41. Chapter 41

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: Finally.

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 41

"Henricksen, good to see you back. Your batteries recharged?"

"Yes sir." Victor nodded to his supervisor, SSA Taylor, already wishing he'd just kept hunting with Jo. He almost smiled at the thought. It had been a very long time since he'd felt this way after a vacation. Usually there was just relief at being able to work again.

"Good. Dawson's back by the way."

Victor perked up. With his partner's return, maybe he could finally get back out in the field.

"He'll be on desk duty for the next four to six weeks."

Or not.

"So you've been assigned a rookie until Dawson's cleared for field work."

"Ahh, what?" He had to ask, the surprise was just that…surprising. He'd been trying to get a temporary partner the entire time Dawson was laid up and had been turned down each time.

His supervisor nodded. "No point in keeping both of you benched. Your new partner's at your desk, looking over your next case."

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SSA Taylor couldn't help but enjoy the look of lost shock on Henricksen's face, even if he felt some of it himself. For weeks, he'd been trying to get Victor back in the field, if just so he didn't have to listen to the agent whine. Then the man takes a vacation and a little while later the director's asking him why Henricksen is on desk duty, when it was that same director that turned down the last two requests he'd made to assign the man a temporary partner and get him out from underfoot.

He'd looked so very confused when Taylor brought it up and embarrassed when he'd found his own signature on the paperwork. The man actually apologized, which was a surprise, because lately, he'd been kind of a dick.

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Victor detoured on his way to his desk to welcome Dawson back. The agent was still moving stiffly and Henricksen could see why it would be several weeks before the man would be back out in the field. Since he was desk bound he'd taken over going through the cold cases and Victor made a mental note to dig out the files (minus the one about the roadhouse) that he'd locked in his desk before going on vacation and pass them on to the other agent.

Continuing to his desk, he discovered that his new partner was a female agent. One who'd probably heard a few horror stories about the man she was teamed with if the set to her shoulders was anything to go by.

He held out a hand and she met his handshake with a firm grasp.

"Special agent Victor Henricksen?"

He nodded.

"I'm SA Rae Urquart."

"Pleasure to meet you." He glanced at the file she'd been paging through when he'd walked up. "Care to bring me up to speed on what we're doing?"

"Of course." She laid the file open on the desk, completely missing her partner freezing at the sight of the pictures.

"I'm sure you heard about what happened at Niveus Pharmaceuticals." He managed to mold his face into a mask of polite interest before she turned her eyes from the file, to him.

"All cases connected to the incident are being turned over to Federal agencies and we've been assigned to take over the investigation into the death of one of their officers. He disappeared at the same time that everything went nuts over there and his body turned up a few days later."

Victor nodded. Staring at the picture of the victim, he asked a question that he already knew the answer to.

"The victim's name?"

"Tyson Brady."

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Crowley clamped down on a desire to groan when Meg showed up at his home. Really, if he thought he could get away with it and still make it to the top of Hell's hierarchy he'd kill the bitch himself rather than wait for the Winchesters to do it. Problem was he couldn't. She was stalwart in her support of Lucifer, which gave her the support of Hell. If he took her down the other demons would have his guts for garters. If the Winchesters did it, well, everyone already hated them; they'd just add it to their bill and continue as they always had.

Still, a demon could only take so much and he was getting damned tired of her little errands.

"I need a locator spell."

Crowley tucked his hands into his pockets and shook his head. "Won't work. I've already tried every trick in the book. None of them will find the Winchesters."

Meg smiled. "That's not what it's for."

That raised one of his eyebrows. "Do tell."

"We need a righteous man and Dean's not playing ball. We've had our eyes on a few other candidates…"

Crowley sucked in a quiet breath. He'd missed that little tidbit of information.

"…But with Niveus' meltdown we don't have time to work on any of them. Therefore, I need a spell that will help me find the best candidate to be The Righteous Man. Because at this point I don't care who he is, just as long as he does what he's supposed too."

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Castiel was still watching over the prophet when magic rattled the wards at Adam's school. He noted it and almost put it from his mind. Gabriel had been in and out of the area several times in the last while and this had a flavour that he associated with the other angel. However, whatever was happening was more than the usual travel and transformation spells the Archangel used as causally as another would breathe. This magic had weight, moving from an annoying hum, to a wild thread of dark music, to a deafening crescendo.

"Uh."

"Go." Chuck didn't even look up from his computer screen.

"Are…"

"Yes, I'm sure." He shook his head at the sound of wings and leaned back to read over what he'd just written.

"Way too many things that can still go wrong." Chuck poured himself a drink, knocked it back, savouring the burn for a moment, before sighing and setting his fingers back on the keyboard to type.

Castiel appeared on top of a campus building and looked down on the crowd gathering around the emergency vehicles.

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Castiel appeared on top of a campus building and looked down on the crowd gathering around the emergency vehicles.

Frowning, he took a closer look. Ambulances, police cars and a van from animal control were parked haphazardly all over the area. Added to the mess was a tipped over semi with a now broken open cattle trailer. Several head of cattle, bulls actually, wandered the area.

"Hey bro. Popcorn?" An archangel appeared on the ledge, holding a bowl of fluffy whiteness.

"Gabriel, what have you done?"

The older Archangel turned his head to look at him. Cas' shoe scraped through the rooftop grit as he shifted back slightly. The expression on his brother's face was eerily similar to the one he'd worn when he'd come close to smiting him after Raphael's death.

"I'm not a tame lion, you know."

Castiel's mouth froze open for a moment.

"I… I don't understand that reference."

Gabriel chuckled. "I love you bro, and I actually may want to help you save the world, but I'm still who I am…"

"And that is not tame." Cas finished for him.

"No, it isn't."

Nodding, Cas walked over and stood beside his brother.

"What has occurred?"

Gabriel sighed. "The day Adam moved in, a couple of idiots tried to rip off his stuff. I chased them off and dropped a little spell on them. Any time they stole something on campus, they'd have really bad luck."

Cas watched the scene below, a crease settling between his eyes as he watched two sealed body bags loaded into one of the ambulances.

"How bad."

There was a shrug. "Really depended on what they stole, and how often they did it."

The other medical van was busy as paramedics strapped a blanket wrapped young woman onto a gurney. Even at this distance, Cas could see the bruising on her face and a 'closer' look gave him a list of injuries that reminded him of the ones Dean had after Lucifer nearly beat him to death. Although Dean at least hadn't been raped on top of it and unlike the two bodies, her injuries were the result of something other than the cattle.

"It was a better spell than I'd realized. Freak accident with a shipment of bulls that was going to the College of Agriculture's student farm and some very upset bovines with horns equal two rapist trampled and then gored to death." Gabriel took a perfectly popped piece of popcorn and flicked it down into the crown. "Of course, given what they stole from her, they got off easy."

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Adam pulled a piece of popcorn out of his hair and looked up, but couldn't find where it came from. Cooper stood beside him, his attention fully on the young woman being carefully loaded into the ambulance.

"They really pissed something off."

Adam's head jerked towards his roommate.

"What?"

Cooper blinked and then seemed to shake himself. "Nothing man."

Adam frowned at the answer but didn't push. "Let's get out of here."

Cooper nodded in agreement and followed him through the crowd.

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Zachariah mulled over the request in front of him. He might have dismissed the petition for reassignment out of hand but for two reasons.

First, as a newly created Archangel, Uriel was answerable only to Michael and the head Archangel didn't actually seem to care who watched the Winchesters and the Prophet, just as long as it was done. And second, Uriel was definitely losing his sense of humour when it came to the two humans. There was a real possibility that he could snap and a dead Sam and Dean Winchester were currently not in Heaven's best interest.

Zachariah tapped his fingers on the desk in front of him and frowned. Reassigning Castiel to the Winchester felt… Dangerous, for some reason. Not that everything going wrong stemmed from the moment he'd somehow pulled the righteous man out of Hell early. It went further back than that. At least to when Sam Winchester had managed to kill Lilith before the other seals had gone down.

He'd tried limiting Castiel's involvement with them by having him continue his duties in Heaven, but he'd then gone and used those duties to storm a demon stronghold on Earth and now those… things were dealing with the fallout from that rather than finding ways to break the seals. The majority of Heaven saw it as a great success, so he couldn't punish the angel for it and assigning him to the Prophet was high profile enough to appear as a reward for the service. However, there were already whispers gathering about how Chuck Shurley wasn't being protected by an Archangel and more than one discussion had been heard to the belief that Castiel should simply be raised to that level so he could properly perform his duty for Heaven.

Castiel was too much of a 'Boy Scout' to allow him that much power. He needed to be assigned elsewhere and quickly.

Anywhere other than the Winchesters would appear suspicious. He would have to go back to them, but be kept busy with other duties and preferably out of Heaven….

A smirk worked its way across Zachariah's face. Castiel might be troublesome in his zeal, but he was also stalwart and true and had always served Heaven to the best of his abilities. Like any other angel, he knew how to work the system, but outright disobedience was anathema to him.

Zachariah smile widened. He knew exactly what extra duties to assign the angel.

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Castiel almost paused as he passed Uriel on his way to see Zachariah. The other angel nodded at him, but wouldn't meet his eyes. Castiel had enough experience with guilt by now to know it when he saw it. It was disturbing, as Uriel very rarely appeared to feel such emotion. Anger and frustration yes, yet killing his brothers and sisters in the original timeline hadn't seemed to acquaint him with the emotion of guilt. So why now?

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When Castiel stepped out of Zachariah's office, a dazed expression on his face, Uriel was waiting for him.

"I am sorry brother."

Cas blinked, his eyes clearing fractionally. "What?"

"I did not expect him to reassign you to… Them."

Cas had to clamp down on the desire to laugh, because unlike his usual huff of amusement, this would probably have been loud and hysterical.

"It is of no concern Uriel. I had expected this to occur at some point." Hoped actually. It was his other assignment that had him disconcerted.

Uriel looked as if he would like to comfort Castiel further, but while they were brothers, a physical showing of such sentiment was unusual among angels. Uriel simply nodded and flew off, no doubt to take up his position as the prophet's protector once more.

Left alone, Castiel looked down at the object in his hand, and remembered what had happened a few minutes earlier.

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"Castiel. How have you been?" At some point Zachariah had perfected a smile that even a used car sales man would have found smarmy. Cas managed to hold his ground in the face of his 'superior'despite the uneasiness he felt. A pissed off Gabriel was far more frightening.

"I am… well."

"And the prophet?"

"Chuck Shurley is also well and continues to write the Word of the Lord." He sent regular reports, so Zachariah should know that… Unless they'd started to notice the differences in the Prophet's visions.

"Good, good."

Cas almost blew out a breath of relief. Disinterest was evident in his boss' voice and he had the suspicion that Zachariah would have said the exact same thing if he'd told him that the prophet had taken to wearing pink tutus and tap shoes. Whatever he was here for, it had nothing to do with Chuck.

"You've done a wonderful job, protecting the prophet; however it is time for Uriel to take up that duty again."

Cas opened his mouth to agree, but Zachariah overrode him, apparently expecting a protest. "The prophet needs to have an archangel watching over him, and we need you elsewhere."

Castiel nodded. "Of course." He put just a touch of reluctance into his voice.

"You will once more watch over the Winchesters; however your duties in Heaven have been passed on to others."

This time Castiel did intend to protest, but the cherubim once more overrode him.

"We have a second chore for you. One that will take up much of your time and will hopefully tap into whatever it was that let you find the Righteous Man when he was hidden from us."

"Ah, and that chore is?"

Zachariah pulled an item from the pocket of his suit coat. A crystal vial full of light hung from a chain and dangled from his fingers.

"We need you to find the angel this grace belongs to."

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Castiel looked at the vial of grace, his eyes wide. It definitely belonged to Anna. Suspecting that Zachariah's orders were some sort of trap, he'd dug deep into the memories of the horror he'd once felt at the idea of a fallen angel and let them show on his face.

"You were probably too busy with Dean Winchester at the time, but the presence of your former superior was felt for a few days after you pulled the righteous man from Hell. Something has since cloaked her from us."

He held out the Grace to a startled Castiel.

"Hopefully, this will help you find her."

Cas took the vial and chain. "Am I to kill her once I locate her?" He wasn't sure if he should be concerned that Zachariah knew Anna was female. As an angel, she had preferred female vessels, so it probably wasn't much of a stretch to believe she would be born one after she fell. And he'd hardly have Castiel search for her, if he already knew where she was.

Right?

"No, bring her to me. She will have to be questioned first."

Cas tightened his grip around the Grace. He'd given Anna up once, he would not let that happen again.

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you how important this is Castiel. She must be found before the demons stumble over her. With enough torture even a former angel can be forced to remember and she knows too much to let them have her."

Castiel bowed. "I will check on the Winchesters and then start my search."

Zachariah nodded and turned to other work, his usual method of dismissal.

Cas left the room quickly, to have his brief discussion with Uriel, then he simply stood there and stared down at the Grace, trying to figure out if he'd been handed the solution to their problems, or the obstacle that would destroy them all.

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Zachariah didn't look up from what he was working on as an angel entered the room from a side office.

"Follow him."

The angel bowed and flew off.

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Castiel bounced back and forward between his 'search' for Anna and his duty to look after the Winchesters. When he last checked on them, they were just wrapping a job involving… Magicians? In any case, they were both well, if depressed. He stayed only long enough to pass a request on through them to Bobby.

He dove into his pursuit of Anna, making sure to be everywhere she wasn't. His first stop had been to visit the tree where her Grace had landed. It would have been suspicious if he hadn't done that much.

The vial of Grace shone a little brighter in the presence of the oak it had created and would probably do the same in Anna's presence. Cas looked at it and sighed. In some ways, this reminded him of his search for God, only in reverse.

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Meg looked over Crowley's alter and frowned.

"This had better work this time."

Crowley nodded without looking at her, busy setting up the spell. He'd already delayed things several days by scrying directly for Dean Winchester, then trying a little less directly by searching for the Righteous Man. Neither attempt had worked.

Now, they were going to look outside the box.

Crowley set the last piece in place and glanced up at Meg.

"Alright. This spell will find us someone who can lead us to the Righteous Man, be he Dean Winchester or someone else."

Meg waived a hand at the altar. "So cast it already."

Grumbling, Crowley poured oil onto the prepared surface and said the incantation he'd modified for this spell.

Both demons gazed into the black mirror the spell created, watching as it showed them what they were seeking. Crowley pulled back first.

"Well, that's… unexpected."

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Someplace else, something wearing a face that didn't belong to it looked up from his meal and searched the air for something. His sister glanced over from her own dinner, a questioning look on her face.

He shrugged. "Don't know. Suddenly felt like we were being watched."

She looked around herself, but the crypt they were in was empty. They returned to their meal. A fan of dark meat, her brother chose and bit into a nice meaty thigh. It worked out well between them. After all, she always had preferred the arms.