feet hit the nonexistent ground and the whole Empty shudders.

“You.”

“Uh… hi.  I know you’re angry, but I’m here to apologize so please wait before you get even angrier or try to kill me.”

The nothingness thrashes wordlessly – it feels kind of like teeth gnashing – and Jack has sudden, strong doubts about his negotiating skills.  Cas looks up from where he’s sprawled on the ground, choking out an agonized “Jack” before the Empty silences him and Jack winces in sympathetic pain.  One of his wings shifts and Jack is surprised to see Billie slumped behind him, true Reaper form only vaguely angelic next to a seraph in the way a laptop and the Impala engine are both technically machines.

The Empty gets over its moment of tongue-tied rage.  “To apologize?” it hisses, “You.  All of You.  Ruined.  Everything!  And you think I want an apology?!?  I will torture you until the end of time itself!  Tear out every part of you that makes sound and dig into the wounds for eternity!”

Jack grimaces.  “I don’t think you can do that to me anymore.  And it won’t fix the noise.”

“I.  Don’t!  Care!” it shrieks, lunging at him from every direction.  Jack sidesteps.

“Can we please talk about this?”

“I don’t want to talk!  I tried that!  You all made everything so much worse!  You made it loud!  You don’t get to talk!  You- You don’t get to make any more noise!”  Something twists, causing a snapping, angelic screaming sound to come from Cas and Billie, and Jack looks through the sudden multi-layered chaos to watch as the Meg/Empty slams its hands over its ears.  How angry must it be to torture itself just to torture them?  Jack might be panicking a little.

“You’re right!  We made it worse!”  He hesitates, tries to speak quieter even though physical volume isn’t exactly in play here anyway.  “We woke you up, and you can’t go back to sleep.  That’s what you want, right?  To sleep?”

“I can’t sleep ever again!”

“I want to fix that.  Please.  I didn’t mean to do this.  Let me help you.”

“Liar!  Just like Death’s promises!  All lies!”

Jack ducks some concentrated hostile intent.  It’s very strange to avoid attacks from something you are standing entirely inside.  He tries to think of what the Winchesters would say.  It’s not exactly a great argument, but he asks, “Do you have any other options?”

The hesitation is probably more incredulity than actual consideration, but he presses regardless.

“I woke you up, didn’t I?  When I woke Castiel up?  And you can’t fix it or you would have before we ever met.  So who is left to help you?”

“You woke me up!  You don’t want me to sleep!”

“I didn’t know I was waking you up.  I’m sorry.  But I’ve got all of Chuck and Amara’s power now and I want to help you sleep again.  But you have to agree to let me help you.”

He watches the shudders ripple through the not-nothing, and Jack is suddenly aware of the press of dead demons and angels surrounding him.  There’s so many, and none of them are sleeping either.  Not really.  They thrash and twist and whimper, adding to the noise in his head, and it sparks an idea.  Not a fully formed one – not yet – but maybe a way to actually do what he’s trying to promise, which is better than he had before.  He’ll just need to convince the enraged Empty to let him leave on good terms.  Easy.

The Empty is seething but the attacks stop for a moment.  “Prove it,” it challenges.  An improvement, but also the last thing Jack was hoping to be asked.

“I can’t.  I mean,” he corrects quickly, “I can’t just take the sound away right now, or put you sleep myself.  And I don’t want to try something that accidentally makes it worse.  Again.”

“Then what good are you?!?”

“What good is saying no?  You can’t hurt me.  You can’t keep me here.  You can’t go to sleep.  Your anger is only making it louder.  I promise, I want to help you, and I think I can help you.  I just need to make sure I’m doing it right.”  He wonders for a moment if he should mention the rest of it, but withholding the truth from an enraged cosmic entity with trust issues is probably not a good idea.  “Also, I think it might not be possible to get you back to sleep until I fix what Chuck did to Heaven.  You need to believe that I will come back and help you after I leave here.”

“Believe you?” it growls.  “You want me to just trust you?  After you come here and offer nothing but words!  Do you think I’ll repeat that mistake?!?”  It squints and shifts at him, as if finally clearheaded enough to start searching for ulterior motives.  “Why are you really here?”

Jack winces.  Honesty, right?  “I came to apologize, but I also wanted Castiel.”

The Empty lets out a wordless howl of rage.  He knew that would be a sore point.  Apparently torturing Cas since he was dragged here has not done much to get it to forgive him.  There’s another ripping sound from where the angel is still pinned to the floor, and his muffled scream is still loud enough to quake their surroundings and double the Meg/Empty over.  It’s probably not very fair, but Jack takes advantage of the distraction.

“You are hurting yourself to torture him.  You’ll never get back to sleep while you’re angry like this.  Let me take him away so you can forget.  I need him to help me fix Heaven, and then we can fix you, and you can go back to sleep.  When he dies in a few thousand years – an eon?  He’ll pass into sleep and you won’t even notice.  Isn’t that worth accepting that you’ve had your revenge?”

“He hasn’t suffered enough!  It will never be enough!”

“You’re mostly mad at him for things that weren’t his fault,” Jack tries to reason, “He didn’t ask to be brought back.  He didn’t ask me to wake you up.  The only thing he’s guilty of is saving me, and if I can put you back to sleep then won’t that have technically helped you?”

“You keep saying that!  Saying you’ll put me back to sleep!  It’s.  Just.  Words!”

Jack thinks of everything he knows about the Empty, his mind catching on Castiel’s deal.  “What about collateral?  He’s yours, right?  Let me take him without removing your claim, and if you think I’m lying to you, you can take him back.  He’ll stay in Heaven, where you can get to him.  That’s where we need to go anyway.  You can watch and make sure we are fixing things.  I’ll come back if anything comes up and tell you about it, or you can come find me.  No hiding on Earth.”

For the first time, the Empty seems to be listening.  Its Meg-form stalks over to him, glaring suspiciously.  “Why should I believe you?  What’s to stop you from just keeping him?”

“You can see Heaven.  You see the damage.  Do you really think I could ignore it without catastrophic consequences?  And in Heaven, you can get to us.  It’s a fair deal.”  Jack pauses, trying to come up with something else reassuring.  “I do have all the powers of God.  Time shouldn’t be too much of an issue.”

“I can give you a different angel.  This one is pathetic.  Broken.  It doesn’t do anything special.”  The words are said with such derision it’s honestly shocking.  Jack can’t fathom how any being could look at his chosen angelic father and think he isn’t special.

“I don’t want a different angel.  I want Castiel.  I trust him.  Only him.”

“Well I don’t want to give him back!  He made a deal!  He gets to stay here and suffer for it.  Angels die and then they are mine.  That’s how it works!  He’s mine!”

“Which do you care about more: keeping Castiel or getting back to sleep?”

The Meg/Empty throws its arms up in a frustrated gesture.  Jack can see that, somehow, he’s winning this argument.  “He’s already come back multiple times, and none of them were worth anything!  What if I just loan him to you?  You fix things, and when I go back to sleep, then he does.  No more torture.  I’m being merciful.”

“No deal.  When you go back to sleep, your claim on Castiel ends.  He becomes just another angel.  No torture.  No early death.”  At its rage filled glare, Jack muses, “I am God now.  I could just bring him back once you’re asleep again.  I could prevent you from noticing.”

That gets him a teeth gnashing snarl, but the Empty doesn’t argue.  Jack’s right.  He has no power over the Empty itself, but God’s power created the angels and the human souls that became demons.  Those are as much his domain as they are its.  His plan for helping the Empty sleep solidifies just a bit more.

“Please,” Jack tries one last time, “Please give me Castiel.  I don’t want to fight you.  I don’t want to hide things from you or steal from you.  I’m sorry.  Heaven must be fixed.  I have to set it all right.  Then you can sleep forever.”

The Empty hisses.  Grits its Meg-form’s teeth.  The nothingness-that-isn’t-nothing practically writhes at the edges of Jack’s vision, and he can see the blurry outlines of angels and demons alike pressing against its confines.  He’s aware of Billie’s eyes on him, though their weight is overshadowed by the entirety of Castiel’s focus.

“Deal,” it spits.

---

It’s another perfect day in the Novaks’ Heaven.

The same perfect day, always.  Sunlight streams through the windows.  The birds and the miscellaneous sounds of Pontiac provide a steady background track.  Every once in a while, there are ghosts of memories – friends come to that one treasured game night, parents for Christmas, Claire as a newborn in her crib after they moved in, Claire for her 7^th birthday dinner – but the vast majority of the time is just… peace.

Jimmy actually found it somewhat lonely before Amelia arrived.  She was there but not, just a memory like all the others.  Once she became real, even the quiet moments gained a presence.  At any time, they could set aside whatever heavenly pursuit they passed the time with and talk.  Talk about everything.  Talk about nothing.

Talk.  Not talk.  No matter what it was perfect.  Peace.  Contentment.

Another perfect day.

Amelia would be back any moment with her special summer lemonade.  They were watching their favorite movies again, with the occasional break to one of their old home video collection.  Jimmy was leaning toward starting up their wedding video again after this one ended.

The sound of glass shattering in the kitchen is decidedly not perfect.

“Jimmy!”

Jimmy is on his feet in an instant.  Demons are ancient memory by this point, but the residual panic is apparently still there and not even the air of Heaven can entirely snuff it out.  He’s racing for the kitchen, half expecting something truly terrible – the other shoe dropping to reveal his eternity of happiness had never existed.

Amelia looks okay when he catches sight of her.  Her lemonade pitcher lays shattered at her feet and she’s pressed back against the counter, but there’s no blood.  Jimmy follows her eyes to the intruder in their kitchen – and what an unsettling novelty that is.  It’s a woman.  Sharp cheekbones, dark hair, and piercing blue eyes, dressed in a weird vintage dress and bustle.  She smiles pleasantly and Jimmy is certain he’s never met this woman before in his life.  Still, there’s something familiar about her.  She sets off a feeling like tinder sparks through his whole being.  It’s like…

“Castiel,” he recognizes with a faint gasp.

Castiel smiles wider with the stranger’s face.  “Yes,” she agrees, “It’s good to see you again, Jimmy.  Amelia.  I’m sorry for startling you.  Normally the vessel I choose to project is, well, yours, but I thought that might be a little awkward.”

“Uh… yeah.”  Jimmy swallows, suddenly nervous.  “Makes sense.  Don’t worry about it.  Um,” he immediately tries to come up with possible reasons for a visit from an angel, and finds every option concerning, “is something wrong?”

A dark chuckle is not the expected response.  The angel’s stiff posture vanishes as she tips her head back and laughs.  “What isn’t?” she quips, which seems to be some kind of gallows humor based on the following burst of poorly muffled black laughter.  Jimmy isn’t sure he wants to know what a literal angel considers so dark it’s funny.  He didn’t know Castiel found anything funny.

Amelia glances at him, and there’s a whole conversation in the widening of her eyes.  They are both terrified to say it, but the only thing the three of them have in common is Claire.  Castiel notices their mounting panic after a beat. 

“Sorry.  Don’t worry.  Extended torture does strange things to my sense of humor.  Technically, yes, something is very wrong on the cosmic scale, but you missed the main bit and we’re fixing the rest now.  You should have nothing to worry about.”

“Torture?” Amelia echoes, and Castiel pointedly gets distracted by their cabinet hardware.  Jimmy is just as lost as his wife.

“Castiel, what do you- I mean, what are you doing here?  Do you need something from us, for your, uh, cosmic problem?”

“Nothing more than a conversation,” she assures, “I’m really only here for the introduction.  Jimmy.  Amelia.  Meet Jack.”  The angel nods toward something behind them, and Jimmy glances back to find a young blond man staring transfixed at their built-in shelves.

Before either of them can address their new guest, he’s reaching forward and passing his hand through the wall.  “This is so cool.  We didn’t really leave the Roadhouse, at all.  We’re in the same place, but… shifted.  Is all of Heaven so… stacked?  So many layers of color?  Of course it is.  I know it is.  I don’t know why I asked that.”  The kid is making absolutely no sense, but he’s pulled his hand out of the bare wall, and he’s now staring at it like it’s a work of art.  “It’s beautiful.”

“Heaven always has been, at least to angels,” Castiel says, and there’s more fondness in the words than Jimmy thought he, er, she was capable of.  It does nothing to clarify who they’re being introduced to, but it must be a sign he’s good.  Hopefully.  He’s obviously not human at any rate.

They are clearly being prompted to talk to the stranger, so Amelia clears her throat nervously and steps forward like a true, if slightly intimidated, hostess.  “He-hello.  I’m Amelia Novak and this is our Heaven.  Should I, um, make us some more lemonade?”

The kid- Jack- grins.  “Hello.  That sounds lovely, but I don’t know if I could distinguish it from the walls.  Maybe we should skip any food or drink, just in case.”

“Oh.”

“Cas already told you, but my name is Jack.  I’m God.”  Jimmy blinks.  “Well, the new God.  The old one was… bad.  And he was messing up the universe, so I replaced him.”

Amelia gapes slightly, unsure what to say to that.  Jimmy honestly doesn’t know either, but it seems like it would be rude to just kind of collapse into a ball on the floor and blink at actual-literal-God, so he tries.  The first words won’t come out at all, so he swallows and wets his lips.  On the second attempt he manages a weak, “You… replaced God?”  He doesn’t even realize he’s glancing toward Castiel for answers until she meets his eyes.

“Jack’s telling the truth,” she agrees.  “You probably don’t want details.  Suffice to say if you found me an unpleasant dose of reality when it came to angels, my father would have been quite the disappointment.  We needed to deal with him.”

“You needed to deal with him,” Jimmy repeats blankly.  He and Amelia share another whole-conversation kind of look.  She scrabbles for a question once it becomes obvious Jimmy has nothing.

“Um,” she starts, “Er, were you an angel then?  Does Heaven have a… promotion system?”

“No, I wasn’t an angel.  I was a Nephilim.  Half-angel, half human.  I’m three years old.”  He sounds extremely proud.

The phrase half-angel puts a really crazy idea into Jimmy’s head, and it’s coming out before he can stop it.  “So is Castiel your…?”

“Father?  Yes.”  What the f- “But not my birth father.”  Jimmy almost slumps with relief.  He’s 100% positive that Castiel is still running around in his body, somehow, and he cannot handle the idea that Claire is God’s half-sister.  Not in any form.  He just can’t.  Jack continues, entirely unaware of his plight, “I picked him, before I was born.  I thought he would keep me safe.  Help me achieve my destiny.  And he did.”

“Your destiny to become God?” Amelia clarifies.  Jack nods.  “Ok.  Well, um, welcome.  To our Heaven.  God.  Uh- “

“You can just call me Jack.”

“Welcome to our Heaven, Jack,” she says slowly, still sounding faintly shell shocked, “What exactly can we help you with?  You… wanted to talk to us?”

“I did.  Should we sit down?”

The move back into the living room is both surreal and tremendously awkward.  The Novaks end up together on the loveseat.  Jimmy absently turns off the tv.  He can’t even recall what movie they were watching.  Castiel simply leans against the wall, and Jimmy honestly isn’t sure whether the bustle dress could be making it difficult to sit down or if that would be completely irrelevant because angels aren’t technically wearing clothes – or a vessel – at all.  And Jack… well.

Jack seems perfectly happy to perch on their armchair and look innocently around their simple little living room like it’s one of the most interesting places he’s ever seen.  If he’s actually looking at Heaven, maybe it is.

“So…”

Jack grins.  “I’m trying to learn more about Heaven.  Not what Heaven truly is or how the angels see it, but how human souls experience Heaven.  It’s very important.”

Jimmy swallows.  “Can I ask why?”

“Because Heaven is falling apart,” Jack says simply.

“What Jack means,” Castiel interjects, “is that Heaven has always been maintained by the angels, and we’re, well, running out of angels.  He has all the necessary power to repair it.  He just wants to make sure it is done… right.  From the human perspective.”

“Uh, yes.  What Cas said.  You aren’t in danger.  Heaven won’t actually break, I promise.”

“Right.  Sure.  Heaven is just… almost breaking.”

“Exactly.”

Jimmy squeezes Amelia’s hand in a silent plea for help.  As always, she’s there to save him.  “Well, we’re pretty happy, right?  Right.  It’s very peaceful.  Pleasant.”  She frowns slightly, probably suspecting her answers aren’t particularly helpful.  “Do you, um, have any specific questions, maybe?”

Jack looks upward thoughtfully.  “I asked Castiel to help me talk to people who would have relevant experiences.  Our first stop was the Heaven of a man named Ash who lives in a bar.  He likes being dead, but he also spends most of his time listening in on the angels and following living events, so I guess he likes that too.  He hacked his Heaven and invited lots of people who really weren’t supposed to be there.  Lots of friends of the Winchesters.  They had a very long list of opinions, but their experience of Heaven was… non-standard.  And hunters have non-standard expectations.”  He pauses, looking expectantly at Amelia.

“That… makes sense?”

“Good,” Jack nods.  “Anyway, Cas said that you two were people of faith, and that Heaven was supposed to be your reward for everything you gave on Earth.  Like… an apology for the hardships.  Plus, you are soulmates, so you get to share a Heaven without hacking it.  Is this Heaven what you expected?  Is it rewarding?”

This time it’s Amelia leveraging the significant look, and Jimmy knows what she’s getting at immediately.  She hadn’t been lying.  Heaven is peaceful.  It’s pleasant.  They are happy, in their perfect day in their perfect Pontiac house.  Their complaints are so few and far between it seems ungrateful to even consider them, but…

Jimmy remembers the loneliness back when everyone was just memories, projected in an endless loop.  He remembers the joy of seeing Amelia and knowing she was real for the first time, and how that joy had broken through the blanket of contentment.  He remembers hearing about Claire all grown up and realizing just how much his soul had been looking forward to news.  They had talked about it a few times, dwelling on both the good and the bad before Heaven’s serenity washed it away.  There was a definite moment of ache, hearing about this mysterious Ash and his ability to find his friends and see the real them, and it twinged more when he put together the implication of Jack’s words.

They get to share their Heaven because they are soulmates, which means no one else is coming.

He’ll never see Claire again.

That’s the thought he builds on.  After all, can anything in the world truly be perfect if it doesn’t include a chance to see who his little girl grows up to be?  It takes a long minute – he’s trying to organize the cluttered thoughts in his head for the weightiest impromptu presentation of his afterlife – but Jack seems content to sit patiently.  Jimmy held an angel in his body.  Twice.  Amelia is his rock and his port in the storm, and she’s here to support him.  God is a three-year-old with dimples.  He can do this.

“Well,” Jimmy starts, suppressing the desire for a glass of water to anxiously sip, “when I first got here…”

---

Jimmy couldn’t say how long he talked for.  Jack was an engaged audience, practically brimming with questions, and Amelia was more than happy to bounce off his points with her own experiences every time.  Castiel was a mostly silent presence, only interjecting to rephrase some confusing or foreboding statement of Jack’s or add some note that presumably made sense to angelic beings.  At least once she spouted off a solid block of what must have been Enochian with a pinched expression.

Jack had just hummed at that one, considering.

Eventually, though, Jimmy had hit everything.  Every thought, good or bad, that he’d ever had about the contentment, the memories, the house… all the way down to the birds he can hear out the window but never see.  It left him feeling lighter.  Listened to.  Infinitely curious what Jack was going to do with all of this.  Couldn’t hurt to ask, right?

“So, um, Jack,” he questions, breaking the thoughtful silence, “what happens now?  Do you and Castiel have more Heaven stops or…?”

Jack grins.  “I’m going to see my mom.  She’s here in Heaven too, but I’m not quite ready yet.  I think I should develop a plan to fix everything, and then ask her what she thinks of it.  She’s supposed to be enjoying her Heaven, so her liking any changes would be a good sign.  Right?”

“Um,” he blinks, “right.”

It really doesn’t seem right that the new God should be so easy to please.  He follows Jack’s gaze back to Castiel, who is staring upward at something clearly beyond the plane of their ceiling.  Possibly the breakdown of Heaven that’s apparently happening, though she looks more pissed off than concerned.  “Shall we return to the throne then?” she asks out of the blue, “I believe Naomi is back at her surveillance attempts.”

Jack hums.  “Are you sure you don’t want to kill her?”  Amelia’s eyebrows seem to lift into her hairline, and she glances at her husband like he’s supposed to have answers.  Baby God is apparently discussing executions from their armchair now.  He doesn’t even know who Naomi is, but at this point he’s ready to accept this might as well happen.  “I think it’s fair to say she deserves it,” Jack continues, unconcerned.

“No,” Castiel says, and it’s just oozing with bitterness, “I’ve killed enough angels.  Besides, combat is not Naomi’s strong suit, and she no longer has the followers to enforce her will.  She can fucking try me.”  Jimmy swallows.  He has fragmented yet vivid memories of Castiel on a battlefield, and he doesn’t doubt a word of it.

Jack just shrugs.  “Ok.  She can’t spy on us if I don’t let her.  And I don’t think I want to leave here quite yet.”  He turns expectantly back toward the Novaks.  “May we stay longer?”

What exactly is there to say to that?  “Of course.  No problem.”

“Thank you.”  His smile is ridiculous.  “I have some ideas I want to try out.”

Jimmy is about to ask what exactly that means when Jack casually waves a hand over their coffee table, and his brain blanks out.  It looks like the entire top surface of the table was converted into a mass of golden light.  There’s something in the three-dimensional space – some sense of deliberate order in the flickering shapes – but trying to focus on it is a pointless exercise.  The total effect is awe inspiring, if incomprehensible.

Evidently the table gets Castiel’s attention too.

“That’s different.  Not that the human souls would notice, but the angels will have some concerns.”

Jack hums.  “I think it’s necessary.  The system of individual Heavens isn’t working.  Memories aren’t… people.”

“We tried one Heaven originally,” she muses, walking over to stand at Jack’s side, “but humans kept dying.  After the first billion there were too many souls to keep track of.  And that’s before we even get into all the infighting.  Heaven’s peace has nothing on the human willingness to hold grudges after death.”

“Not one Heaven, then.  But maybe… a network?  Limited scope.  Like this?”  He waves his hand again, and the gold spirals around erratically.  There’s a shifting feeling, and suddenly the living room walls are lined with doors.  Amelia gasps lightly.

Castiel is still frowning.  “I would recommend connections based more on the antechamber system we adopted for the Green Room.  It was more specifically designed to keep souls from wandering.”  There’s a quirk to her lips like she’s remembering an inside joke, and Jimmy gets a vague flash of memory – Dean Winchester casually nudging an angel statue off a mantle with all the destructive apathy of Grandma Novak’s third cat.  The light – a blueprint, he thinks? – reshapes again, but this time he can distinctly see streaks of silver-blue.

“Is that… Grace?” Jimmy asks distractedly, before the mortification of butting into such an important conversation can sink in.  He’s turning bright red before Castiel even answers.

“Yes.”  She doesn’t look up.  “Grace is the… wiring system of Heaven.  That’s why angels can manipulate Heavens so easily.  We run on the same… stuff.”

“And, um,” Amelia starts to ask, now that Jimmy got the initial faux pas out of the way, “what are the doors?”

Jack gestures toward one and grins.  “Connections!  To other Heavens!  Open one.  Just to try looking through it.”

She hesitates for a moment, before standing up on slightly shaky legs.  The nearest door opens to a sprawling park scene.  The Novaks both stare, enraptured, before Jimmy puts it together.  “Isn’t that the venue from your Uncle Daniel’s wedding?  The park where he and Elise met?”

“Oh, it is!  Does that mean…?”  Amelia steps a little closer, leans through the door a bit to look around.  “I see him!  It’s the ceremony!  He’s at the altar.  Or… she is?  Both of them?”

“That Heaven belongs to Daniel Bauer,” Jack supplies helpfully, “He doesn’t share it.”

“Oh.”  With that little huff, most of the excitement seems to drain out of Amelia.  Jimmy is sure she’s picturing the same thing he is – standing at the altar with a memory partner and memory priest and memory audience.  “So, when Elise passes…?”

“She’ll have her own Heaven,” Castiel confirms.  “One with her own memories.  Possibly even her own version of that wedding.  At least, that’s how it works at the moment.”

“It seems… almost cruel.”

Castiel shrugs.  “The angels – we… We wouldn’t have even been able to follow the thought process you just went through to decide that.  The last time the Heavens themselves were edited I wasn’t even here.  My garrison was on deployment against a warmongering Knight of Hell.  I can guarantee, however, that management couldn’t even begin to perceive any difference between the scenario that first brought you joy and a perfect recreation of it.  How would they?  To an angel, the only difference between memory and reality is usually time.”

“Is that why you wanted to ask humans?” Jimmy questions.

“Yes.  I’m… much better at this than I used to be, but the nuances of human emotions are very complex.  Who is to say that my suggestions wouldn’t just be a different kind of unintentional cruelty?  Victim to a different angelic blind spot?”

Amelia steps back and gently closes the door.  The gentle breeze of Daniel’s Heaven flutters through the room one last time as she turns to Jack.  “So the doors – everyone will have them?”

“Yes!  I think… some kind of confluence point, specific to the Heaven.  Manifesting like the Axis Mundi.  Yours looks like a house, so doors make sense.  Maybe a room on the other side of your front door?  Anyway, you’ll get a two-way connection to anyone significant in your life.  You can visit them.  They can visit you.  I suppose, technically, you could also meet anyone from their doors in their Heaven, but you won’t be able to go wandering through unless the door is yours.”

“Daniel and Elise?”

“As soon as she’s in Heaven, he’ll be there on the other side of their connection.  They can spend the rest of eternity together if they want.”

The golden grace-blueprint expands as Jack talks, and Jimmy is hit with the realization he’s probably refining it.  He’s God.  Surely he can multitask.  Castiel studies it intently.  “The memory system might be worth preserving,” she murmurs, “even if we hand conscious control of when it engages to the souls.  Not all treasured memories involve close bonds.”

Jimmy is only half paying attention, imagining what it would feel like to know Claire was on her way eventually.  Getting news of her – even just the barest hint – was one of the highlights of Amelia’s arrival.  He’s about to ask Castiel if she can tell him anything about his daughter’s life when it hits him.  “Can we- can you do anything to let us get news from Earth?”

Jack and Castiel both look at him intently.  Jimmy swallows.

“I mean, not, like, a constant nanny cam or anything, but just… something.  It’s hard to tell how time passes in here, but if you are waiting for someone’s door to show up – like Amelia or Claire – I think it could feel like a long wait.  A little news to remind you their lives are happening could help mark the time.  Is that… possible?”

Castiel hums, tilting her sharp gaze back to the blueprint.  “Automatic connections to Earth have always been immensely frowned upon.”

Jack twists to face her.  “Isn’t that more of an angelic tradition than a hard rule, though?  Michael and Raphael started it.  I know that, apparently.”

“Still, we don’t actually want to encourage souls to get too focused on Earth.  It makes them… unruly.  There was intense debate among the choirs as to whether to even let them have access to new creative works as they were created.”

“What did they decide?”

“Only for souls whose Heavens needed the additional mental stimulation.  Authors.  Artists.  Archivists.  Et cetera.  I though the excess of caution was unnecessary, but the root concerns were valid.”

“Hmm.  Should we change that?” Jack wonders.  The golden light shifts quickly through iterations.  “What about this?  It should fade off naturally as their connections join them.”

“Possible.  Potentially somewhat elegant, too.  But what happens when millions of connections go unmonitored?  I doubt humans will find as much comfort in random glimpses of their awaited loved ones sleeping at 4am or brushing their teeth before work.”

“Maybe not,” Jack agrees.  “I’ll come up with a solution.”

“You will?” Jimmy barely dares to hope.

“Of course.  It’s a good idea.  Thank you very much for your assistance.”

The conversation trails off as the two Heavenly beings focus on their blueprint again.  Amelia carefully returns to her seat, one hand reaching out to find her husband’s.  She squeezes his fingers.  Their eyes lock, and the grin hits him all at once.  They’ll see Claire again soon.

The joy in Amelia’s eyes must be reflecting just a strongly in his own.

Castiel murmurs something in Enochian.  The blueprint is still indecipherable on presumably every level of human comprehension, but Jimmy swears he can start to spot the moments a draft is finished and everything freezes for a quick analysis.  The grace remains mostly gold, swallowing up Castiel’s silvery notes as soon as she makes them.  The doors vanish.  The Novaks’ Heaven is rippling around them, but in a way they can only spot in their peripheral vision.  Castiel’s analogy about Grace as a wiring system comes to mind, and he thinks they must be endlessly rewiring the whole house inside the walls.  It’s… disconcerting.

Jack puffs up his cheeks and blows out a breath, and it’s so reminiscent of Claire as a frustrated six-year-old that Jimmy’s heart stutters.  The changes halt.  “I think that’s as good as I can get testing on just one Heaven,” Jack announces.

Castiel tilts her head, looking it over.  “The functionality is there.  It should scale well, except…”

Jimmy waits a long beat for the rest of that sentence, then waits for Jack to ask for the rest of the sentence, then realizes he’s become very invested in this project and he can ask for the rest of that sentence.  It’s gone surprisingly well so far.  “Except what?”

Castiel frowns.  “Making Heavens more complex requires more management.  Jack, obviously, can alter the foundations of the Heaven system in any way he likes, but the job of maintaining it has always been the responsibility of angels.  To be blunt, we don’t have enough angels to run this.”

“Angels build Heavens?” Amelia asks, and buried in the question is the tiniest waver, born from the nightmare of a monstrous angel keeping her placid for years.  Not even Heaven’s peace can entirely heal some hurts.

“Not exactly,” Castiel says, “Human souls build and power their own Heavens.  Under the current system you’re all nicely contained in your little bubble dimensions and require minimal oversight.  Our responsibility is to watch for breaches, monitor the flow of excess power to Heaven’s Well, resist entropy…”

There’s more to the list presumably, but Jimmy is latched on item two.  “Wait.  Excess power?  Like, the power from the souls?  What the fu- Are you saying Heaven is the Matrix?  Do angels run on soul batteries?!?  Oh, please no, I cannot deal with that.”

“Angels don’t use souls for batteries,” Jack clarifies, “though they could if they wanted to.”

Castiel sighs.  “Not my smartest decision, no, but the alternative was excruciating death and Raphael restarting the apocalypse.”  Jimmy blinks.  What.  “Regardless, the Matrix series of movies is a poor but not completely inapt comparison, assuming you remove much of the malicious intent and consider it more a… symbiotic relationship.  Your souls are self-contained nuclear reactors that generate the raw power of Creation, except they never degrade or run out of fuel unless something deliberately overdraws to the point of damage.  In order to not be a battery, you need something to do with that energy.  Grace is provided as a framework.  You make the Heaven, and theoretically your own happiness.”

“And what?  Angels use us to recharge?”

“Sometimes.  The Well is where soul energy blends with our collective reserve of Grace.  Most Grace does regenerate on its own, but slower.  Drawing on the collective was an easier option.  Historically, though, the energy we directed into the Well was used for great acts.  Mass smiting.  Manipulating fate.  Raising the dead.  They cut me off when I Fell.”

Jimmy isn’t sure she realizes how achingly wistful that last sentence sounded.  There’s no non-awkward way to point it out either, so he decides they can handle an abrupt return to subject.  He remembers brushing against Castiel’s sheer alien senses during his chained-to-a-comet days.  There had been so many angels, all constantly interconnected.  He can’t imagine how they could be understaffed.  “So you don’t have enough angels to operate your door idea?  Why not?  Is it really that much harder than what you’re doing now?”

Castiel’s face twists with something bitter, and Jimmy immediately regrets his question.  “Short answer?  Civil war.  Or wars, plural, if you look at it from a different angle.  It turns out that the one consistent lesson we angels appear to excel in when it comes to free will is learning to murder our siblings to resolve ideological disputes.”  Off to the side, Jack’s mouth falls into a distinctly disapproving line as he scrutinizes Castiel.  She’s pointedly ignoring him with a self-depreciating slump in her shoulders.  “I did mention we were running out of angels.”

The implications… There were thousands of them.  Tens of thousands.  They couldn’t possibly have wiped themselves out, could they?  How?  When?  “How many angels are left?” he asks, in some strange expression of morbid curiosity.

“We’ve barely sustained double digits.”

Oh.

That… That sounds like a problem.

Amelia squeezes his hand tightly.  Jimmy didn’t realize how well he’d done at not thinking about the impending collapse of Heaven until it’s shoved to the front of his mind.  It cannot be a coincidence that Heaven is falling apart at the same time angels are going extinct.  They must be related.  The chance to play a card game with his friends instead of their memory is very abruptly paling in comparison to the Host of Heaven being about a dozen strong.  He remembers Jack’s confidence in his ability to fix it all, but then – surely? – if there was a plan then Castiel would have mentioned it before proclamations of doom.  Right?  Oh fuck, they just accidentally brainstormed a Heaven improvement plan with God that will never see the light of day because there aren’t enough angels, didn’t they?

Jack coughs lightly for attention.  Everyone stares.

“I was waiting to bring this up,” he starts delicately, “but I think I do need to drastically increase the number of angels, even if Duma’s plan to do so last time was flawed on multiple levels.”

For what sounds like an obvious solution, it doesn’t seem to go over well.  Castiel crosses her arms defensively across her chest.  “We haven’t added to the population of Heaven since just after Lucifer’s Rebellion.  And the entire system that came from that reorganization led directly to the Apocalypse.  Angels are… Freshly created angels especially are weapons of divine purpose and time bombs just waiting to happen.  A new God in residence could maybe course correct them, but-” she cuts off, shaking her head, “You weren’t there, Jack.  You’ve never actually met an angel in their original, intended image.  I don’t think you grasp how badly the adaptation and aftermath went.”

Jimmy thinks the entire population apparently massacring each other should be evidence enough for ‘badly’, but Jack just hums lightly, leaning forward to clasp his hands near his knees.  It’s painfully earnest.  “I thought you might say that.  It was free will, right?  Chuck didn’t mean for them to have it, but they learned it anyway.  And then they were just people.  Some good people, some bad people, and mostly neutral people just trying stuff and making mistakes?  Only they were angels, so their mistakes could be really big.  Just like mine.”

Castiel’s face looks so taken aback it’s almost funny.  Her hands have shifted to a white-knuckled grip on her skirts.  Jack barrels onward.

“That’s what I thought.  So I decided… if we can’t predict how new angels will make decisions once they discover they can, then why don’t we focus on angels you already know?  Look at who already had free will so that we can see what they did with it.”  He pauses, sitting up straighter and squaring his shoulders.  “Instead of making a new Host, I want to try and resurrect as much of the old one as we can.”

“The Empty will never allow it,” she objects, looking faintly ill.

“The Empty wants to sleep.  I think it’s been awake for longer than it even realizes.  Me and you didn’t disturb it the first time.  Chuck did, probably during the Apocalypse.  Nothing in the Empty is supposed to dream.  If it would help it go back to sleep, I think I could persuade it to give back a lot of angels.  Right now… they’re all making noise.  It wants them gone.  I just need you to help me sort out who.”

“I have no right.  If you want angels who proved to be good after the divine plan fell apart… Jack, I would not place myself on that list.  Ask any of the angels who remain.  My crimes against Heaven go beyond well-intentioned mistakes.”

“Then it’s a good thing the angels I want are those who honestly desired to do good and, regardless of how it worked out before their deaths, those who deserve another chance.  You and the Winchesters gave me more than one.  I think, if I’m trying to be a better God than the one who got most of the angels killed, then I owe them – and you – the same.”

It’s a good pitch, Jimmy has to admit, sharing a faintly impressed look with Amelia.  He figures their presence will be remembered eventually.  Until then, well, the context of this conversation is wholly lost on them, for sure – save the worrying implication that Castiel has apparently committed what she sees as unforgivable atrocities – but if God thinks it was ok, Jimmy Novak of Pontiac, Illinois is hardly going to question.  She still looks a bit skeptical, but Jack’s unwavering faith is extremely touching.  Adoptive angel parents are not immune.  The kid leans forward even further.

“Please, Castiel?  I need your advice.”

No way can she say no to that face.

Chapter Text

Balthazar wakes up slowly, feeling like he's been asleep for a long time. This is a particularly concerning feeling, though the reason escapes him for several long moments. He shuffles a bit. Twists his neck. Stretches his limbs. Flexes his talons.

It finally clicks as he untucks his wings. Right. He's an angel. Angels don’t sleep.

Things that don’t sleep also don’t tend to ‘wake up’.

Disturbing.

Now would probably be a good time for some contextual awareness. Safety and all that. Blearily, he directs his various senses outwards, pleased to note they all appear to be there. Not trapped in any sort of intensive warding then.

Ah, Balthazar notes, this is Heaven. This is followed immediately by the realization he should not be in Heaven – he was a traitor to the archangels last he remembers – and that something in Heaven is fundamentally off.

It’s in the thrum of the dimensional space around him. He can feel his Grace winding back into the infrastructure to orient him but there’s a sharp tug, like the framework is pulling too. Logically he knows it always has been, but he’s never felt it before. It’s very unpleasant. He starts to ask if he’s been placed in some kind of specialty cell – draining Grace could be torture, he supposes, even if this seems like a very underwhelming drain – but the first sound splits his mental space like a whipcrack, drawing attention to that which he never should have missed in the first place.

There’s no one there.

Howwhatwhywhereisitatrapwherewhereistherewardingcananyonehearmewherewhywhy-

“Balthazar.”

His brother’s voice cuts through the panic like a knife. Recognition lights him up – Castiel, he chimes, too garbled to count as speech but infusing relief in every direction – and his attention narrows like a beam. Now that he can feel one presence, he finds a few more. They are distant and exhausted, but undeniably there. Whatever has gone wrong hasn’t cut him off from all his siblings, only most, and someone should be able to explain.

Castiel is farther away then he would normally be. He’s holding himself awkwardly, with backwards wings tucked flat and an odd ring configuration. His Grace is held tightly in the architecture of his form, almost like he’s afraid to reach out. It’s very wrong – so very wrong, and why does Balthazar have the errant thought ‘he should be afraid’ and this tension in his talons and –

He remembers.

His trusted friend. His commander. He’d been there... he’d tried to... and he’d gotten a blade in the back for it. His Grace had destabilized. His wings had burned.

Castiel’s posture is shame.

His brother’s wings are as nonthreatening as he can make them, deliberately not in any position to strike or defend himself. The triple rings that Balthazar has seen tear and scorch through attackers and demonic hordes alike are held open to expose his core, spinning so slowly they might as well be halted. Even his center mass is softened, somehow, more open and vulnerable. If Balthazar struck at his brother in this moment, he can’t guarantee Castiel would lift a wing to block a killing blow.

He’s not sure he cares.

Balthazar isn’t particularly conscious of inverting himself, turning the threat of lethal talons into reality. His screech of betrayal is wordless, hurt and rage muddling his perception. Castiel has the decency to flinch but makes no move to reduce his vulnerability. Bladed wings snap forward – he’s still deciding whether this is an aggressive display or true intent to harm – and that’s when Balthazar freezes in shock.

His wings have... multiplied?

It’s possibly the only thing that could have stopped him so short in the face of his brother’s betrayal. It’s a lightning bolt through his being, forcing him to think. To realize.

Castiel... Cassie had... he’d killed him. And now Balthazar is in Heaven with new wings.

He twitches them experimentally. They certainly seem to be his. They had sprung into a combat position familiar from seraphs on the battlefield – main wings poised for striking and his two new pairs locking defensively above and below. The feathers are nicely consistent with his existing pair, a continuation of the white and ultraviolet banding into some lovely bright edges that look absolutely dangerous. The lower set even picked up some rich shading on the undersides, turning the flatter violet into a gradient look. All in all, a beautiful addition to his form that should not exist.

Angels had not risen ranks since Lucifer’s Fall. Save one.

“You’ll get used to them,” Cas murmurs hesitantly. He would know. Balthazar still remembers hearing the rumors. His dear friend had been scattered to atoms trying to pick a fight above his station, before the absent father Himself had restored him and then some. He’d barely believed it until he saw the wings in person. Now he can’t tear the majority of his focus away from his own.

“You... You stabbed me,” he says, slower and shakier than he intended, “You killed me.”

“I–” He sounds stricken, space humming as he struggles for words that aren’t there. Finally, he gives up and pushes out, sending the raw emotions in a single wave.

Sorrowguiltremorsehowcouldwhyregrethurthurthewasmyfrienditwasamistakeguilt-

And under it all, clear as a bell: I don’t deserve your forgiveness.

Balthazar hums in acknowledgement. It’s no absolution, but the guilt feels too real for him to write off the possibility just yet. His rage, at least, has simmered down enough for more pressing concerns.

“What happened?” he asks. A simple question, encompassing more than he can properly convey. Why is he in Heaven? What happened with the war? Raphael? The rest of their siblings? How is he back? What happened?

If he was expecting his brother’s (murderer’s) guilt to pressure a swift and expansive answer, he’s disappointed. More hesitation. Castiel’s wings pull back further. Slump more as he waffles for a place to start.

“A lot,” he finally settles on, “it’s been almost a decade.”

For most of Balthazar’s existence, such a brief period of time would barely have registered, but there’s weight to how Castiel says it. It stands to reason that if the year of the Apocalypse and their year after could contain so many dramatic upheavals of the celestial plan, then the next years could as well. Still, he asked a question, and he’s damn well expecting more than vague shrugs.

“Was it worth it?” he hisses, talons flexing, “Killing me? Did your mad gamble at least work, or did I get stabbed in the back for nothing?”

“It worked.” More waves of that yawning regretsorrowgriefguilt feeling radiate, and the self-loathing is overwhelming in its bitterness. “I opened Purgatory. Denied Crowley any of the souls. Destroyed Raphael where they stood.”

“Good.”

“It really wasn’t.”

There’s a story there. One that he suspects will send his rage (grief, hurt, heartbreak, betrayal) to new heights. One that Balthazar does not want to deal with right now. He’s a coward. So sue him.

The silence is heavy with things unsaid.

Perhaps someone else would be better to consult. Less baggage. More objectivity. “Where are the rest of our siblings? Why can’t I-?” Balthazar freezes as the atmosphere shudders with his brother’s hurt. Guilt. Self-loathing. They can’t be – Not – There’s no way –

“The war didn’t end with Raphael,” Castiel confesses. Balthazar is already pulling into himself, wings tensing as he tries to beat back the realization with the force of denial alone. Castiel doesn’t stop talking. “I... I killed them all. The loyalists. And then with no archangels or ophanim, faction leaders just kept grasping for power. I... We... Heaven destroyed itself. It was – Here.“

Castiel’s wings shove toward him, pushing out a wave of rippling Grace, and it must be instinct that has Balthazar accepting the offered knowledge. It slots into his consciousness with a terrifyingly uncomfortable detachment. Leviathan. Naomi. Tablets. Metatron. Bartholomew. The Darkness. Their Father? Lucifer. And woven through it all, blade after blade after blade. Burned wings, destroyed vessels, the voices of thousands of siblings snuffing out. Extinction in the form of facts and figures on a timeline.

It's horrifying. It’s agony.

Castiel’s grief is swallowed by his own.

“Is that all of it?” he chokes.

“No. But that’s what you need to know for now.”

“How could... Why would you bring me here? How did you bring me here???” Before his brother can even begin to answer, Balthazar finally spots what he had missed upon waking. “Your wings.“

Castiel twists self-consciously, inadvertently displaying more feathers. They aren’t stripped and bloodied things like Metatron’s spell had apparently left them for several years, but the record of the damage is obvious. Balthazar remembers the siege of hell, each of them losing a few feather chunks to hellfire and demonic hordes. No permanent wounds, but the typical coloration shifts of regrown feathers were apparent on everyone who returned. Castiel was no exception. A smattering of locations across his darkly iridescent wings had lost a bit of indigo around the tips, replaced with asymmetric silvery flashes on the undersides. Balthazar hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now...

The wings’ insides are a riot of silver banding. Every single feather has been replaced. Recently.

It must have been excruciating.

“My wings were restored with the same power that brought you back.”

“And what power is that? You... you found our Father?”

Castiel’s rings swoop low like a grimace. “Yes and no. Our Father... he did more than just abandon us. He was ready to destroy it all in a fit of pique. You can feel the pulling, can’t you?”

Balthazar hums. The architecture of Heaven is clingier than he remembers, yes.

“There aren’t enough of us to keep Heaven running. Not now, at least. So the... new leadership is trying to fix that problem.”

“Fix?” Castiel can’t mean what it sounds like he –

“Restore the angels. Bring back enough of the slain that we can start again, and perhaps this time learn from our mistakes.”

“Ah yes,” Balthazar scoffs. “Learning and growing from mistakes. Sounds so very much like our siblings. Remind me, what happened when doubt was thrown on the whole Apocalypse mess? Oh right. Raphael and a bunch of supporters immediately aimed to restart it, and the vast majority of them sat back on their wingtips and watched.”

“You’re not wrong. But as hard as it may be to believe, the very last of us did manage a truce. And very little motivates quite like the impending collapse of Heaven and the subsequent destruction of reality,” his brother jokes. It would be endearing if Balthazar wasn’t still fresh off the memory of dying at his hands. Castiel’s interior shrinks inward. “I was asked for names of angels who could help. Who deserved better than what they got. And your name was the first in my mind.” He doesn’t say it outright, but the space around them hums with I’m sorry in every language known to them both.

“Asked by who?“

Prayer from an angel makes a very particular sort of ringing noise that Balthazar hasn’t heard in a long time. Prayers, after all, were for their Father. Maybe the archangels, but who would be bold enough to directly contact them? For Castiel to pray is a shock down his feathers, making his talons curve back into battle readiness. What in Heaven is he thi-?

“Hello. My name is Jack!”

Balthazar looks. Looks again. Stretches his perspective to look from several hundred angles at once. “What the bloody hell are you?”

Jack smiles, which is very odd for something that objectively shouldn’t have a mouth or be perceivable as a young human. “I’m the one who brought you back. You are actually the first angel I resurrected like this, but I swear I knew what I was doing. And I’m ready for several others. Castiel just suggested I start slow. You won’t be so lonely here for very long.” That’s... well it would be marginally comforting if it was coming from an entity that made sense. “Oh, right. Not the answer you were looking for. Um. I guess I’m God, but not your Father,” he clarifies. It does not make things clearer.

Castiel’s Grace softly offers him more memories. Jack continues to smile in spite of Heaven’s capabilities. To say Balthazar was apprehensive would be an understatement.

More knowledge. Lucifer creates a Nephilim and Cassie adopts it like a baby duckling, because of course he does. Somehow, this is not a terrible decision. Cas shows him snippets of this “Jack”. Saving some humans. Rejecting his wretched father. Watching some tv show meant for tiny human children, wings fluttering with joy. There’s emotion. Fierce protectiveness. Care.

Their Father is back. The memories are vague on what’s happening. Hostility. Manipulation. Carelessness. The Darkness returns and is consumed, altering their Father’s light into something else. Jack again. Jack is God. The faint outline of Nephilim wings drowned out by light and void. Jack looks at Heaven. Jack looks at Cas. I’m going to fix this, clear as a bell.

Balthazar gets it, but he still doesn’t. It’s too... insane.

“The new leadership, I take it?” he quips.

Jack grins wider. “Cas said you were funny. That I would like you.” Does that count as a compliment if God is a toddler? “Do you have any questions?” the new God asks him helpfully, “I know being resurrected can be rather disorienting.”

Any questions... all the questions... what’s the difference? He starts, as he starts most things, impulsively. “Where did you resurrect me from?“

“The Empty. It’s where angels and demons go when they die. Recent events have... upset it. Many of the inhabitants were stirring in their sleep.” Jack frowns pensively, another seemingly impossible feat. “It was easy to convince it to let many of you go now, but I’m not sure how long we have before its possessiveness outweighs its desire to kick out noisemakers. We’ll have to prioritize our list.”

“And this list would be...?”

“Castiel helped suggest angels who would be good if given another chance. So did the others, though I don’t trust them as much. We were actually hoping you and the rest of this first group would help too. It would be best if decisions were as unanimous as we can make them.”

“Naturally. Heaven has always needed some nice democratic spirit.”

“I think Heaven could use some changes.”

“And will you be implementing these changes by force?”

For possibly the first time since Balthazar woke up, Castiel is recognizable as the commander who stabbed him. The rings he’d been holding low and lame return to speed as they raise like hackles, and the oil slick edges of his feathers are sharp as blades again. All ready to leap to the defense of his adopted Nephilim, regardless of how little Jack needs the protection. Jack, for his part, pretends not to notice. “Ideally, no. I want a more... hands off approach. I want the angels to be good and to maintain Heaven because it’s the right thing to do, not because I’m telling them to.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Please, Balthazar. Give me a chance to prove myself. I could use your help.”

Balthazar thinks. Eyes the infant godling who seems earnest enough. Can’t help but spot the similarities to the last angel who talked him into a cause, who happens to be the same one who killed him for it. He’s alive. His feelings around his old friend are an entangled mess and every other sibling he knew is dead for the time being.

He's curious, probably still a little stunned, and he has nothing better to do.

“Alright, baby God. Why not?”

---

Dean stands at the laundry sink, scrubs vampire blood out of his shirt, and very deliberately tries not to think. This isn’t an easy task. Not anymore, at least. It used to be much easier, almost automatic, and he really should not be thinking about why that is.

His ability to put the uncomfortable – even occasionally horrifying – prompts for self-reflection out of mind until he effectively forgot about them altogether was never something he considered healthy, but it was just... how he dealt with things. Some things. Like every massively fucked up thing that had ever happened between him and Sam, or him and Cas, or him and Jack, or everything that could ever have gotten in the way of doing the job. And maybe he had noticed this long-established method of dealing with things seemed to start falling apart the second Chuck was –

Nope.

Now is not the time to go there. Never, ideally, is the time to go there, but Dean’s slips are picking up in frequency so “never” might be off the off the table. Still, the swooping pit feeling in his stomach and instinctive mental recoil does not seem like a good sign, and he really cannot do a breakdown right now. No dice. Check again later.

Dean is so fucked.

He adds more soap to his shirt. The rhythmic back and forth is good. Almost meditative. He runs through the lyrics of Immigrant Song in his head, humming slightly. Everything is fine.

Everything is so fine he doesn’t even hear Jody coming in until she clears her throat, and he immediately splashes himself like an idiot.

“Shit!”

Jody grins. “You were really zoned out there. If I’d waited, would you have started singing?”

“No.” It sounds way too defensive. She’s nice enough not to point it out, but it does leave them in a weird awkward silence. One that maybe shouldn’t be broken, if he’s being honest, because...

“So how are things with you? Hiding. Here in the laundry room.”

“Just peachy.” He plasters on a grin. It’s not his best work.

“I’m not allowed to accept that answer.”

Dean sighs. The blood is out of his shirt. He rinses it real quick and tosses it into the waiting machine. Hands free, he can face Jody properly and level her with his best cynical look. “Has Sam just given up on subtlety, then?”

“No,” she says, leaning back against the doorframe, “that was all me. Sam still thinks you’re going to freak out or snap shut like a bear trap if he even hints at being worried. I figured you have got to be aware you have issues by now, which means you’ve definitely noticed us noticing.”

“Claire looks like she wants popcorn every time I’m standing near you or Sam. Hard to miss it.”

“Claire just wants to see some drama she’s technically not part of.”

Dean groans. One problem at a time. “I’m fine. I’m fine!“ He’s really not. “A lot is just going on right now, but it’s all... Totally. Fine. Normal levels of weird. I’m not gonna flip out or whatever. Sam’s just being a baby.”

Jody nods. “Right. See, that would be convincing, maybe, except the little issue where nothing that has happened for, well, years, if we’re being honest, has counted as normal levels of weird. You fought God after he dissolved the human race.” Her voice is impressively calm. Light, even. Dean’s a bit jealous. “Jack, your kid who always requests smiley face pancakes and marathoned Baby Shark last time he visited, has taken over Heaven. I think we’re waiting on him to send full on angelic messengers to tell us what’s up? Like, blowing golden horns and flowing robes, Bible style?”

“Uh... maybe?”

“Cool.” She sighs. “I have to say it, don’t I? Look, Dean, you’re an adult. And not even in the Alex and Claire and kids way where I have to say they’re adults and let them deal with their shit but they’re in their early 20s and all the adult adults know that means so many stupid mistakes.” She looks off to the side, grinning, and Dean can’t help chuckling a bit at the nostalgia. Shit, he was so fucking dumb. Jody must hear him, too, because her expression immediately slips from fond to smug. She continues, “You, my friend, are a real, big four-oh, adult, and I’m not your mom. I’m not going to pretend I believe you aren’t having a massive freakout because I’m not an idiot, but it’s not my place to try to handle your shit for you. You don’t want that. I really don’t want that. But I can still be here for you, you know? We can talk about it, or we can grab a drink and talk about literally anything else. Hell, even if all you need is a week off, just tell me that and I’ll take care of it. Just because you want to deal with stuff alone doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.“

Dean blinks at her. That... went way better than he was expecting. Unnervingly better. Are conversations actually easy sometimes? Something in the back of his mind floats that it’s gotta be a trick. Some reverse psychology shrink crap. “What about Sam?” he asks suspiciously.

Jody rolls her eyes, making sure to throw in an exaggerated head roll just to put a point on how stupid she finds his suspicion. Dean might be feeling his ears redden but he refuses to acknowledge it. “Sam,” she says in fond exasperation, “thinks that he’s completely fine and has focused all his attention on making sure you are fine, which is just helping him avoid his own issues.” Dean frowns, and Jody sighs again. “He’s freaking out and pretending he’s not – same as you – and he’s an adult who can and should deal with his own problems his own way – same as you. He’ll figure it out. Don’t worry. Seriously, I can’t deal with you and Sam both avoiding your problems by trying to fix each other’s. You will drive everyone in a 5-mile radius insane. Do not.“

“Alright,” he agrees, putting his hands up. It feels... wrong. Take care of Sammy and all that, except, well, he is an adult. A pretty damn strong adult, actually, who’s always been better at the feely stuff. And he’s got Eileen now. Could Dean actually, just, let him handle it?

(Could he have let Sam handle stuff before? He’d always felt like it was unthinkable. Of course, that was before and this is – Nope. Dangerous thoughts. Postpone.)

Jody’s expression is... less than convinced, but she steps off the wall and gives him a look, so Dean assumes he’s at least earned passage out of the laundry room. The winning smile feels a bit less fake this time.

“Come on,” she scoffs, “Sam is in the library. Let’s go harass him into an early dinner. I know there’s plenty of that leftover pasta.”

“Depends,” he laughs, moving down the hall in step, “I made enough for an army, but you guys made a hell of a dent.”

Jody gives him a playful shove, Dean shoulder bumps her back, and soon they’re all grins. If Dean’s being honest, it’s the lightest he’s felt in weeks.

So naturally, that’s when things go to shit. Or at least seem to.

They’re rounding the last corner when there’s a loud crash from the library. The instinctive panic response hits like ice shooting through his veins, with lethal focus right behind it. His hand closes on a pearl grip and his body is on autopilot toward the doorway. He hears Sam shouting “Holy shit!” His brother doesn’t sound afraid or injured, but definitely freaked.

A glance at Jody, a quick hand sign, and they rush into the room. Sam is standing by an upturned chair – the crash, probably – staring at several figures around the map table. Dean and Jody raise their guns in sync, and a flicker of movement reveals Claire in a doorway across the room. That’s allies accounted for. Now intruders.

Blonde man and black woman in the front. Casual clothes. No visible weapons. Relaxed poses. (No fear. Not a good sign.) Behind them, partially blocked from view, another blonde man. Skinnier, and much more familiar. It can’t be...?

“Hello everyone!” Jack chimes, stepping past the man’s shoulder. “Sorry. I think we should have knocked. Probably.”

“Jack?” Sam questions shakily. Dean abruptly realizes his gun is still up, and he hastily returns it to his waistband.

“You,” he starts. Swallows. “You actually here, kid?”

Jack’s smile softens, and he instantly looks like nothing has changed at all. “It’s me. This time.” It makes Dean’s throat feel like it’s closing up, which is a feeling he’s starting to associate with Jack. Too many guilty memories hitting. Too many things to say bubbling up in his throat like toxic sludge. Fuck, how could he – not the time. So agonizingly, desperately not the time.

If Jack’s here in person, it must be important.

He’d gotten in touch before. Appeared in the kitchen in the middle of dinner, when it was just Sam and Dean, and quickly explained he was up in Heaven and just sending a projection to update them. It was rushed, and messy, and Dean just gave up on trying to force words past his lips halfway through. He knew there’d been a lot of important topics – something about Heaven collapsing, cosmic balances, Empty deals – but if you asked Dean about it, he couldn’t tell you a fucking thing about any of them. Only one thing had mattered. Only one thing he’d retained. (One agonizing thing, to drive him mad every night and punish him for getting up every morning.)

Cas was back, but he couldn’t come back. Yet.

Jack is looking at Dean with a sad kind of understanding in his eyes, and he can’t help wondering how much privacy the kid can even give him with the God juice in his system. It’s the kind of thought that makes his skin crawl and some lizard part of his brain need to find a small space and disappear.

Dean avoids it.

He side-eyes the blonde man instead, noting the buzz of recognition. There’s a name on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t quite place it. The irritated expression and raised brow don’t help. “Do we... know each other?” he asks hesitantly.

The angel (Dean assumes he must be an angel) scoffs. “Oh, this is too good.”

There’s a choked noise from Sam. “Balthazar?“

That’s... well, that’s something. The name jogs memories. A snobby old friend of Cas’s. A war that he couldn’t quite think of as important. A betrayal.

Dean feels a little sick, and he adds it to his mental list of things that should be thought about soon. Fuck, had he really just shrugged off the threat of the Apocalypse restarting? How the fuck –

Not now.

Balthazar scowls. “Winchesters. Yes, I have been so graciously restored to living. So good to see that after I helped you bastards at the cost of one of my dearest friendships and my own life, you struggle to recognize my handsome face.”

Sam must know Dean isn’t going to have anything to say to that, because he doesn’t give him a chance. “Uh. That’s – sorry? Just... wasn’t expecting to see you. Jack, you’re reviving angels?” The implied ‘other than Cas?’ hangs loudly.

Jack looks thoughtful. “Cas helped. With decisions I mean. Reviving hasn’t been super hard. Balthazar and Benjamin,” he indicates the black woman, who Dean chillingly realizes he’s seen as a crime scene corpse, “were some of the first. It’s part of repairing Heaven and protecting the stability of reality.”

“Riiight.”

“Speaking of Cassie,” Balthazar cuts in smoothly, “what the hell did you do?”

Dean’s throat goes completely dry. “What.”

“Stop with the one word answers. They’re boring. He’s acting weird. He practically vibrated apart when the godling asked if he wanted to send you a message. So, I have to assume you did something.”

“What?“

Sam is closer suddenly, a hand grabbing Dean’s arm while he looks Balthazar over with suspicion. It’s very supportive and unnecessary. “Weren’t you mad at Cas for killing you a second ago?”

“Any issues between myself and my brother are none of your business,” the angel declares primly, “and it doesn’t matter what he’s done if I’m picking who to side with in the divorce, because I don’t like you. Is there a divorce? Please say yes. Sidenote: if you upset him, I will kill you both.”

“Balthazar,” Jack and Benjamin warn in unison. He crosses his arms and juts his chin out defiantly.

Jack groans with all the drama of a frustrated teenager. It’s weird, but Dean’s mind chooses that moment to float the idea of a deeply parental sigh instead and that’s so much worse. Groaning is better. Good, even. “Balthazar,” the kid repeats pointedly, “you have a task.”

“Yes, yes. New God, new bossiness. Fine. See you back behind the pearly gates, brother,” he says toward the other angel, disappearing with a lazy wave and a flutter of wingbeats.

It’s a sound Dean has missed for years. Shit.

Jody breaks the silence. “Well. Hello again, Jack. Do you, uh, still hug?”

“I do,” Jack grins, and he’s immediately swallowed by arms.

Footsteps behind them signal Claire emerging from her hiding place. “Hey kid! Heard you got godmode.”

“Hello Claire. Just a little bit.”

Another hug. Sam chuckles awkwardly but goes in for hug #3. And then Jack is looking at Dean.

Neither of them moves in. Dean feels the sludge of unsaid apologies return. The best he can manage is a weak attempt at grasping his upper arm, and he just knows the chasm of guilt between them is screaming obvious to everyone in the room and –

He talks. Forces the moment to move along with the subtlety of a semi-truck, but it works. “What’s blondie doing?”

“Retrieving something for me,” Jack answers cryptically, “I could have gotten it myself, but the Empty still doesn’t really trust me outside of Heaven. I’ll need to get back as soon as possible.”

“What do you need from us?” Sam asks. Makes sense. Jack’s smart. Only reason he’d risk pissing off the Empty and show up on Earth with backup to boot is if he needed something.

“I need Gabriel’s Grace.”

Sam blinks. “Uh?”

“We don’t have any,” Dean says. “Used it all.”

Benjamin scoffs from behind Jack. “Did the archangel not reside here, at least temporarily? His Grace would have infused every floor he walked upon and every wall that he passed by. Not in a form that humans could capture and use up, but it would be there.”

Jack nods. “Benjamin is right. Now that I’m here in person, I can feel it. It should be enough.”

“Enough for what?” Dean wonders, though he has a suspicion.

“Resurrecting him.”

Dean could probably ask more questions, but Sam’s eyes are lighting up in a way that promises nerd overload. He’s barely considered stepping back when the first one hits – “Did you need a sample of Grace to resurrect all the angels? That seems inefficient.” – and he uses their distraction to carefully disengage, one ear on the conversation as he goes to pick up the upturned chair.

“No,” Jack is explaining, “most of the angels I just... know, I guess? All it takes is intending to resurrect them specifically, and I can find them in the Empty. Archangels are... different.”

“How so?”

“They’re older? More complicated?”

Benjamin sighs. “Archangels are primordial creation. They existed before the rules of reality were fully set. If every angel is a unique individual, perfectly designed for our tasks, then each archangel is the sole member of a unique species. To bring one into being, even through resurrection, is not a task to approach unprepared.”

“Yes,” Jack beams, “That. I think I could make an archangel without something to work off of, but I don’t know if I could make the specific archangel I want. And Castiel has been very clear about the dangers of making new angels.”

Dean pretends he didn’t give a full body flinch at the sound of Cas’s name, and Jody either didn’t notice or pretends she didn’t, which is nice. Sam is too engrossed in grilling Jack to look his way.

“Is having an archangel important? Why are you resurrecting Gabriel? Do the angels need a leader or something?”

“I would like some advice. I don’t know much about how Heaven runs or its history. But more than that, the Empty is very loud right now. Archangels weren’t made to die, especially not all so close together. I think the strain is part of the problem. Even getting just one out might help.”

“Gabriel is a good choice, then,” Sam agrees. Dean can hear a shake in his brother’s tone, and he agrees. Sam’s not the only one taking comfort from that ‘just one’.

“Cas thought so too. Give me just a second.” Jack reaches out a hand, palm up, and his face pinches in concentration. Dean slips back over to get a better look at what the kid is doing. For a long moment, nothing seems to happen, then...

Wow.

Tiny whisps of Grace swirl like a baby tornado in his hand, and Jack laughs. Claire whistles, impressed, and Dean has to agree.

“Good job, kid,” he chuckles, “Eau de Gabriel, ready to go.”

“Then go we shall,” Benjamin pipes up. Dean is beginning to suspect he – she? – is a bit of a buzzkill. Or doesn’t like them.

It’s probably just that Benjamin doesn’t like them.

Jack frowns. “Benjamin is right. I’ve probably lingered too long already.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sam says, reassuring with a hand on his shoulder. Sam is good at that. “You do what you need to do. We’ll be here.”

Dean nods, trying to convey something beyond all the words he can’t say. Of course they will be here. Anything Jack needs, if he just says the word. And when this is over – and holy fuck that suddenly seems like a thing that could happen – maybe he’ll actually find a chance to sit the kid down and fix things. He has so many things to fix.

But for now, he’s stuck, barely treading water in the low-grade panic that’s his life, and Jack is waving goodbyes with Gabriel’s Grace twining around his fingers.

It’s quiet for the minute after their surprise visitors leave. No one is quite sure what to do with themselves. Sam moves like he’s going back to studying whatever it was he was looking at before Jack appeared, and Jody shoots Dean a pointed glance.

“Right.” He claps his hands together for attention, and ignores Claire’s exaggerated old-people cringe. “Dinnertime, everybody! Books don’t fill the stomach, Sammy!” Sam starts a protest, only to be drowned out by Claire’s whoop of joy. Jody’s laughing, and they set out for the kitchen as a group. A family, even, at least part of one.

(And if Dean’s thinking maybe he should head to bed a little early and give in to a bit of freaking out, well, Jody would probably call that healthy.)

---

Adam is trying to decide whether he currently hates the water stain in the left corner of the ceiling or if it has once again wrapped around to the kind of neutral interest that used to drive him to watch clouds. His opinion has been going back and forth for weeks, ever since he first noticed it. It gives him something to do, at least. A way to mark the turn of his thoughts even at his worst moments. Does it make him mad today? Is it hate or interest?

...Hate. He’s definitely still on hate. Fuck.

He’s been on hate all day. That’s his most consistent red flag. Hate, it turns out, is not a great motivator for him. Still, he tries.

Adam hates that water stain. He hates the lumpy motel bed, the horrid shade of paint on the walls, the way the sun barely gets through the window at the best possible angle, and the complete lack of a kitchen. He hates the stack of takeout menus he’s been living off of, the cell phone that only rings with his half-brothers’ numbers, the credit card some redhead had promised would be good as long as he needed, and the bible he found in a drawer that he can’t look at.

He hates that he’s cold, despite knowing he turned the AC off the moment he stepped in the room and its current temperature makes him sweat around midday. He hates that he’s hungry and, simultaneously, has lost most desire to eat. He hates that he’s making himself do so anyway with scheduled meal times. He hates how his muscles ache. He hates how his eyelids droop. He hates the faint throb of pain in his temple that wants to become a migraine.

He hates that he’s alive and out of the Cage yet getting up to take a shower every afternoon feels like a chore more often than not. Hates that he remembers not that long ago when the relief of hot water was a well enjoyed luxury.

Adam hates that all that hate he’s feeling is just really, really exhausting.

He’s tired. He should really get out of bed.

Hate is such a shitty motivator.

“I’m not just laying around here for no reason,” he announces to the empty room. No one responds, of course. There isn’t anyone to hear him, and every reminder hurts like a knife in his gut. He can’t really forget about it, but the list of actions that will jostle or twist it is ever expanding. And Adam being Adam, he keeps poking at the hurt on purpose because why the fuck not?

Can’t forget about it, but he might as well confirm it’s still there and just as fresh. Again. And again. And again.

The self-pitying turn to his thoughts finally provides the push he needed to sit up. Not that he can really go anywhere, but it’s the first real action he’s taken in several hours. His mother would be proud. Adam had already faced the worst this world could throw at him in the Cage. He’d spent uncountable years of flexible-feeling Hell-time wallowing in how he didn’t deserve the suffering he’d been stuck with. Now that he’s out, nothing is allowed to be bad enough that he warrants pity. Nothing.

Ugh, why of all places does he have to be stuck in a motel room?

“I haven’t forgotten how to take care of myself,” he says. Winces. He drags himself to the side of the bed and stands up, miserable but steady. There’s a cinnamon roll left from the pack he bought yesterday. Not that he really wants it, but apathy does not fill stomachs. Adam was raised by a nurse and studied pre-med before his untimely death. He will not be brought down by lack of appetite due to psychological distress. “Today is just a bad day. You know how it is.”

Ouch.

Does this count as praying? Adam always thought prayers were supposed to be a more formal thing. Something you did with intent, maybe kneeling, but he supposes talking out loud to a dead archangel isn’t that dissimilar. Especially one he does formally pray to, sometimes, on the days he can step into that church. If he didn’t know his half-brothers would never have even considered it, he’d think the motel being within (admittedly long) walking distance of a St. Michael’s had to be deliberate. Maybe the universe is fucking with him. Or Jack. Does Jack seem like the type to fuck with people? He hasn’t seen him since that first day. Can Adam judge?

The kid had seemed stupidly earnest, but then Michael had also seemed pretty sincere in his whole ‘I need to borrow your body to create paradise’ thing when they first met, and hindsight on that one was a bitch. On the other hand, if Adam doesn’t trust Jack then what the hell is he still doing here? Even Sam’s carefully spaced out calls were getting more obvious in the suspicious prying. He doesn’t know what Adam isn’t telling them, but he’s stopped pretending he’s not trying to find out.

“Think they’ll even consider that I’m waiting here on simple hope?” he muses, pulling the pastry apart and popping the first bite into his mouth.

Michael doesn’t answer.

Michael can’t answer. Hasn’t been able to since Adam sucked in a desperate breath in a city park, heart still racing from whatever it was that they had sensed moments before, and realized something had gone horribly wrong.

He remembers the panic so perfectly. It probably helps that he’s not entirely sure he’s stopped feeling it. Everything had hit like a tsunami. With Michael... it would be so wrong to say he felt less, but it all felt different. Even when pulled as far back from the driver’s seat as he ever got, Michael had been infused into every cell – every atom – of Adam’s body. All sensations went first through the filter of them. The sudden loss of that...

Adam swore being a human couldn’t actually ache all the time. Humans couldn’t actually feel their bodies aging. It was probably in his head, right?

The rationalization didn’t help. Without Michael, everything was off in a way that was probably seared into his soul by this point. After the shock faded, he thought he could get used to it. Survive. Maybe even – far, far down the line – move on, but it would never feel quite normal. Back then, though... back then Adam had though he was dying slowly, somehow abandoned by the only being that was holding him together.

He hadn’t felt his legs give out. Still wasn’t sure of the sequence of events that had left his back pressed against a tree and his head between shaking knees. Didn’t know how long he’d been gasping breaths, reaching out for Michael with everything even as his voice caught silent in his throat. No one had been there to find. Adam remembered learning back in a long-ago class on stress that panic attacks couldn’t actually kill you, but it had sure as Hell felt like he was never leaving that moment alive.

He’d been so, indescribably cold, and that’s when Jack had appeared.

“How long do you think it will take him to decide if you get to come back?” Adam wonders aloud, “There’s not, like, a committee. Did you get a Heavenly advocate or something? Is he rocking the white robe and the throne thing while some angel tries to prove your bicentennial performance reviews are evidence for your second chance?”

Adam tries to picture it. Even manages to huff what could be a laugh at the mental image of the skinny kid from the park drowning in godly white fabric, trying to keep a stern yet thoughtful expression aimed at an angel who looks like a tv show lawyer. Michael would have gotten a kick out of his joke, at least. Maybe Michael still could. Eventually.

Jack’s side of the conversation had been... rushed. Admittedly, Adam had been in no shape to have a conversation at all – that couldn’t have helped – but the infodump and immediate disappearance had been jarring. Hi, I’m the new God. The old one is dealt with but by the way he killed Michael. Michael, who betrayed everyone except maybe not really so I might bring him back, but I’ve got bigger problems so don’t wait up. Here’s Sam and Dean’s number so they can help with human essentials like food and a roof. Good luck.

Ok, so maybe Adam’s mood is making the kid sound more dickish than reality, but that was the gist. Michael was suddenly a dead traitor and Adam was relying on his half-brothers’ generosity while he tried to process that.

The last bite of cinnamon roll tastes like ash, and he’s inordinately relieved to be done with it. The bed is tempting his return. He can already see another few hours lined up to disappear in a cloud of lethargic hate.

“I just,” Adam stutters, doubling down to finish his cobbled together prayer, “I just want you back. I can’t... I don’t want to do this alone.”

“It doesn’t matter if you went back to your dad. I mean, we absolutely have to talk about it, like, a lot, but it doesn’t matter for this. It’s not like I don’t know the worst of you, halo. And full offense to the Winchesters, I don’t buy that they have the faintest fucking idea why you did anything, ever, so I need to hear the story from you. So I need you back. You can’t explain anything if you don’t come back. And I know you, so I’ll probably be mad and you’ll probably deserve it, but it – it doesn’t matter. There’s literally nothing you can say that could make this empty room better than having you.”

He hesitates, swallowing the lump of emotion in his throat. Saying the rest of it out into the ether is one thing, but when he knows Michael isn’t listening... Fuck it. “I love you. The good and the bad. I loved you in the Cage, I loved you when we got out, and it doesn’t matter what you did or how pissed I’m going to be – I love you now. Just. Come back. Please.”

Nothing happens, of course. The room stays silent. His archangel stays dead.

Adam squeezes his eyes closed, and the knife twists.

He finds some resolve that hasn’t quite slipped away and puts all of it behind making his way into the shower. Plastic wrapper in the trash can. Shirt tossed vaguely toward the bed. Sweatpants abandoned where they snag on the door and he finally slips his foot free. Maybe he can wash the lethargy off?

It doesn’t work terribly well, but the scalding water makes him feel the slightest bit more alive, so it’s not a complete waste. He’s even managed to pull on a fresh pair of jeans and is midway through sniff testing two shirts when the knock comes.

Who the fuck is knocking?

Adam doesn’t get visitors. Hell, he barely gets his sheets changed. He doesn’t think they’ve vacuumed since he moved in. He can’t think of a single good reason why anyone would be here, and only rough ideas of bad ones. Ghouls looking to eat him? Unlikely, but possible.

He pulls on the vaguely fresh shirt and opens the door. Like a dumbass.

His visitor doesn’t look like a ghoul. Or motel staff, for that matter. That’s a very deep v-neck for non-casual wear. It occurs to him, slowly, after several seconds of staring curiously at the man’s pecs, that Adam hasn’t really interacted with other people since he lost Michael. He might be really bad at it.

The man laughs. It’s mean sounding. “Michael’s vessel, I presume?” he asks, and the British accent is a surprise.

“Are you an angel?” Adam isn’t completely sure why he thinks so, but apparently he’s pretty confident in his deduction. There are vibes.

“Balthazar,” the man introduces himself, pushing past Adam into the room. He looks wildly unimpressed. “The new God sent me.”

“Sure. Hello. Come in. Sorry about the mess,” Adam mumbles. He thinks Balthazar might smirk a little at the sarcasm, which is validating in a weird way. Maybe he hasn’t completely forgotten how conversations work. “So, uh,” Adam waffles, clearing his throat, “did Jack have a message or something?”

“Something,” Balthazar hums, avoiding the question. There’s not really much reason for it unless he has a different goal in mind than whatever he was sent to do, which is only a little horrifying. He might want to talk. “I hear you want Michael brought back?”

Talking confirmed. Shit. “Yeah. I do.”

“Why?”

Isn’t that a question he could answer for hours? Instead, Adam says, “Because he was there for me, and because your dad sucks and Michael deserves to outlive him.”

“Interesting.” He sounds like he means something different. Something unconvinced.

“What the fuck is interesting about it?”

“I’ve been dead since a little over a year after the Apocalypse,” Balthazar starts, “which I survived mainly by cleaning out Heaven’s armory and then hiding, until Raphael’s little campaign to start that whole mess back up dragged me back. And got me killed. I died as part of a faction of angels determined to keep you and Michael in the Cage for the rest of time.”

“Probably a good call on your part.” Adam remembered Michael’s certainty that Raphael would come for them. He’d spent years convinced their stint in the Cage was little more than a pause on the grand apocalyptic plan. If Raphael really had been coming for them, then he would have been right, and Earth would have been fucked.

“You think so? The prevailing opinion in Heaven is kind of a mixed bag. No one still alive was enthusiastic about the Apocalypse, but it would have been easier than the alternative, if much worse for Earth.”

“I mean... I like the Earth undestroyed?”

“You do? I wondered. Do you know what I find impossible to understand?”

“I assume you are going to tell me.”

“I don’t really want Michael back. A lot of that is self-preservation,” Balthazar admits. He talks very expressively for an angel. Lots of waving and eye rolling and hand motions that really look like he wants to be gesturing with a glass of hard liquor. “I betrayed Heaven’s authority before it was cool, and then did it again rather spectacularly just to rub it in. My neck is very much at risk around any archangel, and Jack has yet to inspire feelings of confidence in the chain of command. Plus, just personally, Michael grates on me. He’s had an entire oak tree shoved up his ass since the beginning of time.”

“Fair.”

“But you. A vessel. You were effectively threatened into letting Michael in and almost used to destroy your own home and everyone you love. By an unpredictable fluke, the world was saved but you were trapped in the deepest level of Hell for your troubles. Now, by an even more unpredictable fluke, you are alive. Unharmed. Free to do whatever your silly human head desires in an undestroyed world. And not an archangel in sight. Do you know how rare that is?”

“Sort of?”

Balthazar scoffs. “It’s not rare. It’s impossible. Archangels aren’t gentle with their vessels. You should be a drooling husk, and that’s only if you weren’t quite literally burned out. And you want this back?“

Adam frowns. He’s not wrong, per se, but Michael and Adam’s issues are between Michael and Adam. Who the fuck does Balthazar think he is, talking down to him like this? “And whose skin are you running around in?” he sneers. It takes him a moment to recognize the prickling he’s feeling as defensiveness.

Balthazar’s eyebrows lift. “At the moment, no one. Apparently, a free body is one of the perks to resurrection. The soul stays in Heaven.”

“Still someone’s skin. He was in there until you died, wasn’t he?”

“He was.”

“How long?”

Balthazar gives him a considering look. “I found him around World War One,” he answers, “He had been in the trenches. Plagued by terrible nightmares. He agreed to let me in, so long as I promised to put him into a dreamless sleep and keep him there. And I did.”

Adam’s stomach rolls, remembering Michael making a similar offer. Back when the true scope of a potential eternity in the Cage was hitting him at last. It had been terrifying, but the idea of eternal nothingness going wrong somehow had been worse. His mouth feels dry as he says, “Well, full offense then, Balthazar, but you have no idea how my agreement with Michael works. I want him back. I’m not going to stop wanting him back. And the rest is none of your or anyone else’s business.”

It might be the boldness talking, but Adam swears the angel looks impressed. He’s feeling very looked at. A little bit being circled by a very large, invisible predator, too, but he’s long since burned through the level of caring he would need for that to scare him. There’s probably a tension in the room, when he thinks about it. Tension would make sense. He’s just forgotten what tension feels like at the moment, so it isn’t, er, tensioning properly.

Fuck, he should probably talk to people more.

Balthazar must find whatever he’s looking for, because he nods and sighs dramatically, rolling out some strain in his shoulders that Adam isn’t entirely positive was there in the first place. He just looks like he’s going from relaxed to relaxed but slightly different. The angel reaches into his jacket pocket and suddenly a small glass bottle is being jiggled in front of Adam’s nose.

“Michael’s fate is still undecided,” Balthazar states, and it sounds like he’s quoting someone. Jack’s message, Adam assumes. “This is not confirmation he’s being resurrected, so don’t take it that way. However, if the new God were to resurrect Michael, he would need some of Michael’s Grace to do so. This is where you come in.”

That sounds off. “Wasn’t Jack around when Michael was killed? Shouldn’t he have plenty of Grace from that?”

“Apparently, he was temporarily an energy vacuum or something. I guess he ate it?”

“Sure. Why not. How do I get you some Grace?”

Balthazar’s grin is wicked. “As a vessel, you have traces left in you. I can sense them from here. Normally, the extraction process would be excruciatingly painful.”

Adam waits a beat. “And?”

“Spoilsport,” Balthazar groans, “Jack did something godly to this bottle. If you just hold it and will the Grace in, then it will go. Chop, chop. I only have a limited amount of time in the world, and I want to go drink down an entire cruise bar.”

Adam takes the bottle. Tries to judge Balthazar’s alcohol choices but fails to muster enough pettiness. “Just... focus?” He hasn’t focused this intently since the Cage. It’s overkill for the most part. Almost as soon as he’d asked the question, the bottle is clouding over with silvery white. He can feel it, surprisingly enough, like a trickle of water out of a cup he didn’t realize he was holding.

The Grace is... it’s Michael. It’s what he has left of Michael.

And for the chance of getting him back, Adam is more than willing to return the bottle to Balthazar’s outstretched hand.

“And our business is concluded,” the angel affirms, peering into the Grace’s core. “Glad we could have this chat. I still think Michael may be best left dead, but I’ll carry your conviction back to Jack. Good?”

“Do that.”

“Pushy, aren’t you? Fine then. Goodbye, Michael’s vessel. Hope to never see you again.”

Adam is wondering if he’s meant to say goodbye as well when Balthazar vanishes in a flutter of wings. Just like that, he’s back to waiting. It’s cool. He knows how to wait.

The motel room almost looks shittier. Adam, though... Adam hasn’t felt this alive in weeks. His motel opinions might correlate to that, if he’s being honest. He feels like fresh air. Sunlight and blue skies. He’s showered, wearing clean clothes, and he just successfully had a conversation. It’s a verifiable streak of accomplishments, and he’d be an idiot to let that slip away.

He's out the door almost on autopilot, if autopilot left you aching and aware of the space where you could actually have someone piloting. Shoes, room key, wallet... check. Maybe he’ll go to a park. Get ice cream? He could go anywhere (at least within reasonable walking distance).

His feet set out in the direction of St. Michael’s.

---

Gadreel knew his penance so far had been too easy.

Prior to his excruciating death, Gadreel had sought to pull a lesson from the ruins of his existence. He’d considered several promising options, musing on the value of freedom or the honor in dying for a good cause, but he was rather proud of the final statement he’d produced. At the time it had been a meaningless exercise – what good would profound lessons do for a dead angel? – but now he was restored by the blessings of a new God. Welcomed into a Heaven he barely recognized and promised the second chance he’d dreamed of for so long. His lesson stuck with him.

That which appears too good to be true, likely is.

He is not a cynic, to be clear. He may be wary of the catch hidden in his good fortune, but Gadreel is equally afraid to miss a genuine chance at redemption through paranoia. So when the new God asks him to aid in saving Heaven from collapse, he agrees instantly. And then he watches.

He sees how Castiel has thrown his support whole heartedly behind this “Jack”, while other angels are far more guarded. He learns the new God was a Nephilim, which does not truly concern him, and that he was the son of Lucifer, which does. Then he looks for the Deceiver’s echo and fails to find it, so he considers the matter neutral.

He has long rejected rumor as a valid basis for judgement.

Gadreel also watches how his siblings react to him. There is distrust, from the resurrected who come from before the fall and know of him only as Heaven’s longest prisoner, and from those who see him as Metatron’s two-faced lackey and nothing more. It does not surprise him. It is simply the first catch he has found in his blessing.

When the new God calls him for a task, he wonders if that will be the next.

The task itself seems simple enough. He is one of several sent out to carry a message into the universe. Castiel pulls him aside and confirms his suspicions. It is no coincidence Gadreel was selected for the first task to require an extended leave of Heaven. It will help their siblings believe his good intent, he is told, and prove he is trusted and capable.

He sets out.

The new God is at least consistent about His stance on second chances. Gadreel was imprisoned before the first soul ever came into the angels’ care, but he has known abstractly how the system worked. Specifically, he has known the multitude of ways a human soul could be denied entry, and that most were irreversible. God’s Will.

No soul that had passed through Hell could enter Heaven. No soul corrupted by Eve’s children could enter Heaven. No soul that had rejected the guidance of a Reaper for too long could enter Heaven.

No more.

He flies with his brethren through Purgatory first, staying near one another for safety. The Leviathan are dangerous, but their attentions are as slippery as oil, and they cannot focus on pursuit for long. The angels have wings again, and they revel in dodging through the trees-that-are-not-trees. Their only pausing is to impart flashes of knowledge on the monster souls that watch them cautiously, steadily weaving God’s newest proclamation across the realm.

The promise is this: Any soul who earnestly desires a different fate will be able to find the Path. It is up to them to walk it.

Gadreel respects the concept.

After they declare the message successfully carried, they leave just as fast as they arrived, with Leviathan snapping at their wingtips. It’s thrilling. Glorious. But the task is not done yet, and the remainder is to be done alone.

Gadreel does not expect the friendly brush of Anael’s Grace against his own before they scatter like the winds, but he wonders... is this what it feels like to be accepted among the Host?

He’s still riding that joyful feeling all the way to Earth.

It feels too good to be true, so, naturally, it is.

His first wandering souls accept his message with dull eyes and blank emotion. It matters little. Jack has ensured that God’s Word will stick in their minds, ready for them should they ever reach for it. Salvation must be a choice, and He is merely giving them the option to choose it. He spots one Reaper, who clearly finds his presence in the Veil unwelcome, but the Reapers are his brother’s task. Gadreel moves on.

And then he spots the catch.

The soul in front of him is no dead-eyed shade. It’s lively, albeit slumped in an alleyway and rambling at pigeons who cannot see it, but most importantly it is recognizable. Gadreel knows him. Gadreel killed him.

As far as tests go, he supposes he could do worse than having to beg forgiveness from Kevin Tran.

He is not sure there is a way to approach this without awkwardness, and if there is, he doesn’t know it. He goes instead for nonthreatening. What is an appropriate greeting for someone who likely despises you?

“Hello?”

Kevin Tran jumps. “What the fuck?”

“Apologies. I did not mean to startle you.”

“Startle me?” Kevin gasps, “You can fucking see me? I thought I was... Wait. I know you.”

“Unfortunately,” Gadreel admits. Hesitates. “I am sorry,” he adds.

He can see as the memories slot into place. His face is not Sam Winchester’s, but Kevin’s soul should recognize the truth of him. First there is a flicker of fear, then anger. He scrambles to his feet. “You killed me.”

“I am sorry.”

“You?! You’re sorry? You’re the bastard who killed me!”

“I did. It was a mistake.”

“A mistake?” Kevin snarls. Gadreel’s apology is not going well. He wonders if groveling would help. “You just accidentally burned my freaking eyes out and damned me to Hell? And – And! – how are you even here? I definitely heard you were dead.”

Questions are good. Questions have answers. “I was. I died after realizing Metatron was no more than a power-hungry tyrant. I have been restored to life by God, to make penance.”

“Yeah, well, God’s a dick throwing a temper tantrum.”

Gadreel blinks. “Not that God. The new one. His name is Jack.”

That’s the first thing he’s said that seems to give him pause. Kevin stares, brow raised. “Jack like the kid that demon was possessing?”

“I... do not know? Perhaps?”

“You’re helpful,” Kevin scoffs. “So new God is sending you on an apology tour? Really? And you thought this would work?”

He doesn’t, not really, but he must try, and the derision makes him wince. “Not exactly. I am carrying a message to wandering spirits. I can only assume I was meant to come across you. A... second chance. Or at least the opportunity to offer you a second chance and beg forgiveness.”

Kevin looks unimpressed. “What’s the message?”

Gadreel relays it. God’s Word is meaning. Speech-but-not-speech. Often there is a pleasant musical undertone. He wonders how a Prophet hears it. He wonders how the ghost of a Prophet hears it.

Kevin’s face does not make the expected journey to joy. Or hope. If anything, he looks suspicious. “You’re saying I can get into Heaven?”

“Yes. Should you desire it. And make, well, I’m not sure exactly what the effort is, but I see no reason why you should struggle with it. You were not damned for evil actions.”

He laughs bitterly. “No. No I wasn’t,” Kevin agrees, and then he casts his gaze upon the pigeons. They had fled at Gadreel’s appearance, but apparently, he is no longer terrifying enough to keep them away.

The silence stretches. Gadreel figures letting Kevin think is safer than rushing him. Perhaps he will simply request a direct escort to Heaven? It would be pushing the boundaries of Gadreel’s task, but he thinks it ought to be allowed. Kevin Tran is a perfect example of the kinds of second chances that Jack is attempting to bestow. Unable to enter Heaven through no fault of his own.

Yes. Gadreel would be more than willing to fly him straight through the gates. All he need do is ask.

Kevin hums. Looks him over. Purses his lips. “If you want to apologize,” he starts slowly, “then I think you should bring me back to life.”

Well.

That’s... something.

“I do not know if I can do that,” Gadreel states honestly.

“I know angels can revive people.”

“I don’t mean I’m incapable. Such an act would require me to draw from the collective power of Heaven.” He hesitates, unsure how to explain his objection. “I am... I have been given another chance. I cannot defy the judgement of my brothers and sisters and the new God simply to assuage my own guilt. And we are not meant to be interfering.”

“What the hell do you call this then?” Kevin exclaims, gesturing broadly to encompass their conversation.

“This task was given to me by God. To restore balance after His predecessor damaged the order of things. This is not interference, it’s... responsibility. Offering you a route to Heaven is my responsibility.”

It is perhaps a poor phrasing, but Kevin seems to get it. He does not seem to be deterred. “So you guys are what? Only cleaning up messes made by the last God?” he asks. There is a trap in his words, but Gadreel cannot quite see the shape of it.

“Yes. Exactly.”

Kevin grins. The trap must have sprung. “Great news for me then. Do you know why I’m here?”

“I do?”

He snorts. “No, you don’t. I’m here because you killed me, yeah. But you – an angel – killed me on the order of Metatron – another angel – because I had the shitty luck of being a prophet in possession of God’s Word after the last prophet vanished. I went to Hell because a demon had kidnapped me, once again over the prophet thing.” He looks Gadreel pointedly in the eye, emphasis dripping off his words. It is an impressively unlucky timeline of events, and Kevin continues, gaining momentum, “Icing on the cake? The previous prophet was literally God in disguise. I wasn’t just passively screwed over by surprise prophet powers. He chose to dump them on me and ruin my life. Ergo, I definitely fall into your ‘responsibilities’ category. And I think the only way to sufficiently unfuck my life is to give it back.”

Argument made, he crosses his arms across his chest and looks exceedingly smug. Gadreel is sorry. He opens his mouth to reassert that he cannot interfere like this, then pauses.

Kevin’s grin gets wider.

“I...”

“Yeah? Go on. Tell me I’m wrong... if you believe it.”

“I... It is a fair argument. Maybe. But I repeat, I cannot defy the judgement of my siblings or God. What you ask is not within my power to grant.”

“Then whose power?”

“What?”

Kevin sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Whose power? God’s? Could Jack authorize my resurrection?”

“Undoubtably,” Gadreel says.

“Then can you take my argument to him?”

Gadreel thinks it over. Jack has not received any petitions that he knows of, but he has also not been rejecting petitions. He cannot return with an unfinished task, but afterward... is this part of the test? Does it matter?

He looks at Kevin Tran and recalls the sour feeling of Metatron treating him as a common murderer, and the panic that had led him to commit the crime despite it. He thinks of regrets and a lifetime of suffering. He thinks of second chances.

“Kevin Tran, I will request your life be restored to you. And if my request is denied, I will bring you to Heaven to make the request yourself, in your own words, as they are very convincing.”

Kevin smiles, all challenge, and cracks his ghostly knuckles. “Then I better start remembering my debate skills.”