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— Day 154, continued —
They don’t bother locking up (the salle has no lock, for one), Alicia bundled into her coat and boots and jeans, backpack thrown over her shoulder as they go to the jeep.
“You walked the entire way?” he asks, opening the passenger door for her as Vera taught him to do for people carrying items when he isn’t, whether they need it or not.
“I needed to think,” she says with a shrug, and Castiel thinks about that on his way to the driver’s side. Easing inside, he glances at her; it occurs to him in all their acquaintance, he never realized her expression—quicksilver in changes of mood—has never once been unguarded, never caught with face and tone not matching her perceived mood. He waits until they’re on their way back before asking, “Where’s Micah?”
“Sixth Street, Building Eight, Room 316,” she answers, looking at him with clear blue eyes. “Idiots two are with him and six other single guys, bachelor area I guess. I bet he hates that; he always liked his space. Carol’s still in the infirmary, first floor off the operating room where they can keep her under observation. No word on her leg yet; I checked her chart, and if she stays stable, Vera’s going to need to do surgery today.” Alicia shakes her, mouth tight. “Bit right through the femur, splintered it to hell and back. Even if Vera can save it…”
“Relevant, I’ll give you that,” he says. “And genuinely of interest to me, well done. Micah.”
She sighs, head tipping back against the headrest as Ichabod proper comes into view. “It’s been a while. I don’t want to hang out or anything, but—gotta admit, I’m curious if he’s still got that limp.”
He files that away. “Dean took your team off the duty roster today. Before you argue, they’re on duty watching Alison, and I’d like you to work with Naresh today to see if you can find out what is causing—whatever this is.”
She settles back, nodding. “Actually, I have a theory, and that will help. Can you meet me in the infirmary after noon? We’re releasing Haruhi and the others from the mess—God knows we need the space—and—okay, don’t kill the messenger—she may not be clear on how pissed you are, so reassure her maybe?” He glares at her across the seats. “For her own good, I remind you. To save her life and everything.”
That much is true. “Granted,” he says grudgingly.
As they pull up in front of HQ, he opens the door for her (twice), entering the almost empty lobby where Rachel’s on desk duty and Kyle is lurking very unsubtly (even for him) at the top of the stairs in what he probably thinks is out of view. Then he is out of view and very probably running for his room at considerable speed.
Alicia doesn’t look up but her mouth quirks. “You know, he explained to me a week ago how fancy knife dances don’t prep you for real fighting?”
Half-way to the stairs, Castiel comes to a dead stop, and turning around, Alicia grins at him, eyes dancing. “But…” He has no idea what goes there.
“There is always a type for whom sex is a transformative experience,” she explains, nodding sincerely. “Of their partner, you know what I mean? Orgasm or two, go to sleep, wake up, and find out you are a delicate and kind of stupid flower. Didn’t let him top after that, obviously. I was trying to be nice, but we all make mistakes, am I right?” She sighs, looking bewildered. “Also, squeamish. Didn’t see that coming.”
Castiel correctly interprets that as Kyle showing (after that, possibly justifiable) terror when Alicia brought up the subject of recreational knife use. “Is he bothering you?”
“No,” she answers promptly. “I won’t deny he really, really wants to, though, but no.” Tilting her head toward the stairs, he nods and falls into step beside her. “He’s not a bad guy, just…”
He gives her to half-way up the stairs before asking, “You were saying?”
“I’m working on it,” she assures him as they reach the second floor, blissfully empty of people unable to bother Alicia no matter how hard they might try. “Hey, you think Dean would like working with Matt? So he won’t feel inadequate or anything? Matt’s getting better, but let’s say it’s gonna take some work.”
Castiel thinks many things and says none of them. “You’re teaching Matt?” he asks politely as they start down the hall that has both his and Dean’s room as well as that of Alicia’s team. “I had no idea he was interested.”
“He’s a neither/nor; good with a gun, not great with a knife but me, I think that’s just lack of practice,” she explains, smiling suddenly and pausing to lean against the wall. “We started a month ago. It’s weird; before he was on my team, I barely knew him, but in the field, it’s like he can read my mind, exactly where I want him to be, never missed a step after the first week. I sent him to the library last night for some encyclopedias, and he found what I needed and also one all about knife fighting—the name is The Complete Book of Knife Fighting.”
What would Dean do, he thinks desperately, fighting down laughter. “You don’t say.”
She rolls her eyes. “If it were sex, trust me, he didn’t need to get me books and play with knives to get my attention; he’s hot and from what I understand, flexible and all around fun, you know what I mean?” She cocks her head. “Though yeah, those would both help. I asked a while back, and no go, so we played Monopoly and he won twice. Now we do weekly board game nights, every Thursday we’re in Chitaqua. It’s fun.”
Castiel fails to remember a time anyone refused an offer from Alicia; in theory, it must have happened, but everyone at Chitaqua is sane (mostly). “That’s unexpected.”
“Yeah, surprised me, too,” she agrees as they start down the hall again. “But what can you do? Answer: triple word score his ass, for Scrabble is totally my game.”
“How’s your chess game?” he asks curiously, and is remarkably unsurprised by her answer.
“Only Matt will play with me anymore,” she says sadly. “Even when I handed over my bishops to help them out, I’d always win.”
Dean is armed with coffee, breakfast, and a determined expression when he returns to the room to find Cas already in residence, reading at a glance through reports fast enough that it looks like he’s just flipping through the pages. Good, he’s caught up.
“Good morning,” he says brightly, ignoring Cas’s eyes narrowing at the sight of food—a necessity for living, mortal beings everywhere and fuck Crowley backward for this, too, Cas was making great progress—before taking in the fact that the bed is almost kind of made and feeling a spurt of pride at Cas’s valiant attempt at baseline human behavior. “Alicia okay?”
Cas hesitates before saying, “I’m not sure.”
Setting the tray on the bed, Dean waits for Cas to give up and get a tortilla already, which he does, so score for determination. “She mention Micah?”
“No. I mean, yes, but only in regard to his location, his roommates, her lack of interest in hanging out with him, and if I’d seen him and if he still had a limp.” Spreading it with butter, he folds it in half and takes a bite, frowning at nothing. “I forgot to ask Dolores where Alicia was assigned when she was in Ichabod after the attack.”
Dean lowers his tortilla. “I’m thinking those are related, somehow.”
“I’m not sure about that, either,” Cas responds. “I’m trying to remember if I saw Micah when he left Chitaqua and if he indeed had a limp.”
Dean turns that over in his mind and comes up with ‘knives, Alicia carries many of them.’ “How bad a breakup was this? Is that why he left the camp?”
“For the latter, that was the general assumption from what I understand. The former, however, is the other thing that I can’t remember,” he says, finishing the tortilla and taking a second, spreading it out on the tray before loading it with potato-onion-pepper thing, chorizo, and cheese (that Dean grated himself, thank you).
Dean finishes his first tortilla in thoughtful silence and copies Cas for his second. “Sean’s team really doesn’t like him.” He takes a bite and swallows, watching Cas’s face. “Did the team leaders?”
“He was on Erica’s team with Alicia and Heath.” Cas finishes the breakfast burrito, frowning as he automatically makes another. “Briefly, that is, about three weeks: Alicia was injured on a mission and he took her place while she was recovering. The other permanent member was Felix.”
“When?”
“Three days after the event you very obviously are thinking of, Alicia returned to the team and Micah returned to—whatever he was doing. I know what you’re asking, and no, I didn’t see him.”
His Cas-to-English (or Cas-tone-to-English) is getting goddamn amazing. “You think he might have been?” Which brings up another question. “What happened to the bullets in your wall?”
“We removed them,” he answers, frowning as he takes half that thing in a single bite: next they’re working on is not choking to death. “Everyone used their standard weapons. An expert could link them to individual guns, yes, but obviously that wasn’t an option even if an expert was available.”
“Thousand dollar question, Cas, no takebacks, from your gut: you think he was there?”
Cas finishes the taco and reaches for the coffee. “Micah was—and probably still is—a coward.”
“Don’t have to be brave to pick up a gun and join a mob,” Dean answers flatly, rolling them each one last breakfast taco from the remains on the plate and nudging one toward Cas, who picks it up immediately. “Okay, let’s do this a different way: was Heath?”
Cas takes a defiant bite and chews slowly before there’s nothing left for his teeth to do. “Yes.”
“Felix?”
“Yes,” Cas says before finishing—holy shit two thirds of a breakfast taco—in a single, challenging bite, like he’s just asking for a visit from Heimlich Maneuver (which sure, Dean knows, but seriously?). “Anything else?”
“And Felix and Heath…”
“Dead well before Kansas City.”
Sitting back, Dean finishes his breakfast in small bites (example, he’s setting it) and tries to make sense of this. “So check me here: Erica is on Crossroads near Ichabod, and Micah, Carol and—whatever their names are—”
“Barney,” Cas tells him with the sympathetic tone of someone relating a fatal and lingering disease is in your immediate future, “and Stephen.”
“Idiots two,” Dean decides. “And also, how much of an asshole did I look in front of Sean’s team and Alicia not knowing their names?”
“That wouldn’t be a deciding factor,” Cas admits. “I knew them both, trained them both, and have a perfect memory, and it’s an effort to remember more than ‘shapes that followed Micah around’.”
“Anyway, five former members of Chitaqua showing up, one as a demon, all within a day of each other, while we’re here—and why the hell did Crowley have her doing duty on earth?” This has been bothering him. “I mean, even if she was his, he wouldn’t let her out of Hell this soon.”
Cas takes a drink of coffee, eyes distant. “The carrot and the stick.”
Okay, sure. “Anytime you’re ready.”
“Something he told me about his method,” Cas responds. “He let me protect her from discipline—”
“What?” Dean asks, hissing as hot coffee splashes over his hand. Setting it down hastily, he glares at Cas. “You did what?”
“It’s not important—”
“Cas, right at this moment, that is the single most important thing you’ve ever said,” Dean interrupts, wiping his hand with a napkin. “Why—”
“I told you why.”
And just like that, last night floods back, and Dean remembers actually, they have had breakfast now and it’s probably—no guarantee here (if he’s lucky)—time they talked.
“In any case,” Cas continues, and Dean is not at all okay with the change of subject but hey, it’s rude to interrupt or… something, “carrot and stick, he’s giving her neither.”
“She’s not afraid of him?” Dean would love to see that because no other way would he believe it, and even then…
“She’s afraid of him,” Cas says slowly. “But not enough. And he doesn’t seem to care.”
When they’re done, Dean stacks everything together on the table and quickly gets dressed, trying not to side-eye Cas on the bed, reading through reports.
“If you have something you wish to say,” Cas says, not looking up, “it would be much easier for you to do it. I can’t—at the moment—read your mind, though I’ve noted that does change unexpectedly, so if you wish to wait—”
“Christ.” Buttoning on the flannel over thermal and t-shirt, Dean circles around the bed and tries to think of what to say. Cas’s sudden attention doesn’t help, either. “I’m sorry. I was out of line last night. That had nothing to do with—anything. It was me.”
Cas’s expression doesn’t change for a moment, then he pushes back the reports—good sign? Bad sign?—and sighs, leaning back against the pillows. “You’re two different people,” he says. “It’s impossible to compare you in any meaningful way, and also ridiculous.”
“I know.” He does know; this isn’t about Cas. “You—that was me that put you on the rack, not him.”
“As you explained, several times, dreams don’t mean anything. Also—”
“Cas, we both know that was me, come on!” Dean interrupts, dropping onto the foot of the bed. “And it wouldn’t be better if it were him!” For so many very wrong reasons: what the hell is wrong with him?
“I apologize for my subconscious offending your sensibilities,” Cas bites out, and Dean knew this was going to happen, it couldn’t not. He can’t explain this in any way that doesn’t sound crazy, or—something. “If I ever have another dream, I’ll be certain to take that into consideration.”
“Again, not you,” Dean says, fighting down the burst of anger that Cas doesn’t deserve. “It’s me. The entire thing, that was my fault.”
“Dean, you don’t control my dreams.” Cas’s set expression fades, incredulity creeping in. “You think you…control my one and only experience with dreaming?”
Okay when he says it like that… “Yes.”
Cas blinks slowly, tilting his head. “You’re serious.”
“God.” Getting to his feet, Dean starts to pace. “You are not getting this.”
“Dean, if you—in some way—have transmitted your desire to have me on my knees to my subconscious, you needn’t worry,” Cas assures him, and Dean spins around. “I perform on request.”
Dean fails at words. What the hell do you say to that?
“I can prostrate myself as well in one hundred and thirty-five different ways,” he adds in the spirit of what Dean assumes is education is never wasted. “I’ve never objected to role playing, in case that needed saying.”
“You wanna play Master of the Pit and his pet angel?” He just said that. Out loud.
Cas rolls his eyes. “I’m never a pet. You gave me your name and that means I also shared your power as well as your authority and could act in your name. And did so, quite gruesomely.” He looks terrifyingly struck. “As in Chitaqua, so it shall be in the Pit, I suppose.”
Dean starts to answer, then does some find/replace: performance art torture equals map-making and art maps, giant torture device for angels equals new mess, terrified lieutenants everywhere, and there’s a really good chance he may have built Cas his very own torture room in place of a library. “Holy shit,” he says, dropping back onto the bed. “It was.”
“I was never allowed to hold any high rank in the Host,” Cas muses. “For various reasons that may actually be infinite—I’d need more time to search my memory—it was never permitted and I never felt any form of ambition, of course. It does say something that I had only to fall to Earth and wait two and a quarter years to reach the position of second in command of Chitaqua and less than two months more to become your consort as well, in fact rather than speculation, that is.” Dean makes a strangled sound, though what, no idea, “Now I dream of being second in command of the Pit and consort of its Master contemplating—with what I suspect are very good odds of success—conquering Hell itself. Power corrupts indeed. By the next dream, perhaps I will have usurped you and have you kneeling before me on the throne of Hell.”
Cas is looking right at him, so no way he could miss it; he’d be worried about that, but important brain function is suspended indefinitely and he’s pretty sure all the blood in his body just relocated to more southern (dick-related) climates.
“Perhaps,” Cas continues in a voice invented specifically for Dean’s pornographic fantasies, past, present, and future, “I woke too early. Perhaps after exhibitionism performed before my Brother—which I have no objection to should the opportunity arise on earth—I would have fucked the Master of the Pit before all his realm over his very throne.”
He’s not fifteen fucking years old and is not—is not—coming in his pants from listening to Cas relating… that, but his cock is disagreeing with him, and experience tells him who’s gonna win this one.
Cas’s mouth twitches as he settles back against the pillows in satisfaction and fuck Dean’s life very much, even that’s hot. “A pity we’ll never know.”
Breathing works, check. “Fuck you.”
“It took your mind off the ridiculous notion you are—whatever that was,” Cas points out, which is actually true; his mind is pretty much nowhere near there, whatever it was. “In retrospect after a good night’s sleep—for which I thank you—it’s easy to place this in perspective. With the exception of—”
“The beginning, yeah.” Five acts and an intermission: seriously, if that was just the start, what the hell happened next? Why does he want to know?
“Not the stabbing you part,” Cas says dismissively, and seriously, what the fuck is wrong with his cock? “It wasn’t that upsetting.” Something crosses Cas’s face then, there and gone. “That frame, however…”
“What about it?” He sees Cas frown and remembers Cas isn’t a fan of personal space and Dean’s not sure he remembers what that is anymore; also, they’re having sex. Crawling down the bed, he drops down beside Cas. “What, you said you imagined it when you were stoned.”
“In Kansas City,” he says slowly, eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance, “Lucifer asked me if I wanted to know why he spared my life. Then he told me—he told me the only question was how long it would be before I hated myself more than I hated him.”
Dean nods, shifting closer so their shoulders touch.
“I hate him,” Cas says with a simplicity both understatement and devastatingly accurate because of it. “I can’t imagine anything—even myself—that I could hate more. I thought that what he meant—however ridiculous—was that I’d join him out of sheer self-hatred.
Then I thought—this being Lucifer and past master of obvious and terrible metaphor—that he meant becoming him.” Cas turns to look at him. “He was wrong.”
“Well, yeah—”
“I wouldn’t hate myself for becoming him,” Cas says, and Dean shuts his mouth. “If it meant that I could put him on that rack for all of Time, and he begins to make payment for the infinite number of his crimes, I wouldn’t hate myself: every death, every life ruined or destroyed, every tear shed in grief or pain, every drop of blood, every damned soul, each paid back tenfold, and earth would be safe, never again fear him.” He trails off, looking away. “I don’t want to be him, but it feels almost selfish not to find a way to do it anyway. I wonder—I wonder if the reason I don’t is more selfish still; that I don’t want to do it alone.”
Dean maps the entire morning from the moment Cas woke up to now, adding in Alicia (very distracting) and their entire conversation and comes to a depressing conclusion; even if you take all the precautions in the world not to leave Cas alone with his thoughts to overthink shit, he’ll fit it in between other things, somehow. And here they are: calmly and rationally discussing how Cas’s first ever dream could have been a not entirely out of the realm of possibility, much more pleasant option to becoming Lucifer fantasy.
And who’d he pick for his partner in crime and kinky Pit shit (and lots and lots of recreational torture) out of all the world (living and dead)? Dean.
Christ: he’s not just an asshole but a really stupid one.
(Also, Cas thinks he could conquer Hell. All he can think is that Lisa wasn’t sure he knew how to do dishes after inviting him to move in. She was mostly wrong, but for the record, cast iron is a bitch to get clean, come on.)
“He’s an angel, and so was I, and in this much, we’re the same. That,” Cas says into the silence, voice so quiet it’s barely a breath, “is something I would do.”
Dean makes an executive decision. “Grab your coat,” he says, sliding off the bed and finding his boots on the first try. “We’re getting out of here.”
To avoid the incoming people—not to mention that even from Alison’s, Dean can hear enough to tell him they’re in the middle of gate-hanging, which seems to be going about as well as expected by the level of profanity—Dean gets to drive by sheer how-to and gumption (and stealing the keys from Cas).
Driving out toward the east of town, Dean makes a sharp right on something that may have been a road (anything’s possible), stopping short and putting the jeep in park before pocketing the keys.
“Out,” he says, and Cas frowns, looking startled, then climbing out and stopping short.
Suppressing the smile, Dean joins him on the other side of the jeep as above them, the sky sparks in all the colors of the rainbow.
A few feet away from the wall, Cas comes to a halt, staring at it with the same expression Dean felt on his own face when he saw it. The blue eyes travel over it, and all over again, that shock, like he’s seeing it for the first time all over again.
“How many could you have sent to Chitaqua the other night?” Dean asks.
“Ten thousand, perhaps eleven,” he answers distractedly. “The lack of shelter may have been a problem, so I suppose I could have sent some buildings as well. Inorganic matter takes less power and far less than living beings.”
“Definitely safe in Chitaqua’s wards, right?”
Cas blinks, looking at him. “Yes.”
“And instead—you picked not definitely saving anyone but maybe saving everyone or at least most of ‘em. Why?”
“Is this a life lesson?” Cas asks suspiciously.
“Yeah, it is,” he answers. “Look at the wall and check out the sky and tell me again you could sell anything—even yourself—to stop Lucifer for sure and fuck the rest.”
“What else—”
“Cas, the world is over, it’s just a matter of time,” he answers, looking at the gleaming stretch of wall that fuck his life does in fact glitter and worse, he kind of likes it. “Best case scenario, the infected zone—here, all of the world—are gonna be killed to stop Croat; that’s gonna happen. Second to worst case—you say I don’t have to worry about the stone age and supermammoths, but that’s not exactly reassuring on electricity, heat, the internet, disease, and running water for one and all.”
“And worst?”
“Texas was just how it started, they would write in history books, but there’ll be no one alive to write them.” Dean shakes his head, eyes on the wall. “This is you, Cas, this is us, this is what we do. We can’t save everyone, but we’re gonna damn well try, and we won’t sacrifice anyone to do it. Everyone deserves a chance, and that’s our job; to give it to them.”
Cas gives him a sidelong glance. “Is that enough?”
“No,” Dean admits. “But that’s why we’re recruiting. More people helps.”
A message from Manuel is waiting for them at headquarters: to meet on the wall for reasons unclear but important.
“I need to see Vera first,” Castiel tells Dean, which makes him frown. “I need to inquire about Carol’s status and—I would like to tell her thank you for her help.”
“Right,” Dean says, groaning. “I’m dead. She was at the infirmary last night, and she’s going to hold it against me I didn’t send a message to tell her you woke up and were fine, I know it.”
“I’m sure she’s aware—”
“Won’t matter,” Dean interrupts grimly. “Meet me on the wall when you’re done?”
“I will,” he promises, watching Dean start toward the west—and the gate—before making his way to the infirmary, watchful for civilians.
It’s crowded—a problem—but Dolores on her way down the stairs sees him, tired face lighting in a smile. “Cas,” she says, gesturing for him to follow her. “Feeling better?”
“I am,” he answers politely; it’s true, after all. “Is Vera available or is she working?”
“On break,” Dolores says, looking around the busy ER. “We’re about to start on Carol’s leg in about an hour, and she needs the time.”
“What’s the prognosis?”
Dolores sighs as she leads him to a door on the far left. “It’s still stable, no sign of infection, but her leg lost blood flow for a while, which is the biggest problem. Honestly, I’d have amputated already, but Vera thinks—hopes—she’ll be able to keep it, at least. She read half the night, so she’d know. If it fails—well, we’ll be watching, since we’ll have to amputate fast to avoid gangrene.” Opening the door, she says, “Left, first door on the right. I’m glad you came; she could really use a friend right now.”
“Thank you,” he answers, and follows her instructions exactly, knocking politely before carefully opening the door. “Vera?”
She’s slumped on a chair, elbows resting on her knees and head hanging down tiredly. Looking up, she frowns, and he can see the faint traces of tears, hastily hidden. “Cas,” she says with an attempt at a smile. “You look good and Dean is dead.”
“He worried about that.” Closing the door, he crosses the short distance between them and crouches before her. “Thank you for what you did.”
“Anytime.” Smiling more naturally, she straightens. “Everything okay?”
“I was about to ask you the same question.” He catches her eyes when she tries to avoid him. “Dolores told me you would be working on Carol’s leg today.”
She nods tightly. “It’s a risk, I know, but I gotta try. If I’m wrong—we should be able to amputate in time.”
“How much?”
“Barely enough for a stump,” Vera answers steadily. “It nicked the femoral artery and crushed the femur; they did their best, kept her alive, no fault to her friends there. They packed it in snow, that helped, but—I don’t know. Best case scenario is she doesn’t lose the leg and the paralysis is limited. She may walk again, no guarantees, but if this works, it’s going to be all or nothing.”
He nods, watching her face. “What else?”
Vera swallows, closing her eyes. “Sudha isn’t progressing on time. Not a big deal—she’s fine, baby’s fine, checking regularly, it happens all the time—but… I don’t know, something bothered me, so I did an ultrasound to double check. Dolores can’t read them as well as I can—never had to and fuck knows it took me a minute to make sense of what I was seeing—so she didn’t know. Sudha’s uterus is—tilted, that’s the best way I can describe it and that’s just what I was sure of, and I’m pretty sure it’s malformed in the bargain. Honest to God, I have no idea how she even got pregnant in the first place, much less carried it to term.”
Castiel doesn’t let his expression change. “Did you ask her—about that?”
“Kind of, didn’t want to scare her,” Vera answers flatly. “She said her pregnancy was a surprise, yeah; her gyn told her she couldn’t conceive and that’s about it. Which, no surprise: gyns can be dicks when it comes to details. She didn’t even realize she was pregnant until about—”
“Five months ago.”
“Yeah,” Vera says slowly. “That sounds about right.”
“Could you do another caesarian?”
“I already would have if—that’s the other problem. The placenta’s fine and exactly where it should be, but her uterus isn’t, so it’s blocking where I’d do the incision, and even if I go in there—Cas, to get the baby out, I’d have to gut her on the table and that’s assuming I could get her baby out alive. Best case scenario if I go in, I probably don’t kill her immediately but probably kill her baby. This isn’t an either/or; if I thought she’d survive, I’ll do my best for her and put the baby in God’s hands, but—I’m not a surgeon, Cas. She’d need someone who had twenty years doing this in the operating room or she’ll bleed out on the table.”
He nods slowly. “Is she in pain?”
“Nope, small favors and everything.” Vera blows out a breath. “I need to tell her what’s going on, but Cas—she’s so happy. She and Rabin have the name and the baby room all done and she’ll die on that table without a second thought if it means her baby lives. I wouldn’t like it, but I’d do it for her, but—I can’t even give odds on that. Less than fifty is best guess with someone trained to do it, and Cas, I’ve done this once two days ago: I will kill it without a miracle, that’s just fact.”
“How long can you wait?”
Vera blinks at him, frowning. “She’s fine right now. Baby goes into distress, or something happens with her, that could happen at any moment, but if it were anyone else, I’d say primipara and just watch until her body is ready to go.”
“It will be,” he answers. “When the time comes, she’ll deliver safely. She will need help, but provided she receives it, both she and the child will survive and be well, I promise.”
Vera starts to say something, then licks her lips. “I’m going to ask you a very stupid question.”
“The answer is yes, to infertile couples only who would have no children otherwise,” he answers distractedly. “The mother always survives. There has never been an exception and there cannot be.”
“Then—”
“Except the Host left the earth, and if she carried one of my Brethren, I would have known when we met.” He gets to his feet. “Don’t tell her anything, no matter how much time passes, and let her do as she will: her comfort and contentment are of paramount importance. If something upsets her, remove it; if someone upsets her, shoot them.”
Vera’s eyes widen. “Okay, but—I bet we can avoid that.”
“Whatever works. I suspect it won’t be more than two more days, but any sign she’s starting labor, any at all, I must know and be in attendance.”
“Cas,” Vera says quietly, looking up at him, “what is she carrying?”
“Her and Rabin’s child,” he answers. “And a miracle. I need to meet Dean on the wall. Keep me informed of Sudha’s condition as well as Carol’s.”
“I will,” Vera says, slowly standing up. “Cas—tell me you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” he answers; he almost wishes that he weren’t. “If you need a miracle, that is what we shall be. Or do, as it were.”
Dean lowers the binoculars. “Thirty miles? You’re sure?”
“I sent a team out in each direction when I checked against the logs from all the patrols and what the people they brought in were reporting,” Manuel confirms grimly, eyes drawn back to the horizon. “Double blind: I didn’t tell them why, just told them they’d know when to come back. Thirty miles, almost to the inch.”
“What’d they see?”
Manuel makes a face. “Not the kind of thing they could see, you know?” He does, yeah. “They’re all experienced and I trust their instincts. Nothing in sight, but Dean, there was something watching them.”
“Something that didn’t go after them.” Manuel nods, mouth a tight, worried line as Dean hands him back the binoculars. “And no one’s been attacked once they get to the thirty. Anything around Ichabod—cemetery, holy ground, a—I don’t know, anything before now?”
“Nothing that seemed to bother anything that attacked us before,” Manuel answers. “Anyi’s going through patrol records now, but I’ve been in charge of defense almost since I got here, and I reviewed them with Amanda when she was assigned here. Anything like that, I would have noticed if Teresa didn’t.”
Thirty miles: it sounds familiar, and not just because of Cas’s weather-magic-thing. “Cas should be here in a minute. Send someone for Alison and Teresa.” He belatedly remembers Alison’s been walking Ichabod and is almost but not quite working on fucking up her just fixed ankle, but survey says she really doesn’t care. “Tell Alison I’ll carry her up myself if she wants.”
Manuel snorts before murmuring something to Hans, a tall blond German national who could pass for a goddamn Viking, no axe required. Big, silent, and honestly way more intimidating than Dean wants to admit, he used to be a music executive in Hamburg and, according to everyone, can sing the entire Celine Dion back catalogue in key when he’s drunk ‘cause that’s how he rolls. That they have group sing-a-longs in Ichabod where this fact was discovered is almost normal in comparison; not like there’s anything on TV.
Watching Hans make his way to one of their temporary ladders, Dean asks, “Where’s Tony, anyway? I haven’t seen him today.”
“Organized a crew to find better ladders,” Manuel responds, resting an elbow on the outer edge of the wall. “We found some construction grade ones, heavy steel used at building sites, but they were too big for regular use, and a bitch to drag out for anything lower than four stories. Second choice is the fire trucks, but they’re pretty messed up.” He makes a moue of dissatisfaction. “Gotta get something soon; those aluminum ladders we’re using now will blow away in a mild wind. When this is over, Tony was making noises about building stairs.”
“And towers,” Dean offers, trying not to sound wistful. He gets this would normally be in geek territory, but come the fuck on; who the hell doesn’t want their own fortress? Really stupid people, that’s who. “Hey, Bert’s trying to get your attention. Or having a seizure.”
They watch Bert’s gyrations, face flushed bright red with excitement (exertion?), before Manuel sighs, pushing off the ledge. “He’s really excited about being assigned to wall duty. Thinks they should have badges. Be right back.”
Looking down, Dean watches as more teams come in with the latest refugees, kids in any arms that can carry them, Ichabod’s and refugee volunteers accompanied by patrol teams from some of the other towns as well as Chitaqua and Ichabod’s trade partners. He knows Claudia’s keeping a rough count she won’t share (“Above twenty thousand,” she tells them, her expression telling them that’s all they’re getting), recording names, family, time of arrival, and origin, and he also knows which towns are marked for special handling: ones whose members include former hunters from Chitaqua (four so far, who knows who will show up next), ones Teresa and Manuel left under threat of a fucking witchcraft trial, ones who rejected the original settlers of Ichabod, ones that said ‘hi’ with the barrel of a gun and goodbye with a bullet. Saving lives doesn’t mean you gotta be stupid when you do it, and Dean has no problem at all with keeping those most likely to kill their rescuers (or burn them for witchcraft, God, that’s actually a thing) together in an easily watched part of Sixth Street.
At the sudden flurry of restrained commotion, Dean turns his head, fighting back a smile as Cas steadies himself on the wide walkway. Looking around with a vaguely surprised expression, like he’s still working out what part of his history of the world’s fortresses this part came from, he makes his way past the scattered members of the watch and patrol sublimely unaware of the attention he gets as Guy Who Creates Walls From Scrap (And Destroys Buildings to Make the Scrap in Question), waves of whispers preceding him like a rock dropped in a still lake. From the corner of his eye, he sees Manuel bite his lip against a grin, a pleasant reminder that Manuel was raised by a witch who could move the earth (literally), along with having one as his sister. Fallen angels probably don’t register too high on the weirdo-meter after that kind of childhood.
“Thirty miles, nothing comes past that,” Dean tells him. “Wondering why: any ideas?”
Without opening his mouth (probably incipient laughter, Dean suspects), Manuel hands over the binoculars, which Cas takes with an absent nod and, catching himself, adds the most serious “Thank you” in the world. Because sometimes Cas slips and forgets he pretends not to know about good manners.
Dean watches his face carefully, but this is Cas, and an existence as an angel has its perks; they could be faced with a hoard right at the gate screaming for their blood and various internal organs, and Cas would probably regard them with the same blank expression he has now. While shooting the fuck out of them, even.
“That’s unusual,” he says finally, handing Manuel back the binoculars, expertise in understatement unchanged as well. “Your teams verified it?”
“Feeling,” Manuel says succinctly. “Still jumpy when they got back.”
Cas nods, not needing anything else; one of the less talked about advantages of having an ex-angel around is Cas treats human instincts like holy writ. “It’s not that they can’t be wrong. It’s just generally, when it comes to the supernatural, they’re not. And leashed to experience, being wrong is the rare exception, not the rule.” Especially with hunters, and the patrol teams going out definitely qualify. You do that long enough, you learn how to listen; those that don’t tend not to survive long.
“Teresa or Alison? Or us?” Dean asks, leaning against the outer rim and trying to decide if there’s some kind of obvious plan he’s missing here that this might be useful for. Nothing’s coming up, but hope springs eternal and everything. “Cas, are they organizing out there? Do they do that?”
“For your second question, I hope not, but evidence suggests something is keeping them restrained,” Cas answers, tilting his head to survey the stretch of cars and hints of nearly-bare land before them. “By now, the barrier has weakened enough that the strongest would survive long enough to at least start attacking those still on the roads. Yet so far, only Hellhounds, which can also be summoned.”
“The Misborn,” Manuel says, looking at Dean, who nods. “Could they be—doing something?”
“They can’t pass the barrier yet,” he explains. “Or believe they can’t—if they can think, which has yet to be established—but it comes to the same thing. They won’t cross until at best, a day before the barrier falls.”
Dean frowns: will. “You said maybe—”
“That was before I was aware they may have another motivation to be here.” Before Dean can ask, he shakes his head. “I think I know a way to at least slow them down or—provided they’re stupid, which is very possibly considering this was Lucifer’s breeding program—distract them with the equivalent of something very shiny, at least for a short period of time. I’ll need Teresa’s help. I assume she didn’t lock the town wards yet, due to being watched carefully.”
Manuel makes a face. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“How bad an idea is that?” Dean asks; good isn’t even on the table from Manuel’s expression.
“If nothing attacks us, it’s a bad idea we didn’t need; if something does… I’m her brother, and I’ll give her everything I have, but she won’t risk killing me and will cut me out if she can. Alison—I don’t think she can cut her out, but Alison isn’t sworn to the earth herself and wasn’t born to it. So—not long. A day, maybe, if we’re under direct attack.”
“Neeraja can’t be of help?”
He grimaces. “A little, yeah, but she hasn’t offered herself to the earth yet, and Teresa got her to swear on everything she could think of she won’t; it’s too soon. Neither of them have told Sudha about this; she would do it while in labor if that’s how it had to happen.”
Cas’s expression flickers. “A wise decision. I can distract Teresa for a little while this evening; she’ll need to make some adjustments to the wards after dusk, and that should take some time. And she’ll be tired, I promise you.”
“Thanks,” Manuel says sincerely. “So, back to one of the ways we’ll die?”
“Which one?” Cas asks.
“All of them,” Dean says, trying to put everything into a shape that makes sense, a shape in which a plan might surface. Any plan, even a shitty one, is still an improvement over what they have now, which is none at all with additional talking about the fact they don’t: not better. “So many ways to die, so little time. Also, the thirty mile line that for no reason exists—wait, Cas, your weather thing…?
“No, it has no effect on this plane except where it touches the storm,” Cas says, not stopping to ask if they need that explained because why bother? “Thirty miles was the limit on who received the maps, however; everyone inside the thirty mile limit didn’t receive one of the maps telling them to come to Ichabod.”
“That’s why it sounded familiar.” Tells them nothing, but good to know. “Tell me you’ve seen something like this before,” he adds, because it can’t hurt to check.
“I’m sure I have, but as a footsoldier, I was one of those called to the battlefield as it began, not to evaluate it beforehand or offer my opinion,” Cas answers, a thread of irritation in his voice. “Strategy, such as it was, Michael reserved to himself and the other archangels. Generally, ‘kill everything’ could be considered a literal interpretation of our orders before we stepped on the field. Well, after the speech, of course.”
“Speech?” Manuel asks in interest. “Michael gave inspirational speeches?”
“No, not really.” Cas leans both elbows on the outer rim of the wall. “Technically speaking, inspiration was unnecessary. Our response to being graced with our Father’s orders should always be ecstatic—”
“Ecstatic?” Dean echoes. “Really?”
“—and of course, righteousness, justice, and wrath were great motivators as well,” Cas continues, ignoring him. “Michael was never what one might call original in his material, so it was always the same speech, but he did enjoy giving it.”
Manuel stares at him in fascination. “What was it about?”
“Fortunately, neither of you have the necessary context to understand it even if it were possible to relate it verbatim,” he answers. “However, a very, very loose interpretation would be ‘glory’.”
Dean waits, but Cas just stands there, staring pensively at their invisible doom beyond the horizon. Exchanging a helpless look with Manuel he tries for clarification. “Glory?”
Cas nods. “Glory.”
“Of—what?” Dean asks, wondering if he’s missing something. “Your Father, war, righteousness, rainbows—”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“Glory by definition. All its definitions, in all times, for all things. Glory as concept, goal, and existence as understood by its nature—”
“I have no idea what you just said,” Dean interrupts. “Glory has a nature?”
“Glorious,” he confirms, beginning to look haunted. “In all its definitions, meanings, and nature, in all times, for all things.”
“How long did it take?” Manuel asks in morbid curiosity.
“Due to the lack of linear time,” Cas answers glumly, “’forever’ would not be inaccurate.”
“You’re not gonna do that, Dean, right?” Manuel asks worriedly, like maybe exposure to an angel has made Dean insane.
“No, of course not—wait.” He glares at Manuel. “Me do what?”
“Give a speech appropriate to inspiring the masses who will be fighting evil very soon,” Cas answers, sounding bored, his attention on the pattern of squares on his wall, poking them curiously. “Please make it interesting, at very least, to distract us from potential annihilation.”
“You should leave off the annihilation part, too,” Manuel offers to Dean’s mute horror, and poker face or not, Dean can tell he’s laughing at him. Behind them is another wave of new whispers, and Manuel half-turns and grins. Following his gaze, Dean sees Teresa, Alison on her arm, and Matt, Jody, and Andy trailing behind them with the blank expressions that Dean associates with chasing a limping psychic around Ichabod and throwing herself into crowds of strange people like it ain’t no thing. He feels sorry for them, yeah, but if he could do it, they can; there are three of them, after all.
“Hey,” Manuel says, stepping forward to kiss Teresa and take Alison’s arm, her limp noticeably stronger, which Dean assumes is the result of brute-force stubbornness in the face of multiple city streets, every stair in her line of sight, and ladders. “You okay?”
“Fine, thanks,” she says, offering him a strained smile before turning her glare on Dean. “Thanks for the escort.”
“No problem,” he says, and Matt’s expression crumples, and okay, fine. “You get a new team this afternoon. Keep ‘em on their toes.”
“How much does patrol owe you?” Manuel asks and Alison divides her glare very effectively between them. “Firstborn of everyone, what?”
“Dude, the only reward we need is knowing we did good,” Dean answers, smiling at Alison’s hate-filled eyes. “So sorry I can’t hear you thinking: I bet it’s ‘thank you, Dean’.”
“You—”
“How are we going to die?” Teresa interrupts hopefully. “Scale of one to ten on bad news: one, our chances of dying fast are lower than expected to ten, this is the afterlife and we’re stuck here.”
Oh God, he never thought of that. “Cas—”
“This isn’t a particularly mediocre afterlife,” Cas assures them, and he’s not the only one who breathes out in relief. “I’ll prove it. Dean, whistle.”
He is in a place where he does, no question asked: how he got here, who can say?
“Whistling requires corporeal form, oxygen, and lungs with which to breathe, though not—as you can tell—the ability to carry a tune.” Dean is going to whistle morning and night from now on. “I don’t know why, but neither in Heaven nor in Hell can anyone whistle.”
“That is so weird it must be true,” Teresa says slowly, forehead creasing. “I like whistling.”
“Then I suggest you get your fill of it on earth,” Cas tells her. “Also, what is the traditional range a bruja blanca claims as her territory?”
“Twenty-four kilometers, traditionally, but more a suggestion than anything,” she says in surprise, joining him at the rim. Manuel hands her the binoculars as he explains what the teams found, nodding with the same calm expression Cas used, one that Dean’s beginning to associate with imminent doom. “I’m strong enough to claim twice as much since…” She looks at Manuel, then at Cas. “Thirty miles. Same limit as those maps.”
“What can you do with—territory?” Dean asks.
“Claim my right to the earth’s assistance and receive power consummate within that area,” she answers, frowning, then looks at the battlements speculatively. “I should do that, now that I think about it.”
“So you’re restricted to thirty miles to get power from the earth?” Dean wouldn’t have called that; even he can tell how strong she is.
Teresa makes a see-saw gesture with one hand. “I can influence more, but let’s say I better have very good reasons to try. If they’re not, that’s a breach of my agreement with the earth, and I think you can guess the penalty for a first offense. Hint: there’s no first for that kind of offense.”
Dean winces as Cas asks, “Did the human infiltrators know you were a bruja blanca?”
“They knew I was co-leader of patrol and helped with the wards, but no one was more specific. They’d only been here for a few weeks, and I doubt they even guessed I was a witch, much less my title and calling. Or that it meant anything, for that matter.”
“Could any of them have been exposed to one of you before?” Cas asks.
“We’re generally pretty stationary near the border and in Mexico—which is why Dean didn’t even know about us until he was clued in—but me and Manuel hunted on both sides of the Mexican-American border and on the migrant circuit. It’s possible, but in that way it’s possible I could turn green for no particular reason.”
Looking at the ground outside, the volunteer groups who waited near the ward line to check those passing into the town, Dean considers the sheer lack of sparks when humans cross and hopes he survives to see the alterations she made to make that work. “Okay, quick question: I know the basics on the wards; anything else I should know? Like why the wards are on the wall and the ward line is—out there.”
“Benefits of a stationary and permanent place to put them,” she says in satisfaction. “The wall is my permanent anchor now; the line is where I set it, within certain limits. It’s at the very edge of that range, fifty feet; plenty of time that if something crosses, I can pull it back to the walls themselves and we’ll be warned and maybe even ready to fight when it gets to us.”
“Not bad.”
“It’s one of the reasons I use these wards,” she says mildly, joining him and folding her arms over the rim to look down. “I thought about using something else, but with these—I wanted something that would stay up and Sudha and Neer could control even now without making the offering.”
“Simple, easy to use—”
“And work on a curve,” she says, raising her eyebrows at him. “One of the advantages of using these is they equalize to whatever breaches them: with great power and great intelligence comes great migraines and great confusion—or the equivalent thereof.”
“Spiderman fan?” She nods ruefully; he can see why. “That’s why it doesn’t work too well on Croats, yeah; no mind to work with. Or trolls.”
“Very few, thank whatever may be listening; they’re like freaking vacuums,” she agrees fervently. “Anything with corporeal form—has one, they don’t have to be using it when they cross—should be caught, but anything truly incorporeal may be a problem, since without a form the wards don’t have much to attack. However, that’s the wards’ active response to a threat; the passive response will still light up where they cross like fireworks no matter what crosses them, so we have to watch. There are other options we can use later if we need to, but these don’t take much power, so any of us can keep them up for a while.”
“Teresa, I have some additions I’d like to make to the wards to assist with the Misborn,” Cas tells her. “We’ll begin after dusk, at your leisure.”
Before she can respond, Dean hears Alicia call his name from the ladder. Looking over, he notes she’s also waving with a lot of enthusiasm. “What?” he calls.
“Headquarters wants you,” she says and vanishes back down like—okay, what?
“Go,” Manuel says in amusement, giving Matt, Jody, and Andy a sympathetic look. “We’ll keep track of Alison until the next team comes, promise.”
“Oh God—” Alison starts.
“Thanks,” Dean says happily, and gets Cas’s arm, shoving him by Alison and Teresa and following as fast as he can with the other three right behind him. “By the way,” he asks as they reach the ladder; Alicia’s nowhere in sight. “What are you calling the wall stuff anyway? You decide yet?”
“I’ve been thinking about that and I may have an idea,” Cas tells him as he starts his descent. “Tell me what you think and be honest.”
“I’ll do that,” Dean agrees. “So what is it?”
“Fuck that!” Dean yells as they enter Chitaqua’s headquarters, spinning around to stare at Cas as he jerks off his jacket and ignoring the sudden stop in conversation in the crowded lobby. “You’re not calling it Deanium!”
Cas serenely removes his own coat, looking not at all surprised when one of Amanda’s recruits—Hector, he thinks absently, okay, he got them all on sight now, awesome—takes it and then Dean’s. “I don’t see why you’re objecting—”
“How about Casteele?” Dean says viciously, aware someone’s thrust a cup of coffee into his hand—a glance gives him Mel, grinning so widely it looks like her face is about to split in half—and he takes a frustrated drink, wondering why Cas is suddenly looking around in surprise. “Dude, you’re not naming your wall stuff after me. It’s weird.”
“Dean—” Cas starts, but Dean’s already done with this argument. His retort is cut off by a bloodcurdling shriek, like a banshee attacked by a werewolf-demon and everyone’s gonna lose. He’s already reaching for a weapon and salt when he looks up and sees Kat: okay, that could be her.
“Andy!” Kat shrieks from above them as Andy looks up at her longingly from just below, very Romeo and Juliet and there’s a harrowing moment Dean just knows that she’s considering jumping into his arms. Instead, she darts for the staircase, clattering on every goddamn step like she’s wearing tap shoes or something, and runs at Andy like a field of daisies is involved before falling into his arms and they make out like it’s going out of style.
Honest to God, that actually just happened. “What movie are they in?”
“I saw this exact scene—though not in this building, of course—on the Lifetime Channel,” Cas says, tilting his head and probably wondering—a lot like Dean is—if they are ever going to stop to breathe. “I don’t remember which movie—”
“All of them,” Alicia says, tilting her head in startling imitation of Cas. “Sometimes it’s a kitchen, sometimes some stairs, sometimes a battlefield with tanks firing, but it’s all of them.”
Sid, on the other hand, is walking like a normal person—though kind of fast, yeah, but can’t fault him for that—toward Jane, who smiles at him, bag sliding halfway down her arm. Reaching out, Sid takes it from her, saying something that makes her smile widen as she takes his hand. To Dean’s utter shock, Sid actually blushes: will wonders never cease.
“Their movie, that I’d watch,” Alicia says positively. “Bet it wins Oscars—oh, that’s so adorable, Sid is so blushing. Where’s a camera when you need one?”
It belatedly occurs to Dean that he’s seen Mel, Kat, and Jane, three people who as far as he knows weren’t here but in Chitaqua. Turning around, he takes in the actually pretty damn crowded lobby: Mel, leaning back against David’s shoulder, Liz and Dan beside her, all grinning at him; Lee stoically ready for action with Brian and Evan, a still-smiling Jane joining them again; Sarah, expressionlessly ready for action with Drew and Phil (Kat—yeah, still occupied over there); Damiel smiling like a lot and Frank, Penn, and Zoe, and the rest of… Chitaqua. Yeah, and there’s Leah and Mark, okay. Chitaqua’s here.
Chitaqua’s here.
“You’re here,” he blurts out. Christ, Cas and Manuel want him to make a speech?
“Just arrived,” Mel drawls. “Heard something about lots of people, monsters, crappy odds in this little town in the middle of Kansas. Dean, you didn’t have to add the last: you had me at people and monsters. The odds were just icing.”
“What did you bring?” Cas asks, and this right here is why Dean will never let Cas resign, ever. There’s got to be a binding thing for that; he’ll ask Teresa, see what she thinks.
“Cleared the armory and the temp buildings, stopped in at Kansas City at the places Joe hadn’t cleared and grabbed everything there, too. Also, grabbed everything from your cabin—and bathroom. For reasons.”
“Bless you,” Cas says sincerely, which means that Cas now has all his drugs (and weapons, that, too).
“So where are—they’re outside the door, aren’t they?” Yeah, he walked right by jeeps of weapons, fuck his life. Cas too, he realizes, brightening; he’ll never admit it, but knowing is enough.
“Yep,” Damiel says and Dean notes Kat and Andy are still not breathing and show no signs of remembering how respiration works. “Leah and Mike briefed us, and everyone here’s been catching us up. Tony and the cute one—Walter? Must arrange time for a long chat, he seeing anyone?—got our extra generators we took from the garage, figured they might be useful instead of rusting, and they said they could fix them, no problem. We brought everything we had in the mess Chuck didn’t need, figured why risk it going to waste? Alonzo took it—seriously, we get to keep him, right? Please?”
“He’s ours, yeah,” Dean agrees a little blankly. “Do with him what you will, but be kind. Uh, who stayed with Chuck?”
“Cyn, Amber, and Ron,” Lee says neutrally and Dean absolutely wishes he’d been more specific: he doesn’t like Cyn here, but he hates her with Chuck. “His choice. We talked to Amber and Ron before we left, covered a few what-if’s.”
“Good.” Thinking would be good here, too. Something—anything. “Got your room assignments, checked out the building that no, we’re not keeping?”
“Oh, we’re keeping it,” Amanda says cheerfully, standing where Alicia was and now isn’t—where did she go?—and grinning at him. “Dean? You forgot something.”
Yeah, he figured out that part, thanks. ‘What,’ that he’s still working on.
“Dean,” Sarah says, deadpan being a lifestyle choice for her, “what are your orders?”
That would be it. “Okay, first, need to introduce you to Ichabod’s patrol leaders and the mayor—”
“They should be here momentarily,” Cas says blandly. “I told Alicia to run and fetch them, and she’s very fast.”
There we go: anticipation of his orders, he likes that. “Get a feel for the town, check out the roads coming in—how did you get in, anyway?”
“County roads, dirt roads, cow trails, and fields, and a lot of them,” Mel states. “Also, East Gate is almost up; they said to tell Tony and we did.”
Before he can think of something to say, Alicia comes back in, flushed and smug, and Manuel, Teresa, and Alison behind her, all stopping short as they take in the lobby and the balcony of the first floor. They look impressed and fuck yeah, finally.
“Left to right,” Dean says with a smile. “Manuel and Teresa, co-commanders of Ichabod’s patrol and currently commanders of the united patrol of everyone who shows up; you answer to them like you would to me or Cas. Last but not least: Alison, mayor of Ichabod and leader of the Alliance; we all answer to her.” The three in question nod, and God, this was so worth waiting for. “Alison, Teresa, Manuel, they’ll introduce themselves individually, but this is Chitaqua.”
“Nice to meet you,” Mel says brightly. “Like the wall, by the way.”
“Thank Cas for that; I just look at it and feel really smug,” Alison answers, eyes traveling around what is, he admits, a fucking impressively armed crowd. All they need is a few bazookas, but really, no reason to gild the goddamn awesome lily here. Then Alison smiles. “Welcome to Ichabod, and thank you. Our odds look a hell of a lot better.”
“Odds don’t matter,” Mel says easily. “We don’t know how to lose.”
“She’s right,” Alicia agrees, nodding. “It’s weird, am I right? That’s the one thing Cas didn’t think we needed to learn. Not like he’d learn about it from Dean, so what can you do?”
“Situation Room in five minutes, we start the full briefing, bring extra chairs,” Dean says, feeling himself smiling so hard it actually hurts and deciding to be magnanimous and send someone over to Andy and Kat before they die. And tell them about the meeting. And there’s Kyle right there: awesome. “Alison, Teresa, Manuel, if I could get one of you—”
“You can have us all,” Alison answers, and he’s caught by that smile when she turns it on him, hazel eyes bright. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”