14. Chapter 14

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: As some of you might have guessed, I do subscribe to the Chuck as God theory. However, I also believe that a lot of the time He simply chooses to be Chuck. Therefore, He acts, reacts and thinks like Chuck a lot of the time, with only the occasional peek behind the curtain to see some small part of the rest of Him.

So sometimes, what Chuck does is just what Chuck does and wasn't really part of a bigger plan at the time. Of course, there are also times where He chooses not to get involved.

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 14

Bobby took a taxi from the coffee shop to a randomly chosen address on the other side of town. He walked another two blocks from where the taxi dropped him off. Castiel collected him at that point and moved him from there, to the cabin in Colorado, before the hunter could even finish nodding at him.

Once he'd recovered his balance, he dropped his notes onto the dining table and sat down. The rest of the group joined him.

"Well?" Dean asked.

"Well, from the sound of it, he's seeing both versions. He said he'd e-mail me a few of the alternate scenes. So I guess we'll have to wait for them to know for sure."

Cas frowned. "He has written the scenes, but not included them in the books?"

"Yeah, he said that he came up with this super powered 'guy', when he wanted to whack a character that was annoying him. Assuming you're the guy, then he knew what you were doing, but he said he didn't have any background on you."

"Perhaps he isn't able to see far enough ahead to know who I am."

Bobby shrugged.

"That's a good thing, isn't it?" Sam asked, carefully.

"I… I am not certain, but I think it may be." Cas answered back.

"Anyway, keep an eye on this email address." Bobby flipped through his notes until he found it and passed them over to Sam, who nodded. He went into the service and pulled the account up.

"Oh… He's already sent them."

"That was fast. Didn't think he'd be that on the ball."

Sam opened the attachments. "Okay, looks like Dean's crossroads deal is the first one."

"Ah, we don't really need to look at that one, do we?" Dean asked hopefully.

His brother frowned at him. "Of course we do." He turned back to the screen and started reading. "If this is the first time Cas showed up in his writing…Yep, there he is. Fried the crossroads demon, wearing a trench coat and …oh. Ah, right." He looked over at his brother, who had his face buried in his hands.

"What?" Bobby asked, looking from one to the other of them.

"It was a crossroads deal." Came the muffled answer from Dean.

Bobby frowned, and then suddenly got it. "Oh."

Sam, who was still reading, looked at the screen a little closer before turning to Cas. "Who's the pizza man?"

"We're not supposed to talk about it." Cas replied.

"Thank God." Dean said as he finally stopped hiding behind his hands. Cas raised an eyebrow at the expression, but didn't say anything.

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Besides the crossroad deal, Chuck had sent them two more scenes. One of them was when Cas came in to help them against Loki at the Mystery Spot, the other was when he killed Ruby in Monument. The Winchester's confirmed that the details of the first were correct. Castiel did the same for the second.

Dean watched somewhat amused as Cas started to pace. "So, Heaven doesn't know that anything has changed?"

Cas shook his head. "They didn't know. They must realise by now that things are not as prophesised. Eventually, they will go through all of Chuck's files."

"Hmm. Does the archangel watch his place, or just him?"

Cas stopped moving, raised an eyebrow at the question and began to worry as he watched Dean smile.

"It would not stop his future writing. And it will alert Heaven that 'something' is up."

"Yeah, but they won't know what and this way, they'll never know what happened, beyond what's in the books. At the very least, it will slow them down."

Sam shook his head. "No, won't work. He wrote this stuff, all they'd have to do is take it out of his mind or, hell, just ask him about it."

Cas thought for a moment, and then shook his head. "No, interfering with a prophet's mind in such a way is forbidden, in case it should damage his connection to Heaven. In addition, Chuck is the author, but he isn't a fan. He forgets things, even when he uses them in the books and given that he never used the scenes we care about… his memory of them will be imperfect. Therefore, it might work, at least for a while. I would feel safer if they don't find out the full truth of things until we are a little closer to the date Dean originally returned from Hell. It gives us a better chance to avoid the possibility that time or a third party will try to reshape the current reality back into the old one." He looked from one brother to the other. "Besides, I really would prefer that no one end up in Hell this time.

To that, the boys could do little more than nod in agreement.

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Summer, as it turned out, was the season for Science Fiction and Fantasy conventions. An internet search showed that Carver Edlund had an appearance at a local one that weekend. This gave them a window of several hours, and they didn't expect to need that much time. Since Cas admitted that he was uncomfortable with destroying Chuck's work, they planned to take his computer, backups and any paper files they found. Cas would store them at the cabin safe house, as it was his most secure one.

They decided against having Cas mojo them inside. Better to do it the hard way than use powers that might alert the wrong beings. He did get them to the town, after which the Winchesters acquired some transportation for the heist. They picked up some supplies. Duffle bags and sport's bags to haul stuff out in and other assorted items and snacks.

They watched from a van parked several houses down from Chucks as the man was dragged out of his house by his publisher and shoved into a car. They gave it another 20 minutes before driving around to the back.

Chuck's backdoor lock was an easy pop.

Sam went for the computer, Dean started looking for paper files and Cas searched the house for computer discs, USB drives, and anything else that might hold Chuck's work.

As it turned out, there were a ridiculous number of post-it notes involved.

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Carver Edlund sat at his author's booth on the dealer's floor at the convention. His publisher was fielding a question, as he was busy rubbing his forehead and trying not to moan.

Sera leaned over and whispered in his ear, causing him to jump. "Chuck. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah. It's just a headache." He squinted at his surroundings and groaned again as his eyes slammed shut. "A really bad one…oh." With a hand clamped over his mouth the author ran for the nearest bathroom.

When he came back a few minutes later, he looked a little better.

"Do you want me to get you out of here?" His publisher asked him.

He shook his head. "No, it's alright. I think the worst of it is over." He gave a tight little smile to a convention goer who had wandered over to check out the books.

"Did you get any new ideas for the next book?" Sera asked hopefully. She was one of a few people that knew that Chuck sometimes got his best ideas during migraine attacks.

He started to shake his head, and then thought better of it. "No, it was really random. Saw this scene with Sam and Dean and this character I created, but haven't used yet. The three of them broke into my house to steal my books so… somebody, not sure who, wouldn't know that Dean had skipped Hell and was vacationing in Colorado."

Sera laughed. "Yeah, that really is random."

A vibration ran through the room and for a moment, everything seemed too loud and too bright. It ended almost as soon as it started, leaving a few dealers to pick up fallen wares and place them back on their tables.

Chuck shook his head. "Stupid tremors. If I'd wanted earthquakes, I could have moved to California."

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Since he'd had to go through Chuck's e-mail accounts and copy all of the backups the author had sent himself and then delete them, Sam was still stuffing the computer into a duffle bag when the house started to shake. A high-pitched buzz cut through his ears. To Sam and Dean it was painful. To Cas, it was a declaration of intent.

"Run!"

"What?" Dean yelled, trying to be heard over the noise.

"It's the archangel." Cas hesitated a moment. It was Raphael and his power was already tightening around the house. He couldn't get all three of them out, but… He lurched forward, touching a hand to each of the brother's shoulders and sent them and the bags they were holding to the closest safe house he had, which was in Pennsylvania.

The shaking got worse and the house was bathed in a bright light. Sighing, Castiel squared his shoulders and waited.

"Well, this is familiar. It seems time intends to have me as her bitch."

And unlike last time, he rather doubted that Father would be bringing him back again.

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"Crap." Dean said as he looked around at the nice suburban family home that they seemed to have landed in. A quick look out the 'front door' of the house found them in a tunnel, about a dozen yards from the entrance of what appeared to be an abandoned mine. They eased back into the house and started looking around.

"Ah, here." Sam held up a file folder that had been sitting on the table in the dining room. "In case of Emergency."

Dean shook his head. "Guy is way too anal."

"Would you rather not know where we are?" Sam asked him.

"Just read it."

"Okay, we're in Pennsylvania. It is five miles to the nearest help. If we're stranded here without Cas, then there's transportation in the garage part of the house and a wallet in the desk in the study with enough money in it to get us the rest of the way to wherever we need to be."

"Yeah, except we need to be in Ohio, now."

"Yeah." Sam closed the file and dropped it back onto the table. "So, we wait?"

Dean sighed. "Yeah, we wait, and hope Cas makes it out of there in one piece."

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Castiel felt power slam into him. His first two layers of wards shattered from the impact and the blow threw him across the room and into a wall. Shaking plaster dust out of his hair, Cas stood and glared at the figure that had materialized in Chuck's living room.

Raphael was in a vessel, although it wasn't either of the ones Cas had seen before. The young man was also a poor choice. While Raphael's power generally left a vessel brain dead, they were usually still physically whole. This one was going to burn out completely in a matter of hours.

"The Winchesters, they were here, where did you send them?"

Cas shook his head.

"You will answer me." The archangel's glare seemed to push against him and Cas stiffened in place to fight off the desire to step back from him.

Raphael's glare deepened. "You're…" The archangel's expression changed a minuscule amount, but still, Cas was able to read the shock on his face. "You're one of us and you are hiding them. Not only that, but you moved against a prophet of the Lord."

Now Cas shifted back, surprised. Even with part of the wards broken, he hadn't expected to be found out. If it had been Michael, yes. However, Raphael was still one rung lower in power than the first Archangel was. Castiel looked down at himself and started to curse silently in his head. The third and fourth wards were cracked. All he really had left were the last two, and those were protecting the part of him that he considered his core.

At least that would stop Raphael from knowing exactly who he was. And for the sake of the him from this time, he hoped it stayed that way.

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Raphael called his blade to his hand. He had found the anomaly, the fly that had attempted to poison the ointment. The reason why nothing was going to plan. By the time he finished with him, this angel would tell him everything and be begging for the archangel to put an end to him.

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Cas called a weapon to him, going by instinct rather than wasting time trying to choose one of the several he had tied to him. To be honest, he expected to find himself holding his usual blade.

At the same time that he felt his hand wrap around the weapon's handle, Raphael flew at him, his speed still much faster than Castile's was. Reacting as quickly as he could, Cas thrust his weapon forward, fully expecting the archangel to parry the move.

The shock of Raphael's body impaling itself on the head of the weapon travelled through Cas' entire body. Equal expressions of surprise crossed both angels' faces. Raphael looked down at the spear that was now buried in his chest.

"How…could you possibly possess…the spear?"

White light poured out of Raphael's eyes, mouth and the wound in his chest as his Grace came undone. Castiel pulled the spear, one of Heaven's weapons, out of the archangel and covered his eyes as Raphael's passing became too much for even him to witness.

With a roar of sound and light, the world broke up around him, picked him up and threw him.

He didn't hold out much hope for his landing.

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It had been about ten minutes since they'd ended up at the safe house. This was about eight minutes too long. Dean was ready to say screw it and go checkout the transportation in the garage so they could start working their way back to Ohio and Chuck's place.

There was a thud from the kitchen and the brother's raced into the room, to see Cas on his knees, barley holding himself upright as he leaned against a spear with a bloody tip.

"Cas." Dean and Sam each picked a side and helped the angel to his feet. Cas allowed it, but shrugged them off once he was standing. He leaned the spear up against the kitchen cabinets and walked over to the sink, where he discovered that an angel with his powers intact could indeed throw up.

As Jimmy's stomach was empty, all that came up was bile, which was highly unpleasant. He turned on the cold water, rinsed his mouth out, and then splashed some of it onto his face.

"Cas, what happened?"

The angel stared at the running water for a moment before shutting the faucet off. "The archangel, Raphael… is dead."

"Oh… You?"

"Yes."

Dean nodded. "Okay… Um, I guess we should go back to the prophet's place and get the rest of the stuff and deal with the body before he gets back?"

Cas shook his head. "There is no need. When Raphael died, he took the house with him. I believe it will appear to have been a natural gas leak."

Cas picked up the spear and looked at it. A lot of the power from Heaven's weapons was usually taken up with keeping his Wards in place. When the two outer layers had been broken, the spear's power was suddenly not needed. If that hadn't happened…

Choosing not to think about it, he cleaned the spearhead with a wave of his hand. A twist of will later and he took the weapon's power back into himself, the physical part of it vanishing as he did. He reached out and grabbed on to Sam and Dean. The three of them appeared suddenly in the great room area of the cabin in Colorado. The stuff from Chuck's place that had made it to Pennsylvania came with them, landing on the couch and the rather annoyed Bobby who was sitting on it.

He started to complain about it, but stopped abruptly as he realized something was wrong.

"What happened?"

Cas turned and started to walk away. "I need to be alone, don't follow." The brothers started to anyway, but Bobby stood, latched onto their shoulders and shook his head. "Whatever it is, let him work through it for a bit. And fill me in while he does."

Both brother's nodded and started to tell the older hunter just how everything had gone wrong.

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Cas was sitting on the dock when he when he felt one very pissed off presence appear behind him.

"Hello Gabriel."

"Why?"

Cas closed his eyes and bowed his head. He didn't resist when his brother hauled him to his feet by his trench coat.

"Give me one good reason why I don't kill you here and now?"

Cas shook his head.

Gabriel gave Cas a shake and then let him go, pacing off for about ten steps before turning to look at him. Castiel brought his eyes up to look into the archangel's and winced. At best, Gabriel was about to stand opposed to Cas and the Winchesters for the death of his brother. At worse, he would start that opposition by smiting Cas where he stood.

Yes, time really was trying to make him her bitch.

Gabriel raised his hand, his fingers meeting as he prepared to snap them. Cas didn't even try to move. He had killed one brother today and while it was something he had regrettably become use to, he had no wish to add Gabriel's death to his list of sins.

Besides, you couldn't really dodge a smiting.

The older archangel froze, looking his brother over. He might be very angry with the younger angel, but he didn't think he was actually planning to kill him. However, given Cas' current shielding, that might very well happen if he followed through on snapping his fingers. "What happened to your wards?"

Cas glanced down at himself briefly. "Raphael."

Gabriel's arm lowered a little. "Was that one hit, or several?"

"Just one, when he first appeared."

Gabriel's arm fell to his side. "He pretty much tried to smite you."

Cas nodded. "Gabriel, you asked why?"

The archangel gave him one sharp nod.

"We discovered that the prophet, Chuck, has been seeing both what originally happened and what has happened now. As the original story is what is making it into the gospels, we sought to muddy the water's by making off with Chuck's files while he was away.

"Only things screwed up because Raph somehow found out you were there."

"Yes." Cas closed his eyes for a moment. He was about to tell the honest truth, and there was a very good chance it would get him killed. "Gabriel, there is something you have to understand. In my time, Raphael and I stood on opposite sides of the conflict. We spent three years trying to kill each other… In fact, he succeeded once, but Father brought me back."

Gabriel managed to avoid going speechless this time, but it was a near thing. "You've been smote?"

Cas nodded. "Twice actually. Lucifer got me the second time."

"And Dad...?"

"Yes, he brought me back again. I wouldn't worry though. I believe I have used up all such favours."

Gabriel paced a few steps one way and then back. "If you've been trying to kill Raphael for so long, why are you so freaked out about having pulled it off?"

"I am not freaked…"

"Castiel." Gabriel said, glaring at him.

Cas slumped. "So much of what I did. So many of the wrong choices I made were to gain the power I would need to oppose Raphael and in the end I killed him and it was almost by accident." He decided not to mention the whole, future vision smiting of Raphael. In some ways, it had been worse than killing him now had been. With all that power, Raphael had been little more than an annoying insect to swat. Going nuclear had been overkill at a ridiculous level.

Gabriel started to pace again. The heart in Castiel's vessel lurched in his chest as he saw the Winchesters walking towards them, their stride somewhat cautious. His heart gave another lurch as Gabriel noticed them.

The archangel turned and looked at Castiel. "I'm going to go before I do something regrettable, like turn Colorado into a smouldering hole on the map." His eyes narrowed. "Once I've calmed down I'll be back. Depending on how I feel about things, I may kill you."

Cas didn't let out the breath he was holding until he was gone.

Author's note: Author may consider hiding, at least until the next chapter comes out.