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Dean sat on the porch, watching down the drive. He saw Ben and raised a hand in greeting. He heard Ben laugh, same as always, and raised a hand back. Behind him, he offered a hand and he saw Claire hurry to catch up with her brother.
After everything that happened, Dean had searched for Claire. It had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done in his life; made harder only by all the consequences of his previous actions and by the fact that he had his own grieving son in tow. Those nights had been filled with Ben waking, gasping and reaching for Dean and Dean holding him until he cried himself to sleep.
Jodi was the one to find Claire. Scrounging for food and survival in a mall, Jodi had to tie her up and put her in the backseat of the Impala to get her to Dean. She drove all the way from Minneapolis to Palo Alto, where Dean and Ben were, and had stayed until Claire was able to articulate what had happened to her and her mother.
What happened was something she would not speak of again. Dean did not push and Ben only looked after her.
There were times when she did not speak for days on end. On those days, Ben would lead her gently out to the front yard and the swing there and push her. She held on and looked up at the sky with the sun dripping through the limbs of the tree, silent.
She would come back though, she always found her way back.
The official story was that there demons and angels, both trapped on earth, began to conspire together to bring Michael and Lucifer out of the cage and jump start the apocalypse again. The conspiracy was so far spread, so far up the official ladder that the government had no choice but to acknowledge the the obvious. And to go to the best of the best. Just like they always did, the Winchesters took care of it.
But that version of the story only skimmed the surface.
Dean, Sam and Cas were living in Kansas at the time. Sam and Cas had forced Dean out of the bunker and into a real house. They had semi-retired, taking over Bobby’s job since Garth, as a werewolf, was not widely trusted by hunters. Their entire house was dedicated to a huge network of hunters, their computers networked together for the fastest indexing of monsters, demons and whatever else goes bump in the night. Charlie was a near constant presence, updating their systems and making sure everything ran smoothly.
She moved into a house down the street from them three months after they moved into their own home. Cas moved into Dean’s room the day after.
Sam tried to be surprised, he did. He tried as hard as he could but all he could feel was the stark relief that Dean had someone else now. He watched his brother fall in love all over again and he watched Cas discover love. And then he looked up soundproofing options for his room.
They lived like this, in relative peace for three solid years. There were small hunts that Charlie would send them on, small things just to keep Sam and Dean in check and on top of their game. They were always local because Dean did not stray far from Cas. And Cas did not stray from Ben.
Ben, and in turn Lisa, was something no one saw coming. He had shown up at Sam and Dean’s door, thirteen years old and angry. Lisa was dying.
It was nothing supernatural, nothing that the Winchesters could fix or fight against. It was endstage renal failure. She had sent him to find Dean in the hopes that Dean could help him out. Help him find his way.
“Why me?” Dean asked warily.
Ben chewed on his lower lip. “I don’t know. She just kept telling me that you would know how to help me.” He paused and looked down. “Are you my father?” He asked.
Cas and Sam exchanged a look. It made no difference to Cas and Sam already had his suspicions. Sam could see Dean in Ben.
“I don’t know.” Dean said honestly. “We can find out.”
Ben was silent for a long time, the choice hanging in front of him. “It doesn’t matter.” He said finally. “Will you help me?” He asked, his voice cracking.
“Yes.” Cas said. The decision was made.
Lisa passed away three weeks later.
Since then, Cas had made it his life’s mission to make sure that Ben had everything he had when Lisa was still alive. He worked hard at being a better cook, at helping Ben with his homework. He made Dean buy a more sensible car so that Cas was able to get up and go to Ben if he needed him. At first, Ben was resistant to this care. He seemed to resent that Sam and Cas were there. It took several months but Ben thawed. He came to like Sam but he adored Cas.
Everything continued on as it was. When Ben turned fifteen, Dean bought him a beat up 1967 Challenger. They spent hours underneath the hood, painting the body and replacing the upholstery. And then everything went to hell.
Charlie was tracking a lull in activity. She made calls to hunters in the area, chatting them up, checking on them and their families. She got the same answer from everyone:
No activity; demonic or angelic.
No monsters.
No witches, no spirits, no cursed objects.
Cas baked, Dean read, Sam researched and Ben went to school. There wasn’t much else for them to do.
Until, one sunny Tuesday afternoon there was a knock at the door and Cas opened the door to five men, dressed in suits. The man in front nodded at him and Cas nodded back.
“What can I do for you?” Cas asked politely.
“Castiel uh,” The man glanced down at the paperwork, “Castiel Winchester?”
“Yes.” Cas replied and Sam came up behind him.
“And Sam Winchester.” The man in the suit said, taking off his sunglasses. Sam nodded.
“Dean, in case anyone was wondering.” Dean said, stepping in front of Cas, coming into the conversation from the living room. He slipped an arm around Castiel’s hip and tugged him back. Cas fell back into the natural formation that the three had perfected years ago.
“Just the man we need to talk to.” The man in front said.
“Well come on in, then.” Dean said gesturing to the open door. He stepped back and Sam saw Ruby’s knife in his hand. The first three men stepped through the doorway with ease. The fourth man stopped and was not able to step through. He met Sam’s eyes and his eyes blinked black. The fifth man cried out and stumbled back. Without a word, Dean threw the knife into the man’s throat and Sam pulled his gun out. Castiel’s angel blade was there in swift flash of silver and everyone stared at the man sputtering and dying as he drowned on his own blood. Dean jerked the knife out of the man’s throat and tossed Sam the knife. “Test them.” He ordered.
“Arms.” Sam demanded. The three men looked confused. Cas jerked the first man’s arm out, pushed his sleeve up and Sam sliced the man’s arm. He bled but it wasn’t demonic. He performed the same thing on the other men and then made them drink holy water from a flask.
“First thing’s first, gentlemen,” Cas said pleasantly. “You must learn to identify your enemy.”
The remaining four men clutched their arms and glanced warily at the others. “What was that?” The first man asked.
“That was a demon you brought to my doorstep.” Dean snarled. “To my family. But since we’re obviously smarter than you, we have protection. Now you tell me what the hell you are doing here and get the fuck out of my house before you go out the same way.”
The men did. And what they had to say was not what any Winchester wanted to hear.
“How far up?” Sam asked.
The four men looked at each other but didn’t immediately answer.
“You want our help? We need information.” Cas demanded.
“All the way.” The first man, Agent Yero replied.
As a group, the Winchesters sat back against the couch. Dean rubbed at his mouth and Cas looked down at his hands.
“All the way.” Sam repeated slowly. Yero nodded.
“What the hell do you want us to do about it?” Dean asked. “If they are that deep in, what can we do about it?”
“Help us. Anyway you can.” Yero asked. He gestured to the house around him; the house that Dean had painted blue when Ben asked him to, where he slept tangled up in Cas every night, where he spent his days with Sam. “This is basically the CIA for monsters and demons and angels. The three of you are the best of the best. We-” Yero looked at his companions. “We have no idea what we are doing.”
Dean looked at Sam, who nodded slightly. They both turned to Cas. Cas looked up at the ceiling as he often did when he was thinking hard about something. If he said no, which he might on account of Ben, Sam and Dean would decline. That was one thing the government had learned from all the stories they had gathered from the other hunters. If one declined, so would the others. They were like the musketeers; all for one and one for all.
Finally Cas sighed.
“We’re in.” Dean said. “But we have rules; rules that have let us live longer than most people in this business. You work with us, you follow these rules.”
They agreed.
And Dean, Cas, and Sam were government agents. Real ones this time. Charlie was offered a position as well but declined to move to the capital like was heavily suggested she should do. She would stay with the Winchesters. They gathered in the library, the garage that had been converted into Central Command. They taught anyone who came to them how to defend themselves; agents or not. Agents would bring their families, their friends and Cas would ink them up with his tattoo kit. Ben sat with the younger kids, listening to their stories. He wasn’t allowed on hunts but Cas had started his training the day that he had come to live with them. The only way to survive in this world was by fighting, Cas knew. And Castiel’s charge wouldn’t go unprotected. Ben taught the younger ones simple spells and the exorcism spell. He showed the kind of patience that Cas loved in Dean, especially when it came to children.
Sam ran the research and development part of their group, as it were. He developed new ways to kill the demons and exorcise them. Dean trained everyone who came to him and usually set them all on their ass the first couple of times. But they developed their own ways, learning from him very quickly.
They could feel it, descending on them. It was the end of the life that they had known; life as hunters first and life as a quietly existing family. Ben grew nervous as the days passed and then the first month. Another month passed and he called Castiel in a panic.
“Cas?” He whispered over the phone.
Dean was in the garage with several agents. Sam was in Virginia research a lead with Charlie.
“I’m here.” He said immediately standing.
“There is one here. He’s a substitute teacher for my English class.”
“Fourth period.” Cas said.
“Yes.”
“You should be in chemistry right now. Third period.” Cas said, reciting his schedule from memory.
“I ditched.”
“Ok. What’s the situation?” Cas nodded, even though he was alone in the room.
“I think he has some kind of weapon.” Ben whispered.
Castiel’s stomach fell. “Can you leave?”
“No. Not without a guardian’s express permission.” Ben paused. “Even if I left, Cas, what about everyone else?”
“We’ll be there.” Cas promised. He was already throwing open the door to the garage.
“Dean. We need to go to the school, now.” He paused. “Bring three agents, arm them to the teeth.”
Dean looked up from watching two of the men practice holds and grappling moves and nodded. “How bad?”
“We need to go, now.” Cas said, without giving a full reply. Dean understood. The three agents, including Yero, suited up. Dean and Cas grabbed their ID and they all headed to the school. Once there, Cas marched directly to the office and asked the assistant at the front for Ben to be called immediately. Miss Michelle looked at the three agents standing stoically behind Cas and Dean, firearms plainly visible and sunglasses firmly in place. She scrambled for her intercom and called Ben to the front.
When Ben arrived, Agent Yero pretended to take over. He shepherded Ben out the office and asked, “Where is it?”
“Room 233-” Ben started.
Then the school blew up. The small group was close enough to the entrance to escape most harm.
Over three hundred students died that day.
It wasn’t the only school to be attacked that day. Over eighteen thousand schools were attacked in a simultaneous bombardment in the US alone. Numbers reached as high as the hundred thousands in deaths worldwide. The school aged generation was decimated.
After that, the people that remained people had no choice but to acknowledge the attack that they were under. Most people did not believe in demons or angels or that they were attacking the human race.
Until the President of the United States got on TV and informed everyone, with eyes as black as night, that they would be reaching a new agreement and when the angels returned to heaven, they wanted nothing to do with the human plane. Earth was under new management.
Society collapsed.
The few people that the Winchesters taught all the things to managed to survive longer than most. But when all was said and done, a year later, what was left of America was a smoked out husk of its former self. Cas, Sam, Dean, Ben and Charlie had survived but not without a few close scrapes. They occupied a house that was more sigils than home and Ben had stopped going to school when they had all been blown up. Dean and Sam scraped by on what they could and Charlie managed to cobble together a system to gather information from the few hunters left that were scattered across the globe. Military, police and hunters were the first to be targeted and infiltrated by the demons. Angels had all but infiltrated all of the government.
Agent Yero was killed by an angel six months in. Sam had given him a hunters burial.
Month by month, fewer and fewer calls were coming in for Charlie. It devastated her more than anything else, the uselessness she felt. One morning Cas woke and found a note on the fridge:
Cas, Sam, Dean, and Ben,
Went for a walk. I love you.
Charlie
They never saw her again.
Charlie’s disappearance was a catalyst of sorts for the Winchesters.
They all sat in the living room one night, two weeks after Charlie went for a walk, hot chocolate in Ben’s hands, something a little stronger in the adults hands.
“What do we do?” Sam asked, staring down at his mug. Ben sat on the floor next to him, leaning against his legs.
“We can take the fight to them.” Dean said. He looked at his son and his brother in the firelight. Cas was next to him, warmth from his thigh to shoulder.
“You want to call up a demon and make a deal?” Cas snorted.
“Yes.”
“All right.” Cas nodded. “Jesus fucking Christ, Dean.” He said and slammed his mug down on the coffee table.
“Are you implying that I’m being reckless?” Dean asked, the words leaving his mouth before he realized what he was saying.
“You want to bring the enemy here, where we live and work, and try to strike a deal with him?” Cas demanded.
“Yes.” Dean whispered.
“Ok, if you don’t like ‘reckless’ how about insouciant?” Cas said.
Dean felt the pit of his stomach give away.
“What did you just say?” Dean asked.
Cas looked away. He stood and glanced down at Ben and Sam. “If you won’t think of yourself or me think about our son.” He said. He left the living room without a glance back. They all heard the door slam.
“Dad-” Ben started. Dean shook his head, just once. He reached down and grasped Ben’s hand and hauled him to his feet. He was big; getting bigger everyday. He knew that pretty soon he would be taller than Dean, probably as tall as Sam. But now, all he remembered was the little nine year old he had been introduced to and he wrapped his arms around Ben.
“No, I can’t do this to you.” Dean said. “I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to leave you.” He caught Sam’s eye and reached out his hand. “Any of you.” Sam grasped his hand and nodded. He patted Ben hard on the back. “Brush your teeth. Go to bed. I’ll go talk to Cas.”
Ben nodded and headed for his room.
“Are you going to talk him into it?” Sam aske after Ben left.
Dean sighed and rubbed his face. He winced when his fingers encountered an old scar that ran from his ear to just below his chin. “I will.” Dean said. He sat down. “Tell me what you think.”
Sam took one last gulp of his mug and set it down, a lot more gently than Cas did. “I can see his point. The four of us, we can hold our own here. Even if we were forced to move, we could always set up somewhere else. Now that Charlie-” Sam stopped. “Now that we don’t need a permanent residence anymore and we’re free to roam, it might even be in our best interest.” Sam stopped and looked out the window. Kansas had been on fire for the past four months. “We can’t live like this, Dean. It’s not even living. It’s barely even surviving.”
“You do know what they want from us?” Dean asked, looking at his baby brother.
Sam nodded, lips a tight white line. “I can’t kill you, Dean.” He whispered. The tears were there and Dean wasn’t even sure Sam knew it. “Ask me anything else. Just not that.”
“That only leaves me killing you and leaving them.” Dean said softly back. He shook his head and clasped his brother’s shoulder. “We’ll figure it out, Sam.”
He turned and went to his room, opening the door to find Cas on the bed. He was sitting there, a single candle on the bedside table next to him. Dean crawled up the bed behind him and settled Cas between his legs. Dean hooked his chin over Castiel’s left shoulder but didn’t say anything. He pulled him close, Castiel’s back to Dean’s chest. Dean felt his chest hitch and held him tighter.
“I can’t lose you.” Cas moaned. It tore at Dean.
“Ok.” Dean said.
In the end, they decided to summon an angel.
Cas drew the sigils, poured the holy water and called the angel; the first one, the one they knew had more invested in heaven than any other angel. He stepped back and let Dean step forward when Sealtiel appeared. She was in the body of a young teenage girl, brown hair and brown eyes. Her dark eyes were old, fathomless pits that made Ben frown. She could have been a classmate from a year ago.
“Winchester. Castiel.” She said softly. “It’s good to see you.” She inclined her head and caught sight of Ben. “A new addition.”
Cas moved in front of Ben. “He’s not yours.” Cas snarled.
“No. But he is strong. And has Winchester blood.” She cocked an eyebrow. “What a sweet, sweet surprise.”
“Look at me, you waste-” Dean growled.
“No you listen to me!” She snapped back. “You have defaced my Father’s work and now seek to tell me what to do and what not to do. I will have you and your family’s dead shells at my feet and I. Will. Dance.” She looked from Sam to Ben and back to Dean. “If it will not be you, it will be one of them. Remember my words. Our time is close.” The ground beneath them cracked and she was gone.
The Winchesters were not prepared for how close the time was.
Seven hours later, they woke to the house shaking. There was thunder and lightning and Ben screaming and then-
A silence so still that it felt that they were in a vacuum. Dean and Cas scrambled from their bed and headed into Ben’s bedroom where Sam was standing in between Ben and Sealtiel. Sam was screaming something but there was no sound coming out. Ben was behind him, tears streaming down his face and he caught sight of Cas and Dean and there was nothing but relief there. Sam kept his focus on the angel in front of him but Castiel was not wasting his time. He stepped forward and slammed his angel blade into the middle of her back and the sound came crashing down on them as Sealtiel screamed and burned and flashed out. The ground shook once more and there was the sound of metal against metal, of mortars dropping and the light outside flashed a bright white. Sam grabbed Ben’s arm and they all headed to the kitchen, to the garage and the Impala that waited outside.
It would have been so easy. They had food and water packed in the trunk and every square inch of the car was armed to the hilt. They could have lasted for months in the Impala alone. Sam and Ben were the first out the garage door, Dean and Cas close behind. It shouldn’t have been able to happen as fast as it did and if they had any time to consider it all, they would have taken Ben from Sam because Ben was a Winchester, there was no denying it. Any Winchester would do for Michael. Any Winchester would do for Lucifer.
They were not in the garage when Dean and Cas stepped through the door. Vampires and demons carried Sam out and to the left. Angels carried Ben to the right. There was no time to make a decision. Dean took Ruby’s knife and went left. Cas took his angel blade and went right.
There were sigils drawn in the ground, lit up red and blue already. The ground beneath them shook and cracked. Dean headed for Sam who was struggling with the two demons that held him and dragged him closer.
Four angels had Ben held aloft while he screamed and fought and twisted. Cas cut through beings that he had called siblings for eons to get to him. Ben screamed for his father, he screamed for his dad, he screamed for Sam. Dean reached Sam and sliced through the last demon holding him and Sam turned, ready to fight Dean. Instead, he registered that it was Dean and pulled back at the last second.
“Of course it’s you.” Sam said. He squeezed his arm and they turned to Cas who was slowly being overrun by angels. He was holding his own and had finally reached Ben, mere feet from the sigil that was glowing blue now.
And then a demon stood from behind Dean and Sam and stabbed Dean. Dean felt the knife enter his back and watched as Sam jerked the knife from his hand and stab the thing in the throat.
The pain was cold first, so cold that Dean would never feel anything again. Then he was warm and looking up at Sam. Sam looked down at him and then over at Cas and Ben.
“Sam!” Ben screamed, the angels pounding down at them.
“Go!” Dean said, pushing at his legs. “Go!”
Sam took off, pulling angels away from Cas. The sigil broke into a bright blue light, a tunnel that would have been beautiful if it didn’t mean death for anyone who crossed it. And just as the thought registered and Dean tried to stand, to help, to do anything but lay on the ground and wail, he realized he couldn’t.
He couldn’t feel his legs.
He was helpless to watch as the angels threw themselves to Ben and Cas, to watch as Sam slashed savagely at the angels and get ahold of Ben, watched as Cas and Sam stood back to back with the angels surrounding and then the blue white turned a screaming white and Cas-
He pushed, shoved three of the angels into the light and when one of them hooked a hand around him, Sam pushed Ben as hard as he could and Ben broke through the line and Sam and Cas, stumbled, both with just the edge of their heel into the light but it was enough. It was enough to pull them both into the light. It was enough.
They fell.
The light broke.
The screaming stopped.
The last thing that Dean saw that night was Sam holding on to Cas and Cas gripping Sam and both of them looking at Dean.
That was the last time that Dean saw either Sam or Cas alive.
“How was your day?” Dean asked as he rolled his chair up the ramp and into the kitchen.
Ben shrugged. “Carpentry is awesome. I’m finishing up a table for the Dennison family in town. They seem to be really excited for it. Auto was-” Ben sighed and rubbed his face. His hair was long, long enough to remind Dean of Sam at that age. “God, dad, I just want to quit that fucking class. I rebuilt the Challenger when I was fifteen and we just got to oil changes two days ago.”
Dean laughed at his son’s frustration.
“How about you, darling?” Dean said to Claire. She smiled at the endearment.
“I finished a couple of presents today. I’m getting pretty good at carpentry too. Agriculture is going really well too. I’ll have some veggies to bring home on Friday.” She raised her eyebrows and smiled. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you two don’t eat any.”
Ben groaned. Dean smiled. He saw Cas in her smile.
“Fourth of July tonight. Plans?” Dean asked as he spooned out some mashed potatoes onto his plate. He expected to spend the evening alone. Ben was almost eighteen and Dean suspected that Wendy Dennison and Ben were more than just friends. Claire had made several new friends in town and at fifteen, Dean was allowing her more freedom.
“Well, the show starts at nine. We can head down at eight, get all settled.” Ben tilted his head to the side. “Let’s pack snacks, yeah? And we can’t forget the blanket.”
Dean felt a certain swell of pride that it was just a given that the three would be spending the evening out together. They ate dinner and Claire excused herself for her room.
Dean watched her leave. “How is she?” He asked Ben.
“Yesterday was pretty bad. But she worked through it. She’s getting better, dad.”
Dean nodded.
“You did the right thing. If Cas had known that Claire was alive, he would have gone for her himself. You know that.” Ben said.
Dean smiled gently and looked down at his hands. “You sound like Sammy when you say stuff like that.”
Ben dropped a kiss on his father’s head and Dean batted him away gently. He left the room as well and Dean took the time to visit the backyard.
After Kansas, what was left of the government found Dean and Ben. They were both at ground zero still, so it wasn’t hard. The government had offered them a choice to live in either Palo Alto, California or Phoenix, Arizona. They had taken California.
Ben and Dean were given a large plot of land and a house. Dean made it clear that no one was to bother them for as long as they were both alive. The agent in charge had nodded her head and left their house.
Through a network of the few friends that he had left, Dean was able to transport both Cas and Sam’s bodies and bury them in the backyard. Once it was known who Ben and Dean were, visitors would quietly pay their respects. Overnight, headstones were put in place for Cas and Sam.
That’s where Dean was head to now. The path was well worn from Dean’s chair as he wheeled down and out to the small plot.
Someone had been there recently, there were fresh daisies in front of their headstones.
“Sam.” Dean said with a sigh and traced over the letters that adorned his headstone.
Sam Winchester
Brother, soldier.
There is no decision that we can make that doesn't come with some sort of balance or sacrifice.
“He’s so much like you. He’s smart. He’s so fucking smart that he scares me sometimes. He’s growing his hair out and he looks just like you, man. He misses you.” Dean choked for a second on his words and then looked away. “I miss you too. I mean, man you should see the shit we got out here. Ben’s making tables, I’m taking care of them, they’re taking care of me. I’m-” Dean stopped and cleared his throat. “Fourth of July tonight. Remember when we bought those fireworks and almost lit that field on fire?” Dean laughed and wiped at his face. “I wish you were here to do this man. I wish that more than anything.”
Dean turned to Cas’s gravestone. He reached his hand out.
Castiel Winchester
Brother, beloved, soldier, angel
True love is selfless. It is prepared to sacrifice.
“You would be so proud of them both, Cas. They work really hard and every time I see Ben showing Claire how to shoot or a new spell or when he is helping her with her homework, I remember all the time you two spent together and I want to be able to help them both, but it’s so fucking hard sometimes. Most of the time.” Dean laughed and tipped his head back to the tree above their graves. The laugh broke into a sob and he looked back down, “I’m sorry, Cas. I know I come out here everyday and tell you that, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry that I was useless. I’m sorry that you had to go out the way you did. You should be here with Ben and Claire. You were always the better dad, I know it. I’m sorry that I wasted so much time.” Dean rubbed at his chest. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t enough to keep you here.” He whispered. He leaned forward and placed his hand on the headstone. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you.”
Dean turned his chair back to the house where Claire and Ben waited for him.