Supernatural - Chapter 43: Just in Case (Patreon)

By the time Dean returned, it was almost midnight.

After his shower, Sam had noticed that two people were missing from downstairs, along with Baby. It wasn't hard to guess who had gone out together. He hadn't thought much of it and had gone back to his room to read, although he'd spent ages staring at the same few pages.

He looked up when the door opened.

Dean was in an unmistakably good mood. He wasn't grinning like an idiot or anything, but there was an ease to every movement. He hummed a few lines of some song as he came in, then shrugged off his jacket as though he hadn't a care in the world. After a lifetime together, Sam could read his brother at a glance.

“Where'd you two go?”

“Out for a drive.” Dean tossed his keys onto the table.

“Until this late?”

“Stopped for something to eat, too.”

Sam considered that for a moment before asking, “A date?”

Dean was hanging his jacket over a chair. “Yeah,” he said without hesitation.

Just as Sam had suspected.

Sam looked back at his book. He ought to have left it there, but a few seconds later, another question escaped him. “How'd it go?”

“Pretty good.” Dean answered as though it were nothing special, and didn't elaborate.

That only made Sam more curious. After a moment, he tried a less obvious question. “Murphy knows you're trying to win her over, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And what does she think?”

Remembering what had happened in the car, Dean couldn't quite stop the corners of his mouth from lifting. “Told me to keep at it.”

Sam understood immediately.

Murphy knew how Dean felt, and she welcomed it.

He adjusted the book on his knees. There was nothing else he really needed to ask, yet he couldn't settle down.

“Did you two...” He hesitated, wishing he could find a less direct way to say it. “Did you kiss?”

Great. He'd gone and asked outright anyway. Regret hit at once.

It was a strange thing to ask your older brother in the middle of the night. Dean went quiet as well. Perhaps he understood why Sam wanted to know, because for once he didn't tease him.

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Sam bent over his book again.

For a long while, not a word registered.

They'd kissed.

He really was happy for Dean. His brother had only recently begun to believe he might have a life beyond May, and now he was seriously pursuing someone he cared about.

That was a good thing.

It just hurt a little to hear it.

Sam turned a page and made himself read several lines. Eventually he spoke again. “You're serious about her, right?”

Dean, who had gathered a clean set of clothes, looked over in confusion. “What?”

“Murphy.”

“When am I ever not serious?”

After a moment's thought, Sam decided the question had been unnecessary.

Dean had always liked pestering Murphy, stealing her things, getting too close, and inventing excuses to annoy her. She'd probably assumed he simply had too much time on his hands. Now that he was actually courting her, though, the difference was obvious.

“Nothing. Just wondered.”

Dean stood there with his clothes for another moment, looking as though he wanted to say something.

“Sammy.”

Sam already disliked the way he said it. “Don't.”

“I haven't said anything.”

“If you're about to worry about hurting my feelings, don't bother.”

Dean blinked. “Who's worrying about your feelings?”

“Good.” Sam decided to be straightforward. “It's not like I told you to stop pursuing her.”

“Wouldn't listen even if you did,” Dean replied immediately.

Sam was left speechless for a second, then found himself feeling better.

Now that sounded like his brother.

“Then we're good.”

Dean laughed, and the last of that awkward tension faded. Sam picked up his book again and added, “Just act normal. Don't suddenly treat me like some poor, pitiful guy.”

“You are looking a little pathetic right now.”

A pillow went flying straight at Dean's face.

He caught it with one hand and laughed harder. Sam couldn't even be bothered to look at him. He jerked his chin toward the bathroom. “Get your ass in the shower.”

“Yes, sir.”

When the bathroom door closed, Sam turned back to the page he'd been reading.

The jealousy hadn't quite gone away.

But he could live with it.

...

Over the next few days, Sam realized that Dean and Murphy hadn't changed all that much.

They'd always spent plenty of time together. The main difference was that Dean no longer felt the need for an excuse to get close. He'd also taken Murphy's request for a hug every day very seriously. He hardly ever missed one.

One night, after the three of them had finished playing video games, Murphy picked up her glass of water and headed upstairs. Dean called after her.

“Forget something?”

She stopped at the foot of the stairs and thought. “What?”

Dean spread his arms.

Only then did she catch on. Laughing, she went back and hugged him. Sam was nearby putting away the controllers. For a moment, he wondered whether he ought to leave them alone. Maybe he should go spend a little time in the kitchen.

Almost immediately, he realized how ridiculous that would be. It was one hug. Was he supposed to hide every time they were affectionate?

He kept packing away the game equipment.

When Murphy released Dean, she crouched beside Sam and started gathering the cables.

“You don't have to unplug that one,” Sam told her.

“I know. I'm just moving it out of the way. What if Bobby trips?” She stifled a laugh.

She straightened a tangled section and reached for another controller. The hug was already forgotten, and the three of them carried on with their evening.

Sam realized that adjusting to this might not be as hard as he'd feared.

The following days were much the same.

They still played games together and researched cases together. Murphy had no idea what a mess Sam's feelings had been. She could still spend half an hour arguing with him about a game she'd lost.

That helped him relax.

Of course, he didn't get used to everything overnight.

One afternoon, for example, he walked out of the kitchen and caught Dean leaning against the counter, kissing Murphy.

It was a brief kiss. Murphy still had a cup in her hand, and afterward she simply stepped around Dean to finish getting water. Dean stayed where he was, waiting lazily beside the counter.

Sam faltered for half a step before continuing into the living room as though nothing had happened.

They'd already said what needed saying that first night. Avoiding the two of them now would only make matters stranger.

Sometimes, though, catching them together still made his chest tighten.

He supposed he needed a little more time.

...

Another ten days or so slipped by. April was almost over, and the contracts once again occupied most of their attention.

Sam had read the notes Bela left them so often that he must have known them by heart. They hadn't found any new problems with the ritual circle, but they'd added several layers of protection around it. Bobby had even gone back to inspect the house and repair the damage left by the hellhounds.

Dean, meanwhile, seemed more relaxed every day.

Bela's contract had broken before their eyes, and all three hellhounds had vanished at that same instant. As far as he was concerned, witnessing that was worth more than every book they'd consulted.

One evening, after they'd cleared the table, Dean suddenly asked, “How about taking a trip after May?”

Sam immediately assumed he meant a hunt. “Where's the job?”

“Who says we have to work every time we go somewhere?”

Murphy looked up. “You want to take a vacation?”

“Why not?” Even Dean seemed surprised by the idea. He closed the old book in front of him. “Once this mess is behind us, we could take a few days off. The Grand Canyon, maybe. What do you say, Murphy?”

They'd driven all over the country, but almost never for the pleasure of it. Sam had no objection. The contracts had worn them all down for months. A little time off was more than reasonable.

Murphy nodded. But the words Grand Canyon immediately brought Thelma & Louise to mind, followed by the movie's final scene.

...Not the best omen.

A shadow passed over her previously good mood. Lately, Dean had grown increasingly comfortable talking about the future.

After the contract. After May 2. Going somewhere together. Doing other things afterward. He said it all so easily now. He truly believed he was going to live.

Of course Murphy was glad.

But the more hopeful he became, the harder it was to avoid a question she'd refused to think about.

What if?

After Bela's success, the chance of things going wrong seemed much smaller. They had a method that had actually saved someone. Whatever happened, that was far better than the helplessness of the original story.

Still, as May 2 drew closer, Murphy found herself unable to dismiss the possibility.

She remembered all too well what had happened that day in the original timeline.

Hellhounds had torn Dean apart and dragged his soul to Hell. After thirty years of torture, he'd accepted Alastair's offer and picked up the knife. A righteous man shed blood in Hell, and the first seal broke. Four months later, angels pulled Dean out. By then, to him, forty years had passed.

They'd already changed this timeline almost beyond recognition.

What if the ritual had a flaw they hadn't noticed? If Dean ended up in Hell anyway, would he still surrender after thirty years the way he originally had?

Murphy wasn't so sure.

Dean wanted to live far too much now.

He knew Sam, Bobby, and Murphy would never abandon him. He had things he wanted to do when he got out, someone he was genuinely trying to win over, and even a house waiting for him that he knew nothing about.

He might truly refuse to break, however long it took.

But if Dean never picked up that knife, he wouldn't be the one to break the first seal.

Would Heaven still retrieve him at the time it had originally planned?

That question had been haunting Murphy lately.

She knew angels were capable of rescuing Dean from Hell. What frightened her was when they'd bother. Four months on Earth had already meant forty years to Dean. If the first seal remained intact, Heaven might take its time for who knew how much longer.

She couldn't bear the thought of leaving him trapped there for decades and comforting herself with the excuse that he'd come back alive eventually.

By the end of April, she decided to find out what she could.

She'd tried simply calling Gabriel's name before. Nothing had happened.

She suspected that whatever protected her blocked most supernatural connections made through the mind or soul. Apparently angels had the same problem reaching her. Calling out to one wouldn't accomplish anything.

But there were other ways to summon an angel.

She remembered seeing them used more than once in Supernatural. The trouble was that a television screen only revealed so much. Sometimes she'd seen symbols and heard incantations without learning what materials the ritual required. Another way to summon an archangel relied on a vessel he'd previously left behind on Earth, which was useless in their current situation.

Fortunately, she'd spent the past six months buried in Bobby's books.

When she'd first moved in, she'd headed straight for his shelves whenever she had a spare moment. She still hadn't finished every volume, but she'd committed most of them to memory.

Bobby's collection was a jumble of hunters' notes, religious manuscripts, works on angelology, and ancient rituals whose usefulness no one could say for certain.

She'd memorized references to Enochian and summoning symbols almost casually. Now that she was searching her memory, quite a few details lined up with the rituals she remembered from the show.

Murphy spent several days organizing everything relevant.

She didn't have to decipher the incantations from scratch. Instead, she filled in what the show hadn't revealed and worked out which parts might be useful for calling Gabriel.

What she pieced together resembled the angel-summoning ritual she'd seen used later in the series. Whether it could bypass her unusual protection and bring an archangel who was deliberately hiding from everyone was another matter.

Until now, she'd never had a reason compelling enough to try.

Now she did.

...

Murphy chose a weekday morning to set out alone. She drove well away from town and finally stopped at an abandoned farm.

There were hardly any homes nearby. The farmhouse had been empty for years, half its windows were broken, and dust covered the wooden floor. It wasn't pleasant, but it was isolated. If she accidentally summoned something dangerous, at least no innocent passerby would be caught up in it.

She arranged everything according to the ritual she'd reconstructed, then went through it again to make sure.

She knew all the steps by heart and didn't need her notes. Still, it was her first attempt at summoning an angel. A little caution couldn't hurt.

She completed the final step. Nothing changed.

After several minutes, Murphy began to suspect she'd assembled something incorrectly. She went over the trickiest parts in her head and was about to inspect them when she heard a candy wrapper tearing behind her.

She spun around.

Gabriel was sitting on an old table, apparently having been there for some time. A bag of sweets rested in one hand, and he was eating as though he owned the place.

Murphy eyed the bag, which was already noticeably depleted. “When did you get here?”

Gabriel pretended to consider it. “Hmm... Just now.”

“Sure. Whatever you say.” She gave him a thoroughly fake smile.

It wasn't as though he'd tell her the truth.

Gabriel seemed to have been waiting for more questions. When she let the matter drop, he looked almost disappointed. “That's it?”

“I'm not here to scold you for being late.”

Murphy had no intention of wasting time. “You know what happened with Bela, right?”

“Which Bela?”

She stared at him.

Gabriel chuckled, finally abandoning the act. “I hear she's been pretty lucky lately.”

So he knew. Probably far more than he was admitting.

“Then the same method should work for Dean, shouldn't it?”

“Aren't you about to find that out for yourselves?”

“Which is why I'm asking beforehand.”

“Where's the fun in spoiling the ending?”

Murphy was so annoyed she nearly laughed.

She hadn't seriously expected Gabriel to give her a straight answer, but that didn't make him any less infuriating. Bela and Dean had made different kinds of deals, yet he seemed perfectly happy to sit back and watch what happened.

“Bela's deal isn't the same as Dean's.”

“Mm-hmm,” Gabriel said.

She seized on it. “So there really is a difference?”

“I just heard what you said.” He casually tipped more candy into his mouth.

“...”

Of course.

At this rate, he could keep her talking in circles until nightfall.

Murphy changed tactics. “Fine. Let's talk about the worst possible outcome. What if we fail on May 2 and Dean gets dragged into Hell anyway?”

Gabriel had been chewing slowly. That finally made him pay a little more attention.

“What if he refuses to take Alastair's knife, and the first seal never breaks because of him? Would Heaven still bring him back?”

Gabriel nearly choked on his candy. He managed to swallow it and studied her for several long seconds.

“The first seal.”

“Yes.”

“Alastair.”

“Yes.”

“You know an awful lot.”

“And I still have questions.”

Gabriel seemed far more interested in where she'd learned it all. “How the hell do you know about that?”

She ignored him. “Would Heaven still pull Dean out?”

Gabriel laughed. “What makes you think they'd be rescuing him?”

Murphy frowned.

She was hardly naive enough to imagine Heaven as a charitable organization. She remembered exactly what the angels would do to bring about the Apocalypse.

She tried another approach. “Would they still need Dean?”

Gabriel said nothing.

“Even without the first seal, he's still Michael's vessel, isn't he?”

This time Gabriel didn't even offer a halfhearted answer. He simply regarded her with a thoughtful expression.

His silence was answer enough.

Murphy felt somewhat reassured. “Then Heaven wouldn't just leave him there forever.”

“Forever?” Gabriel leisurely ate another sweet. “Probably not.”

She hated that word. Probably.

“How long?”

“How long what?”

“How long before they bring him out?”

Gabriel was beginning to look as though she was testing his patience. “How should I know?”

“You might not know the exact date, but you have some idea whether they'd be in any hurry.”

He didn't deny it this time. Instead, he looked down and rummaged in his candy bag.

Murphy felt her temper rise. Her fists practically itched.

Four months in the world above had already meant forty years in Hell. For an angel, that might be nothing. Dean would have to endure every single second.

“Maybe time means nothing to you, but his matters,” she insisted.

“You know I stopped caring about Heaven's business ages ago.” Gabriel fished out another candy. “They can play their little games without me.”

Murphy had no patience for his self-pity over being abandoned by his father.

At least the visit hadn't been a complete waste.

She could be fairly certain Heaven still needed Dean. What she couldn't know was how long it would take the angels to decide they ought to retrieve him.

Relying on angelic compassion was clearly a terrible idea. Most angels didn't have any to begin with.

Not that every single one was heartless.

Murphy crouched and began packing up the ritual supplies. She'd have to go home and come up with something else.

Gabriel watched her for a while, apparently surprised that she was giving up on pestering him so easily. “Not going to ask me to help?”

“Would you?”

“No.”

Murphy didn't look up. “Then why bother asking?”

Gabriel burst out laughing.

She put away the last item. By the time she straightened, Gabriel had vanished from the old table. All that remained was his bag with a few candies rattling around at the bottom.

Murphy walked over, picked it up, and inspected the leftovers. Then she flung every last sweet into the grass.

Eat, eat, eat! All he ever did was eat!

...

On the drive home, Murphy couldn't stop thinking about their conversation.

What she'd learned was more or less what she'd expected. At least now she had a little confirmation.

If Dean did wind up in Hell, Heaven would almost certainly want him eventually. But wanting him back and getting him out in time were two entirely different things.

She couldn't let Dean wait in Hell. If Heaven was in no hurry, she'd have to give them a reason to hurry.

As she drove, she sorted through everything she knew.

Michael needed Dean.

Lucifer needed Sam.

Lilith was the final seal.

In the original timeline, the Apocalypse had advanced all the way toward its culmination because everyone involved kept moving without knowing the whole story. If the worst came to pass, Murphy would have no reason to keep the truth hidden.

She'd tell Dean whatever he needed to know and do the same for Sam.

She'd interfere with as many other seals as possible. And the final seal? Lilith had to die at Sam's hand for it to break. So Murphy simply wouldn't let her die.

If Heaven wanted to wait, she could make them wait too. Once they returned Dean, then they could talk about what happened next.

The plan eased some of the anger she'd carried with her all the way home.

She knew perfectly well she wasn't powerful enough to pick a direct fight with all of Heaven.

But she knew the story, and she could think of plenty of ways to disrupt a plan that had originally run so smoothly.

They didn't want to save him?

Fine. Then no one needed to be in a hurry.

Of course, she hoped she'd never have to use that plan.

...

By the time Murphy reached Bobby's house, dinner was over.

She opened the door to the lingering smell of cooked food. Dean and Sam were in the living room, where several reference books lay open on the table, their pages worn from constant use. Sam's newly organized notes were stacked beside them.

Dean heard her come in. “Hey, you're back. Eaten yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Saved you some. It's in the kitchen.”

Murphy put down her bag and fetched her dinner. When she returned, Sam had already shifted the books aside to make a space for her at the table.

“Just in case, we strengthened the outer defenses again.” He handed her a few pages. “We'll fill in a couple more gaps when we go over tomorrow.”

Murphy skimmed the notes. Nothing seemed wrong. As she ate, she listened to the brothers discuss what supplies they still needed, and soon she was joining in.

All the thoughts of Heaven, Hell, and the seals that had occupied her on the drive began to fade beneath the ordinary business of preparing. Nothing terrible had happened yet. Their immediate problem was still May 2.

She finished eating, pushed aside her plate, and picked up Sam's notes. Dean was still talking about their departure time the next morning, and Sam added two more things to the supply list. Before long, all three were debating the placement of one of their defenses.

After listening for a while, Murphy started pointing out problems with their plan too.

By the time they were arguing over that one defensive position, most of her earlier gloom had disappeared.