40. Chapter 40

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.

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 40

That evening's homework didn't beckon so much as demand and Adam knew he couldn't put it off much longer. He'd already searched the net for any weirdness in the area and back home, checked in with his mom and called his brothers for a quick chat with Sam, as Dean was suffering from submarine sandwich induced food poisoning. His roommate Cooper wasn't even there to act as a distraction as he was studying at the library. Having run out of excuses, he dragged out his textbooks and notes, prepared to put in some solid studying.

"Pre-med, huh?"

Being pre-med, Adam knew that it wasn't actually possible for his heart to spontaneously lodge itself in his throat, but that's what it felt like. "Loki?" The name squeaked out around the lump in his oesophagus and Adam coughed suddenly as his body took matters into its own hands and tried to clear it for him. The pagan god standing next to him smirked, but otherwise waited quietly for him to stop choking.

"What are you doing here?" Adam asked, his voice still a little strangled.

Loki shrugged. "Oh you know. Even though I'm working on several projects I still get…"

'No.' Adam thought. 'Don't say it.'

"…Bored."

Crap.

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A few hours later, Cooper returned to his dorm room. Arms full of textbooks, he knocked, expecting Adam to be in, studying. Sighing when he didn't get an answer, Cooper put his stack of books on the floor, got his key out and opened the door. A quick look proved that the room was empty. He reached down and picked up his books, almost letting go of them when he straightened up to see Adam standing in the middle of the room, wearing a large sombrero and holding a half empty bottle of tequila.

"Ah, was it Mexican night at the student's bar?" The very large hat his roommate was wearing was easier to focus on than the fact that he appeared to have not been there a moment ago.

Adam took off the sombrero, dropped it onto his bed and sat down next to it. "Not exactly." He looked at the bottle of tequila for a moment before taking a swig of the golden liquid.

"Soooo…" Cooper started to ask as he walked the few steps to his bed and dropped his books onto the mattress.

"Look, just…don't…don't ask, okay? It'll be better for all of us."

Cooper winced slightly, all too familiar with being left out of things. "Sure man."

Adam sighed, put the bottle down on the nearest flat surface and tossed the giant hat off his bed so he could lie down.

"Wake me up when the room stops spinning, would you," he asked, passing out before his roommate could even answer him.

Cooper sighed and sat down next to his books.

"College, yay."

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Crowley had a minion open the next shipment of Scotch. He didn't know if Loki would repeat himself and go after his liquor again, but if he did, he couldn't assume the crate wouldn't blow up in some imaginative and painful manner.

The minion looked into the crate, frowned and then pulled out one of the bottles.

"Margarita mix?"

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Cas watched as Anna Milton waved to a couple of friends as they split up to head off to different classes. He'd been ignoring his duties and had more or less stalked the young woman for the last two days, trying to come to a decision.

Killing her was still an option, but other than the fact that he didn't want it to come to that, he suspected that such a move would be both misguided as well as futile. Zachariah and his superiors would simply find another final seal and start preparing it. And this time he might not discover what it was until it was too late. No, far better that the seal remain half-formed and hidden, although he wasn't certain he'd be able to keep her that way.

If he could manage it, he would like to give Anna the chance to remain human and out of Heaven's clutches. He owed her that much… And to be honest, it was in his best interest as well.

After taking one more look at the former angel and reassuring himself that she was still going unnoticed by Heaven and Hell, he flew off. It was long past time for him to relieve Rachel as the prophet's guard.

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Rachel watched the prophet with a slight frown parked in the space between her eyebrows. Even though he had been getting new visions, Chuck had spent the last few days fixated on editing chapters that covered events that had occurred several months earlier.

"Rachel."

Startled, she turned to see Castiel watching her with an uneasy expression on his face.

"Castiel…" She found her mouth froze open, as she didn't know how to explain that she'd failed to notice him arrive. If he'd been a threat to the prophet…

His frown deepened. "Rachel. Is something wrong?"

She shook her head. "No, sorry. I was merely worried about the Prophet. He is correcting old work rather than writing down the vision I believe he received earlier."

Cas gave Chuck a brief glance. As usual, the man gave no indication that he knew angels were guarding him. "He is probably uncertain on how to describe what he has seen."

"So he is doing something else until it falls into place?" She watched as the writer shuffled though his post it notes, shook his head at one of them and then changed a character's eye colour on the page up on the screen.

"I believe so, yes."

Rachel nodded and then tilted her head as she looked Castiel over. "You appear to be well. Is the task you were undertaking with Uriel complete?"

Cas almost shook his head in disbelief. He had worried that leaving Rachel to deal with the Prophet for the two extra days would have been suspicious. He should have remembered that Heaven was good at assigning duties, but even with Angel Radio, they were not very good at bothering to relay updates about them.

"It is," he said, answering her question. "Thank you for taking over this duty while I was gone."

She smiled slightly. "I am glad to have helped." There was a moment when it seemed that she would say something more, but then it was gone. To anyone else watching it would appear that she disappeared abruptly in a flutter of wings. Castiel however, took a moment to watch her go.

He didn't notice that Chuck had done the same.

"You know she 'likes' you, don't you?"

Cas startled slightly. "I do not know what you're talking about."

The prophet looked up from the computer screen and gave him an uncertain smirk. Castiel returned it as an annoyed glare before slumping slightly.

"I value her as a friend, a comrade at arms and a sister, nothing more."

"Nothing?"

Cas huffed out a breath. Somehow, he didn't think that what Chuck was asking would be covered under valuing her as his lieutenant and having to kill her when she'd tried to stop him after finding out exactly what he'd been doing to win the war against Raphael. It wasn't anything he wanted to discuss, or even think about.

"Nothing."

"Hmmm. Doesn't stop her from caring."

Cas nodded. "Yes, I know." Though knowing didn't help. In fact, it confused him just as much now as it had in the original timeline.

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Sam made a face at the half-dry load of clothes, closed the door to the dryer and pumped in enough quarters for another twenty minutes of drying time. This late at night he was alone in the Laundromat, except for the owner, who had fallen asleep in the back office once he was certain that the only thing Sam planned on doing was laundry.

Sam sat and watched the clothes spin for a few minutes. The motion as almost hypnotic and it took some effort to look away to check the front of the building. Dean was out picking up the supplies to make new hex bags (yes, the dick had disappeared them again), but should be back soon.

A young woman came in with a basket of laundry and a bottle of detergent. She gave him a little smile and headed over to the washing machines. He smiled back. Definitely cute, with long brown hair and beautiful brown eyes. If he'd been Dean, he'd have given her about half a minute before going over to try to pick her up.

If he were Dean, which he wasn't.

He turned back to watching the laundry spin around in the dryer.

"Excuse me?"

Blinking, he turned to see the young woman a few steps away from him, a hopeful expression on her face.

"Would you have any quarters? The change machine isn't working."

"Uh, sure." He reached into one of the duffle bags. Fact was he had a ton of change. A while back Dean had been looking for money for a parking metre. Annoyed at how long it was taking him to scrap up the change, Cas had zapped about $500 worth of quarters into the Impala's trunk. Thankfully, they had been rolled into tubes, or Dean would probably have tossed a fit.

"I'm Jane…by the way." She really did have a nice smile.

"Sam." He said as he counted out twenty quarters and exchanged them for the five-dollar bill she was holding.

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Dean walked into the Laundromat to find Sam chatting amicably with a young woman. She was cute and his brother was obviously interested. Dean considered just easing back out the door before they noticed him.

"Dean."

Eh, too late.

"Sammy. Who's your lovely friend?"

"Dean, this is Jane. Jane, this is my older and less good looking brother, Dean."

Dean gave him a glare. "I'd go 'hey' but you'd probably find some way to use it against me."

Jane gave Dean a smile and a nod and turned back to check on her laundry.

Dean leaned in closer to his brother so he could speak quietly into his ear. "I could make myself scarce for a couple of hours."

Sam gave him an annoyed look before going over and pulling the now dry load of laundry out of the machine. With quick efficiency, he folded them and packed them into duffle bags. He tossed one of the bags to Dean and shouldered the other one himself before heading for the door.

"Night Sam. Thanks for the quarters." Jane gave him a smile and a wave. He returned it with an almost bashful nod and a smile of his own. Then he was outside, Dean following him.

"Did you just meet her tonight?"

He glanced at his brother, expecting him to be smirking. Instead, Dean had a frown on his face.

"Yeah. Why?"

Dean's frown lasted a few moments more, then he shook his head. "Nothing. Never mind." He tossed his duffle bag into the back seat and got into the car. Sam followed and both brothers gave the Laundromat another look before Dean pulled the car out and they headed back to their motel.

Inside, Jane looked herself over. With a frown, she noticed the paper and plastic band around her right wrist. With a quick pull she broke it and let it flutter to the ground as she walked to the door and exited, leaving her laundry behind.

The band caught an odd eddy of air from the front door and flipped over a couple of times, before landing print side up, showing the name of a hospital along with a patient's name.

Jane Doe.

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Chuck sat down at his computer, placed his hands on the keyboard and stared at the blank word document for several minutes. A house, a family in danger, children twisted and abused until they were little more than savage animals, he'd seen it all and all of it had hurt.

He took his hands off the keyboard and sat back with a sigh. "You should go visit Dean."

Castiel phased into sight. "Is he in danger?"

"No, it's over, but that doesn't mean he doesn't need you." He glanced at the angel, who appeared ready to bolt, but was still angel enough to hesitate before abandoning his post.

"Go. I'll pray if I need you."

"You are certain?"

Chuck nodded. "Yeah. Just remember, if something does happen, the prayer will sound a lot like me screaming like a little girl."

Cas nodded. "I will keep that in mind."

Chuck shook his head at the empty space Castiel had just been occupying.

"One of these days I'll say something and he won't take it literally." He frowned and started paging through his notes. "Wait, isn't that one of the seals?"

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The Impala was parked in a highway rest area. Sam was in the front seat, slumped against the passenger side window, asleep. Dean leaned against the front of the car, a cooler at his feet and a beer in his hand as he stared at a sad attempt at a children's playground. With a sigh, he took a mouth full of the amber liquid, swallowed and then closed his eyes, making a serious attempt to think of nothing.

He opened his eyes to the sound of wings and an angel standing beside him.

"Dean."

"Hey Cas." Dean glanced around with a slight frown on his face. "Did I fall asleep?"

"No. Chuck suggested I visit. He implied that your last job may have been more…unpleasant than usual."

Dean shook his head and drank his beer. "Nosy prophets."

"He has little choice in the matter."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, I suppose." He bent and pulled a beer out of the cooler, handing it to the angel. Cas looked as if he would refuse it, then took the bottle and twisted the top off, taking a drink before leaning up against the car next to Dean. For a few moments, there was peace.

"People are whacked."

Cas froze with his drink half way to his mouth and turned to glance at Dean, a questioning look on his face.

Dean knocked back the last of his beer and started to peel the label from the bottle.

"I mean demons, vampires, werewolves… I get it. They are that way because they're supposed to be that way. We don't have to be." He sighed and stared out at the playground. "Not going to say something about free will?"

Cas took a sip of his beer. "Didn't intend to."

Dean snorted.

"I can oblige, if you wish."

Dean waved him off. "No, no. It's just…I wish that this time my best choice hadn't been to kill some kid who never really got the chance to be human, and that someone else wouldn't have had to do the same to his sister, all because the man that fathered them was as much a monster as anything we've ever hunted."

"And if you hadn't made that choice?"

Dean's eyes tightened in a wince. If he and Sam hadn't been there, then the family would be dead, or possibly worse in their son's case. His own guilt and discomfort were a small price to pay for saving them.

"Doesn't mean I have to like it."

Cas downed the last of his beer. "No, it doesn't." That was part of free will too.

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Deanna looked over the neat piles of files and printouts. They'd gone through everything taken from Niveus and she was certain that there wasn't enough bleach in the world to scrub the taint of that place from her mind. Beside her Ellen glared at the stacks of paper.

"Damn, I'm glad Jo didn't stay to help."

Deanna nodded and picked up the file that covered the Croatoan outbreak at River Grove, glad that her grandsons were unlikely to ever know that the testing done there had been as much about seeing if Sam would be immune to the virus as it was about fine tuning the cursed disease. Given that the rest of the files from that test were all of autopsies and vivisections done on the former townspeople it made her doubly glad the boys hadn't stayed to help with the paperwork. They couldn't have done anything to stop those people from being infected and essentially tortured and she was sure they knew that. Didn't mean they wouldn't feel guilty about it and they had enough on their shoulders without taking on any more weight.

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Rufus and Bobby dragged chairs to where Deanna and Ellen were standing and sat down.

"Looks like that's all of if."

Rufus grunted. The two women echoed his sentiment and went to find chairs of their own to sit in.

"So," Ellen asked. "What do we know?"

Bobby sighed. "I think we're damned lucky, because they seem to have put a lot of their eggs in this one basket."

The other three nodded. They had come to much the same conclusion.

"Anything important Earth wise appears to have been run through Niveus." Rufus said. Like Bobby, he couldn't help but quantify the statement with a little uncertainty. There was a reason that he and his old friend both qualified for the title of paranoid bastard.

"Everything, from keeping track of Sam and searching for the righteous man, to virus testing, to logistics for releasing and aiding the horsemen was run through this company or one of its subsidiaries. There is no mention of any secondary site for any of this." Deanna said frowning. "Doesn't mean there wasn't one. But if there was, they didn't know about it."

They couldn't help but grimace at the thought.

Ellen made an annoyed sound. "Bottom line it Bobby."

"As far as Earth goes, they've got no command structure. What the angels didn't purge the authorities took care of trying to figure out what happened. The few subsidiaries that could have stepped up to the plate to play are buried under audits and investigations and from the looks of it the demons jumped ship and left the mess to the human pawns they had fronting those businesses. Right now, getting orders to the demons has become more difficult and while Azazel's daughter will probably try and pull them together, it's apparent that she does consult with and sometimes takes orders from others that are working the Hell side of things. Oddly enough, this might give us an advantage. "Bobby gestured to a stack of files. "From some of the whining about unrealistic expectations that crept into the reports, Hell may be less aware of how things work than Niveus would have been. Means they'll probably want to take some time to rebuild their command structure. Might keep them distracted long enough for us to finish this, once and for all."

Deanna frowned. "Think they'll build another Niveus?"

"Maybe. If it were me, no. I would break things into cells, keep everything on a need to know basis."

Rufus shook his head. "If they had more time, sure. But they don't. Their chances to free their 'Father' are slipping through their fingers. They don't have the time or the tools to be intricate. What they'll need to be is a hammer."

They all winced. Because they knew that meant that they and every human on the planet had just been designated as the nails.