Supernatural - Chapter 4: The Gates of Hell (Patreon)

Everyone scrambled for cover behind the nearest gravestones. Murphy was a step slower than the others, and a fierce gust of wind swept past her back.

Well, that wasn't so bad. It hadn't even been that strong.

Her hair whipped wildly around her face, but the escaping demons didn't seem to have affected her much. She'd expected to be blown straight off her feet.

Ignoring everyone's astonished looks, Murphy walked calmly over to the wide-open cemetery gate. “Come on, help me close this thing! What are you all standing around for?”

A knotted mass of black smoke shot out of the opening, soaring into the sky and rushing into the distance. More clouds of smoke followed, pouring out in waves. The demons surging out had destroyed the devil's trap Colt had built from railroad tracks, breaking it from the inside. Now the Yellow-Eyed Demon, who had been waiting outside, could finally get in.

Dean stood where he was, checking the rounds in the Colt. The moment the Yellow-Eyed Demon appeared behind him, he whipped around and aimed the gun. But the demon was faster. Before Dean could pull the trigger, the Colt was snatched out of his hand by an unseen force and flew straight into the demon's grasp.

A faint smile crossed the Yellow-Eyed Demon's face. “Kids shouldn't play with Daddy's guns.”

An instant later, Dean was hurled backward by telekinesis. His head struck a gravestone, and he couldn't get back up for some time.

For some reason, Murphy didn't find the gate particularly hard to move. It was heavy, sure, but that was about it. She threw all her strength into helping Ellen close one side while Sam and Bobby strained against the other.

Then Sam saw Dean go flying. “Dean!” he shouted, abandoning the gate and running toward him. With Sam gone, Bobby suddenly had a much harder time holding his side.

“Ellen, keep that side shut! I'm going to help Bobby!” Murphy called.

Ellen braced herself against the gate so it couldn't be forced open again and managed a strained nod. Murphy rushed to Bobby's side and put her weight into pushing his half closed.

Meanwhile, Sam had barely reached the Yellow-Eyed Demon's back when it turned and pinned him against a nearby tree with telekinesis.

“I'll get to you in a minute. Don't worry,” the demon told the immobilized Sam with an almost affectionate smile. “But I am so proud of you.” Then it turned back toward Dean, who was struggling to get to his feet.

“Oh, crap.” Murphy abruptly stopped pushing.

The sudden increase in pressure made Bobby turn to her in disbelief. “What are you doing? Close the damn gate!”

“No, no. We have to wait a little longer. It's not time yet.” Murphy had remembered that one person was still missing from this scene. No, not a person. A soul. The realization made her afraid to push any harder.

Across the cemetery, the Yellow-Eyed Demon had begun murmuring temptations into Dean's ear, telling him how grateful it was for his deal. Without deals like that, demons couldn't simply bring people back to life whenever they pleased. It even tried to plant doubts between the Winchester brothers.

“How do you know the brother you got back is still one hundred percent your precious little Sammy?” it asked with a malicious smile. “I really should thank you. I knew I kept you alive for a reason. But that reason ends right here.”

“Come on. Hurry up and get out here!” Murphy held the gate in place, preventing it from closing completely.

Dean was too far away for her to hear, and the wind howling through the opening drowned out their conversation. She had no way of knowing how far things had gone.

“What the hell are you talking about? Why won't you close this goddamn gate?” Bobby was furious. He could tell Murphy was actively keeping him from shutting it. He exchanged a glance with Ellen, both of them so exhausted they could barely speak.

The Yellow-Eyed Demon straightened and aimed the Colt at Dean's head as he lay helpless on the ground.

“Why hasn't he come out yet?” Murphy stared at the gun, growing inexplicably frantic.

Time seemed to stretch unbearably. Had her arrival changed the story? Had something gone wrong because she was here?

Dean refused to take the demon's words to heart. Even with his life at stake, he kept fighting the invisible force holding him down.

“Damn it.” Murphy let go of the gate and ran toward him.

Deprived of her help, Bobby staggered under its weight and shouted at her in fury. She didn't look back.

And then Dean saw it.

Behind the demon, a familiar spirit was slowly taking shape. It wrapped its arms around the Yellow-Eyed Demon's true form from behind.

The possessed human body crumpled, and the Colt dropped from its hand.

“Fucking hell!” Murphy had only taken a few steps when she saw what was happening. She immediately turned and raced back.

She couldn't bring herself to meet Bobby's nearly despairing gaze. Instead, she lunged forward and shoved with all her might. The cemetery gate, already almost closed, slammed shut with a thunderous crash.

At the same time, Dean's struggle came to an end. When the demon returned to its human host, Dean had already recovered the Colt. He shot it through the heart, and it fell, stunned and powerless.

The demon's death released Sam from the tree. He dropped to the ground and took a few disbelieving steps forward.

Everyone was staring in shock at the figure who had suddenly appeared among them: John Winchester. Bobby, still reeling from the struggle at the gate and remembering what Murphy had said beside him, kept looking from John to Murphy and back again.

Dean rose and gazed at his father in disbelief. When John smiled at him, helplessness and grief gradually surfaced in Dean's expression.

John lifted his left hand and gave Dean a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Then he turned and nodded with a smile at his younger son.

Sam managed a smile of his own and nodded back.

No one spoke. John took a step backward, and his spirit began to glow.

The brothers seemed to understand that their father was leaving them again. Grief threatened to overwhelm them, yet they watched him with tearful smiles, barely daring to blink as his spirit grew brighter and brighter.

This time, unlike when John had first died, their sorrow was tempered by something stronger: relief that he had finally escaped Hell.

A blinding burst of light filled the cemetery. When it faded, everything was peaceful again.

Dean and Sam exchanged a glance. Sam could no longer hold back his tears, but both brothers felt that some of the pain surrounding their father's death had finally eased.

Murphy watched them, moved by the way they seemed to have let out a breath they'd been holding for so long.

And this was only the end of the second season. It was barely the beginning of a story that would last fifteen seasons.

The thought saddened her again.

Look at them now, these two young men still able to talk honestly with each other. If everything really could have ended with the Yellow-Eyed Demon's death, maybe they could have found something resembling an ordinary life. Instead, angels and demons would spend years pulling them in every direction, and the brothers would die and come back again and again.

“I have a question,” Murphy said quickly when she saw that the brothers' conversation was drawing to a close.

Everyone turned toward the mysterious dark-haired young woman.

“Suppose, and I really do mean suppose,” she began, carefully qualifying her question, “that everything ended today. You'd never meet another demon, ghost, or monster, and nobody would force you to make another impossible choice.”

She paused and looked first at Dean, then at Sam.

“Do you think you could settle down and live normal lives?”

Murphy genuinely wanted to know. She was well aware that the premise was riddled with holes, and she already had an answer in mind. Still, she couldn't help asking.

Dean gave a short, self-mocking laugh, as though she'd just told him a joke. “Ha! Me? Not a chance.”

“Dean!” Sam hadn't even wiped his tears away, but he shot his brother a disapproving look. “You could.”

“As for me...” Sam wiped his face and turned to Murphy seriously. “I used to think a normal life was all I wanted. I did try to have one.”

Dean felt his stomach drop at the words.

“If your hypothetical were real, of course I'd want to go back to that life. But neither of us can, can we?” Sam asked calmly.

“What's the point of asking any of this?” Dean couldn't bear hearing him talk that way.

“Why shouldn't I ask?” Sam hadn't intended to raise this now, especially not in front of Bobby and Ellen. “You heard what Jake said back there. He said he severed my spinal cord.”

“He killed me.” Sam held Dean's gaze.

“No, he didn't!” Dean raised his voice. “You were badly hurt. That's all!”

“What did you do?”

“I've already told you!” Pain filled Dean's eyes. “Sam, we just killed a demon. Can't you let us all catch our breath?”

Tears shone in Sam's eyes. “Did I die? Did you trade your soul to bring me back?”

Dean rubbed a hand across his face and looked away, struggling to keep his own tears in check.

Murphy had gone quiet the moment she'd asked her question. Watching the brothers suffer, she suddenly wished she'd kept her mouth shut.

Whether she'd been watching them through a screen or looking at the real men standing before her, she couldn't bear to see them hurting and crying.

Her question hadn't been a real hypothetical at all. It was a hopeless fantasy. She knew that, so why had she asked?

“Is this the thing you said you weren't the one to tell me?” Sam asked, his voice catching before he forced it steady again.

He looked at the young woman who had been a mystery since her arrival. She acted as though she knew everything about them, and so far, she really had known everything.

“...I'm sorry.” Murphy couldn't think of anything else to say.

She didn't want to throw some ridiculous “I told you so” at Dean either. If the Winchester brothers had been good at taking advice, so much of this would never have happened.

“It's all right. This has nothing to do with you.” Sam tried to compose himself and returned his attention to Dean. “...How many years do you have left?”

Dean seemed to know he couldn't avoid answering, though he still tried to sound casual. “One. I've got one year.”

“What?” Ellen, silent until now, finally couldn't take any more.

“You shouldn't have done this.” Sam closed his eyes, fighting the urge to cry again.

“Please.” Dean looked around at them with sorrowful eyes. “Don't be mad at me.”

“Especially you, Sam. You can't be mad at me. I didn't have any other choice.” Dean shook his head, his voice dropping. “It's my job to look after you. What else am I supposed to...”

“And what do you think my job is?” Sam demanded angrily. “You keep saving me, risking your life, sacrificing yourself for me. Don't you think I'd do the same thing for you?”

Dean looked genuinely lost. “What?”

“I'm going to save you. I'll find a way, whatever it takes. I'd do anything for you.”

“Enough!” Bobby finally roared. “Would you two Winchester boys knock it off? What do you think we're here for? We're going to help you, too, all right?”

Ellen rubbed her temples furiously, beside herself with anger. “We'll find a way. We have to.”

“Um...” Murphy timidly raised her hand again. “Or you could just ask me?”

Sam's expression brightened at once. He hurried over and seized her by the shoulders. “You really know a way?”

“First of all...” Murphy wriggled out of his grip. “When the year runs out, Hellhounds will come for Dean. Second, I'll have to wait until the right points in time before I tell you anything else. And finally, Dean will be okay. I can't promise everything will go perfectly, but I'll do everything I can to protect him.”

“Hellhounds?” Everyone knew what those creatures were. They'd encountered them before, and they were the ones sent to collect souls when their contracts expired.

“Why would you do that?” Dean asked, baffled. “You barely know us, and we don't even trust you.”

“Because I like you,” Murphy blurted out.

Only when everyone's expressions turned strange did she realize how that sounded. “I mean I just like you as people! I like Sam, too. And Bobby. And Ellen. I like all of you. Just think of me as someone with a lot of love to go around!”

“What a weird girl,” Bobby muttered.

He hadn't forgotten what had happened at the Devil's Gate and intended to speak privately with the brothers once Murphy wasn't around.

“Anyway, you can believe me or you can choose not to. I'm just telling you what I know. Simple as that.”

Murphy spread her hands. “And if you're wondering why I can't tell you everything at once, just assume I don't want to land myself in serious trouble. I still don't even know why I ended up back in this time period.”

She looked helplessly at Sam, who had been studying her ever since she'd started speaking.

“Okay. I believe you. Really.” Whether Sam meant that sincerely was anyone's guess, but for the moment, he had certainly decided to put his faith in Murphy.

After all, she was the only one who knew how Dean's soul might be saved from Hell.

“So... are we seriously going to keep standing around in a cemetery? There's a fresh corpse right by your feet. This place is creepy enough without that.” Murphy shivered as goosebumps rose on her arms in the cold air.

As though suddenly waking up to their surroundings, the others dealt with the aftermath and left the now-disturbed cemetery together.

Murphy followed behind them, casting one last look at the closed Devil's Gate.

She hadn't considered her promise that Dean would be all right a lie.

After all, in the story as she remembered it, Dean did come back in the end. She simply hadn't told them that, before he could return, he would go to Hell first.