16. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Erik Kripke, Warner Brothers and quite possibly others who are not mentioned here. No money will be made from this fan fiction.

Author's note: And I'm back. This chapter seems to be more set up for further events than anything.

New author's note: Just to mention something, because someone commented. Kansas City is on the border between Kansas and Missouri, with part of the city in Kansas and part of it in Missouri, so there is both a Kansas City, Kansas and a Kansas City Missouri. Kansas City, Kansas is the third largest city in the state of Kansas.

Summary: When Dean goes to sell his soul at the crossroads to bring Sam back, someone else steps in to negotiate the deal. Cas did get a sign and it sent him off into the past to change things. AU from The Man Who Would be King and All Hell Breaks Loose.

It's All in the Details

By Colleen

Chapter 16

Gabriel dropped the two of them about half a block from the shop in the first sight free zone available. He grabbed his brother by the arm, dragged him around the corner and practically shoved him through the door. Once inside he made a beeline for the counter, leaving Cas to his own devices.

As the place wasn't very big, he spotted Bobby easily enough and headed over to him. "Bobby." He looked at the man next to the hunter with some surprise. "Agent Henricksen."

"Cas." Bobby said, indicating a chair as he did. Castiel sat down and looked from one man to the other, waiting for one of them to speak.

Bobby glanced over at Gabriel, who was sitting on a stool, chatting up the server while waiting for his order. "So, did you two talk things over?"

Cas followed Bobby's line of sight over to his brother and nodded. "Yes. He insists on helping with further…events. He feels that things would have gone differently if he had been invited to the last one."

The hunter shook his head. "Doubt that'll go over well with Dean and Sam."

Cas just shrugged.

"Should my ears be burning?" Gabriel asked as he came up to the table carrying two cherry chocolate ice cream sodas in old-fashioned glasses. At Cas' confused expression, he rolled his eyes. "Never mind, here." He passed one of the drinks over to the younger angel.

"I do not require…"

"I don't care, drink it… more importantly, taste it."

Cas frowned at the drink. "Is that also a rule?"

"Yes." Gabriel pulled a chair up to their little table and sat down. Immediately he started in on his drink, a blissful expression crossing his face as he did.

Tentatively, Cas took a sip of his own drink. His eyes went wide as the taste hit his tongue. Gabriel smirked as Cas' next sip emptied the glass of everything except the scoop of chocolate ice cream and the cherry that had been floating on top of the soda.

"Why do I have the feeling that Cas on a sugar high isn't a good thing?" Bobby asked.

Gabriel didn't answer, but his smile was pure mischief.

"I am fine." Cas said, pushing the glass away from himself. "It would take many, many more of those to compromise me." He glanced back at the order counter, obviously considering having a few of those many, before forcibly dismissing the idea.

He turned to Bobby. "You needed me for something?"

The hunter looked at the FBI agent.

"Actually, he called you as a favour to me." Henricksen told him.

Cas just stared at him, waiting and Victor had to admit he found it unnerving, but he'd never let something like that stop him before, so he wouldn't now. "I was involved with the case where three bank robbers overran an outdoor ritual being performed by a group of pagan worshipers."

Gabriel laughed, only just managing to avoid snorting ice cream and soda out his nose. "I loved the pasties."

Cas winced slightly. "I'm afraid I reacted without due consideration."

Victor squashed the next three things he thought to say, all of them snarky. "Right, well, I actually wanted to ask you about the reason you were summoned."

Cas frowned slightly. "Actually, I do not know why I was summoned. Those men interrupted things before I could find out and as far as I know, they have not attempted the ritual a second time."

"Oh."

"Why, what has happened?"

"Ah, well. One of the group's members was being stalked. They were doing the ritual in an attempt to get a god to intervene against the man on her behalf. And now, it kind of looks like it might have happened."

Cas' eyes narrowed and slid sideways towards his brother. Gabriel held up his hands to ward him off. "Hey, don't look at me."

Ignoring his brother's words, Cas turned his head and looked at his brother, fully. "You did say you checked on the summons."

Gabriel's eyes rolled upward. "Yeah, on how it latched onto you and why, not what it was for. I didn't even know there was a stalker to play with."

Cas knew he was terrible at knowing when someone was lying when he couldn't read them through their eyes. Still, he could see no reason not to trust his brother in this matter. Gabriel was usually quite happy to blow his own horn.

As a side note, Cas was lucky that he really didn't understand puns, or he'd have known just how bad of one his last thought had been.

"What happened to the stalker?"

"He was stung to death, by bees."

Bobby frowned. "He was allergic?"

Victor shook his head. "No previous record of it. According to the preliminary report, he was simply stung so much and so fast that the overload of venom killed him."

"Hmm." Gabriel's forehead creased in thought. Even if it was just to himself, he had to admit it sounded like something he might have pulled off, depending on the finer details. "Where was he when it happened?"

"An empty house across from the woman he was after. He had the whole stalker kit set up. Cameras, microphones, and an ongoing art project using pictures of her mixed with personal items of hers that he had to have gotten by breaking into her place."

"So how did the bee's end up there?" Bobby asked, perplexed.

"One of the neighbours was trying her hand at keeping bees. She went away on holiday and they swarmed and set up a new home in the house. The agent who passed this information on to me said you could smell the honey as soon as you walked in the door."

Bobby nodded. "I've heard of that happening. They probably set up shop in the walls or something."

Victor nodded.

"Well, I'm going to restate. I didn't do it." Gabriel looked at his cousin. "Cas?"

Castiel shook his head. "I did not have a hand in this either. It is possible that she sought help through a different god, or even a demon."

Bobby nodded. "Yeah, I could see a crossroads deal going this way." He shrugged. "But at the moment, all we have is conjecture." He looked at Henricksen. "If you're intending on hunting, you might want to consider taking this on as your first job, once you get back."

Victor swallowed. Even though he knew that that was what he was going to do, stepping forward as a hunter rather than an FBI agent was a little daunting. He took a deep breath and let it out. "I'll do that."

"Good. Now then, I have to figure out how a ghost is managing to bounce all over the place, killing people. "He pointed at Victor. "You have whatever case it is you're working on." He looked from Cas to Gabriel. "And I'm not even sure I want to know what you two might get up to next."

"Actually, I am attempting to repair the wards I have been using to… avoid the rest of the family. Several layers were broken when…" Cas fell silent for a moment. "Anyway, it shall probably take a few days."

"Alright then, I guess we'll see you when we see you."

Cas nodded. Gabriel put his empty glass down and gave the area around them a glance. A group of teenagers came in, noisy enough to catch everyone's attention, including Bobby and Victors. When the two men focused back their table, they were slightly startled to find the chairs across from them empty. Bobby sighed and shook his head.

Victor laughed. "I'm going to guess they do that a lot."

"Yep."

"Well..." Victor stood and was about to give his goodbye, when a flash of movement outside of the shop caught his attention. Frowning, he headed out of the store. Bobby followed him. Both of them stood on the sidewalk and scanned the area.

"Mind telling me just what we're looking for?

Henricksen shook himself. "Nothing, it's just…"

"What?"

"I thought I saw my partner, but he should be back in Kansas City, not here." He shrugged. "Maybe I imagined it."

Bobby snorted. "One of many rules to live by as a hunter. If you think you might have imagined it, you probably didn't."

"Yeah, I was afraid you'd say something like that."

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Dean handed his brother a newly minted fake ID driver's licence. "Okay, so you're Sam Winchester." He held up his own new ID. "And I'm Dean Winchester." He shook his head. "Straight up, I never thought I'd have to fake my own ID."

Sam laughed. "Yeah, it's a new one on me too. Of course, being a formally wanted fugitive who's now officially dead, kind of makes getting replacement ID in our real names a bit difficult."

The brothers tucked their IDs into their wallets and got into the Impala, which was parked at the curb outside of the print shop they'd stopped at a couple of towns over from Windom. "So, how do we want to work this?" Sam asked.

"I don't know man. Guess it comes down to, do we phone them first, or just show up on their door step?"

Sam thought for a few moments, and then pulled out his cell phone.

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Kate Milligan was officially freaking out. She'd just hung up after being on the phone with a young man who claimed to be John Winchester's son. He'd told her that he and his brother needed to talk to her and Adam about their father.

She didn't want to believe it. John had sons. Sons he'd never told her or Adam about, even though he apparently had told them about her and her son. The young man had told her that they would be in town soon and asked where they would be comfortable meeting with them. She named a diner that she and Adam often went to.

"Hey Mom." Adam called out as he entered. "How…was your day?" He asked, his voice tapering off as he realized something was wrong. "What's up?"

"Sit. I've got something I've need to talk with you about."

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Sam and Dean stood as an attractive blonde woman and a young man entered the diner. The woman looked enough like their mom that it wasn't all that surprising that dad had fallen for her. Although in some ways, it might have been easier on them if she'd looked nothing like her.

The boy with her… came closer to looking like Dean's full brother than Sam did.

Sam held out a hand. "Um, hey. I'm Sam Winchester and this is my brother Dean." He said, indicating his brother with a tilt of his head.

Adam Milligan shook their hands, the gesture somewhat reluctant. Kate did the same and all four of them sat down at the table. A waitress, who obviously knew Kate and Adam came over and took their orders. They waited until she was back behind the counter and busy with other things before starting to talk.

"So." Kate started. "You're John's sons?"

Sam nodded. "Yes ma'am."

She took a sip of her water. "He never told us about you."

"It was mutual." Dean said, a little harsher than he'd intended to. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Sorry, what I mean is, Dad didn't talk about you either. We only recently found out about you and Adam when we were going through some of Dad's old stuff that had been put into storage.

The last was a lie, but much more plausible than, 'an angel told us about you', would have been.

"So what, you just decided to track us down and see what we're like?" Adam asked, his voice hard. Apparently, he wasn't any happier than the two of them were about their dad's secret.

Dean shrugged. "I'd be lying if I said that that wasn't part of it." He looked at his brother.

Sam sighed. "Look, there isn't a good way to say this, but we thought you had the right to know. Dad's…dead."

"What?" Adam asked, his expression and voice both lost. Beside him, Kate blinked back shock induced tears.

"What happened?" She asked.

Dean picked up the conversation. "It was a car accident, about two years ago. A semi ploughed into us on the highway. Wasn't even the other driver's fault. He'd had an undiagnosed contention, with no warning signs. Just blacked out and slammed into us. Dean grimaced. "I wasn't conscious for it, but apparently they had to airlift us to the nearest hospital. Dad…" Dean shook his head, unable to go on.

Sam took over. "Dad held on for a couple of days, they even thought he was going to be alright, but…"

Adam got up and simply left. Almost running from the diner. His mother stood, looking a little awkward. "I'm sorry… We'll… We'll try to talk with you later. She followed her son out of the diner.

When she brought them their food, the waitress wasn't looking very happy with them.

"Um, could you make those to go?" Sam asked, indicating the meals Adam and Kate had ordered. "We'll drop it off to them later."

The waitress' eyes narrowed, but she took the other two meals back to the kitchen to pack them up.

Sam and Dean ate quickly and then went to pay.

"Look, I don't know what's going on, but you better not be messing with those two. They're good people."

"Ah, no ma'am, we're not messing with them. We were just passing on the news of someone we all know passing on."

The waitress frowned at them. "Yeah, who?"

Dean really didn't think it was any of the woman's business, but he answered her anyway, curious as to how much she knew about the Milligans. "John Winchester."

The woman sucked in a surprised breath. "Adam's daddy?"

They nodded.

"Damn, how..? No, never mind. I've stuck my nose in far enough. Kate will tell me about it when she's good and ready."

They paid for their meals, both of them noticing that she didn't charge them for the two take out orders, and got out of there before she changed her mind about asking any more questions.

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Eyes red and face blotchy from crying, Kate Milligan opened her door to see Sam and Dean standing on her porch.

Sam handed her a bag with the takeout containers in it. "We had them box up your orders, figured you might want something to eat, eventually."

She took the bag from him. "Thank you. She looked behind her to see Adam standing there, looking equally as blotchy as she did, but with a layer of anger that she didn't have laying over the sadness.

"I'd invite you in, but I think we need a day or two to sort things out."

"We understand. Do you still have our number?"

She nodded.

"Then call us when you're ready to talk. We'll be in town for a few more days." They were planning to do a thorough search of the area, and hopefully avoid a replay of what happened in the previous timeline. Sadly, Cas didn't know a lot about Adam and his mom. He had been otherwise occupied when the Winchesters had originally found out about them.

"Okay." Quietly she closed the door. With a sigh from each of them, the brothers turned and headed back to the car.

It didn't seem to matter who it was with, family reunions never went well for them.

At least this time there weren't any demons, flaming ghosts that would turn out to be their mother or shadow creatures trying to kill them.

Of course, there were always the ghouls.

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Bobby frowned at the latest body he'd found. This one in Kansas City, Kansas. Like all of the other bodies, it looked like the person had almost been flayed to death. All of the previous cases had died around four o'clock. Actually, he suspected all of them had died at the same time, but fixing time of death wasn't an exact enough science to be able to prove it.

From the looks and smell of it, the guy had probably been taken out around four o'clock the day before. Once he left the apartment, Bobby stopped at a phone booth long enough to call in an anonymous tip about the body. That taken care of, he headed towards the morgue. The autopsy on an earlier victim ought to be ready by now.

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Victor could be a patient man. Although, as soon as he saw his partner again, all he really wanted to do was pin the man to a wall and introduce his gun to parts of the man's anatomy that he would really want to keep.

He didn't, but that didn't stop him from planning a place and a time when he might possibly be able to do so.

For now, he'd keep an eye on the man and work the case. Right now, this took them to the artist's partner, Rubin Bennion. The man had been in jail, but had been paroled a couple of days ago. Sentencing for counterfeiting in Kansas was usually for about five years, depending on the severity of the crime, with a fine of a quarter of a million dollars tacked on for good measure. Rubin had gotten eight years because it was his second offence and he had been working the distribution side of the crime. He had served five of those eight and was now getting off for good behaviour. As usual, Victor found himself wishing the men had pulled this crap in a state where the death penalty was still a possibility for the crime of counterfeiting. Not that one of those states would have been likely to implement it, but twenty-five to life would have been a possibility.

When they got to the piece of crap apartment that the man was living in, Victor found that someone else had decided to go ahead and pass the death sentence on to Mr. Bennion. The police and an ambulance were already at the building. By the time they got up to the apartment, they found the man's corpse being zippered into a body bag to for its trip to the morgue.

The two agents looked around the apartment. The carpet where the man had died was a bloody mess. Victor squatted and using a pencil, poked at an odd-looking section of it that turned out to be a manila envelope so covered in blood that anything written on it was unreadable. From the flatness of it, he suspected it was empty, but he had one of the lab tech guys that was working the area bag it.

When Victor stood up, he found agent Dawson in his face.

"Hey partner, why don't you take the morgue? I'm sure that checking with the coroner is more your thing anyway. I'll stay and talk with the neighbours."

Yep, his gun and Dawson's nuts. One of these days, it would happen.