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It was a rougher landing than usual for Castiel, for he'd flown quite a long way, in quite a hurry, all the way from the battlefront that currently extended clear across the Himalayas to bisect much of the Asian continent. Castiel had been very busy there (in mid-battle, in fact), and he arrived in a state of momentarily erratic power flow, with an embarrassingly noisy burst of wing-flutter wind. He shook a few disarrayed feathers back into position, folded his wings back to the etheric plane, and magicked his vessel's clothes back to cleanliness (an almost hourly task these days). Then he took a breath. It had been a while since he'd had a moment out of battle. Taking a moment to let his grace settle and re-charge, he looked around.
He was standing halfway up a small hillside in what looked like a fairly standard demonic landscape. Corpses lay all around; red flickering light overhead betrayed the presence of constant aerial battles. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Castiel felt a twinge of uncertainty. Had this all been a waste of time?
He had been hoping to triangulate the source of a peculiar etheric-communication disruption that he had first detected from clear around the planet, some fifteen minutes ago. He'd been right in the middle of an aerial strafing run, hurling one Heavenly firebolt after another at the demonic stronghold that was currently encamped on Mount Everest, when he'd felt an odd reverberating interference in his etheric senses (this was, of course, the primary means of angelic communication) along with a burst of raw etheric energy that had nearly torn loose some of his flight-feathers.
His feathers had all survived intact, but for a long several minutes he'd been completely blind to communication. All the commands, orders and endless combat-related information had silenced at once, replaced only by a low hum and a long burst of static.
Castiel had disengaged from battle (fortunately the demons seemed to be similarly affected and the entire battle seemed to have ground to a temporary halt). For a few minutes he'd swooped left and right, trying to see if he could at least escape whatever zone of interference he seemed to have blundered into, but a few minutes' experimenting revealed that the interference extended at least as far as the Gobi Desert. Though he thought he was at least picking up some traces of directionality to it. It seemed based in North America.
It was almost as if some other angel with an identical communication frequency had appeared on the other side of the planet. But that was impossible, of course. Every angel in Creation was allotted a unique etheric frequency, for exactly this reason.
To his relief the interference had suddenly ended.
Nobody else had felt any such interference, it turned out; the other angels reported no problems. But they had all felt the burst of power. In fact, once Castiel's etheric-communication senses flared back into functionality, it turned out the other angels were chattering about nothing else. It seemed it had not been local; a great burst of power had come rolling across the entire planet like an invisible tidal wave. Everybody's feathers had been ruffled, quite literally. Several angels had to retreat to the ground for a quick round of emergency preening, and not a few had been carried back to Heaven for feather repair.
It had felt quite alarmingly like the work of a nephilim.
But it had been such a broad and generalized wave of disruption that nobody was quite sure where it had come from. Castiel, however, had his suspicions. He had immediately requested, and had been granted, permission to track his unique etheric-interference problem to its source.
He'd felt a little guilty about dashing away from the battle, though, though his brethren had all assured him they could hold the line without him, and could continue the assault on Everest. That particular battle had already been raging for five months, actually, and no doubt would last many months more. He would rejoin it shortly, he'd soon be fighting again. As he had for years, and as he likely would for many years still.
Best to enjoy this brief moment of respite while it lasted.
Castiel's grace felt sufficiently recharged now; he tested his wings, flexing them slightly from their position in next-door etheric plane. They felt fine now, despite that battering from the unexplained power surge and then the flight from Asia, but just the same he began striding up the little hillside on foot. He needed a better view of his surroundings, but found it was almost pleasant to take a moment to walk upon the Earth, so he decided he would walk on foot to the top. Maybe he was still a bit weary from the flight; or, maybe it was just a bit of weariness at heart, from the five-month-long battle.
All battles these days dragged on for months. Or years. The Apocalypse had already lasted much longer than he'd originally expected. The toll among the angels was climbing disturbingly high, and the toll on the battered Earth had been absolutely appalling.
But, of course, one must bear in mind that the Earth does not matter, Castiel reminded himself, as he walked up the hill. All this was temporary, in the bigger picture; all this would pass.
And he still had complete faith in the rightness of the fight, he further reminded himself. Complete faith. In the rightness and justice of the actions of Heaven, and in the inevitability of the Heavenly triumph that would soon surely come. My faith remains unshakeable, he told himself.
Though it did seem these days that Castiel was having to remind himself increasingly often of how unshakeable his faith was.
Reaching the top of the ridge he surveyed a small stretch of barren ground on the other side. It looked fairly normal - which is to say, it looked like a desolate wasteland. It had once been a peaceful tract of woods, to judge from the burned-out stumps that were still visible here and there. But the trees had long ago been burned to the ground, during the repeated waves of apocalyptic destruction that had been visited upon North America, and all the Earth, in the last seven years. Castiel took in the depressingly familiar scene: the earth denuded of vegetation; five or six hellspires scattered around (Class B hellspires, medium height, Castiel thought, assessing them automatically); a burned-out and smoking stone foundation of what might have once been a pleasant little house; the usual set of corpses scattered here and there. And a few humans improbably still alive (though doubtless not for long) who were dashing fruitlessly here and there. Darkly menacing clouds overhead boiled with flashes of hellfire as aerial battles unfolded above. Castiel spared a tired glance overhead; from the frequency of red hellfire bolts and crashes of thunder he estimated approximately three coveys of winged demons were in the clouds overhead, all of them engaged in battle with the local angels of the Great Lakes garrison.
But he noted, with more interest, that he could hear all the battle dispatches perfectly clearly. There was no sign of the etheric interference that had drawn him here.
A few more steps brought some more of the mortals into view: two men crouching behind a boulder, desperately working at a last-ditch attempt at a spell. Another two rolled on the ground nearby embroiled in a violent fist-fight.
Scorched earth, hellspires, corpses, aerial battles overhead, and a few desperate survivors battling for their lives. In other words, everything looked normal. But among all these familiar sights was an odd sight indeed, a flickering vertical ribbon of yellow light that seemed to be hovering in mid-air. Castiel narrowed his eyes, studying it. He inched a little farther down the hillside on foot, then sighed at himself and shook out his wings, and a moment later he was standing right next to the ribbon of light. From close up, he could feel now that it was radiating an unearthly — and quite un-Heavenly — power. His feathers were fairly tingling from it.
And it felt familiar.
"Nephilim," he murmured. He reached one hand out, and paused.
He could no longer hear the battle-communications clearly. Bursts of static kept drowning them out.
The interference. It had gotten stronger, the closer he'd gotten to the ribbon of light.
Castiel cast one more glance at the two fighting men; one was curled on the ground now, groaning as the other pelted him with full-force kicks. They were both so fully focused on their own little battle that neither had noticed his presence yet, though he was only a mere thirty paces or so away. Castiel recognized neither of them, and they seemed of little consequence, so he turned back to the ribbon of light.
Hesitantly, he touched it with the tip of one finger.
Everything disappeared.
Castiel blinked at the darkness. He smelled trees, and sap and pine needles; healthy trees, it seemed. A small two-story wooden cabin stood just ahead, an upper window shining with light. He looked around, confused; had he been transported somewhere else? Was he even still on Earth, or in some mortal's Heaven, maybe? But it felt real; the air had a certain physicality to it, the scent of the tree sap and the vegetation all piercingly vivid. The breeze on his cheek was soft, and cool. It all felt real.
But where was he?
And why had his etheric senses gone so very silent again? There was now just that odd hum, and a faint buzz of static.
For a long moment Castiel stood very still, puzzled, looking around intently at the peaceful woods. No corpses; no aerial strafing overhead. No hellspires.
What place on Earth could possibly still be so peaceful, these days?
"I should have known you'd turn up," said a low voice behind him.
Castiel spun, and saw himself.
Or, almost himself. Maybe the jacket was slightly shorter, with a slightly different cut; and the tie seemed to be striped rather than solid-colored. But the face was unmistakable: Jimmy Novak's face. Yet Castiel knew, somehow, gazing into his eyes, that this was not Jimmy that he was facing. There was an angel in there, and it was an angel that had his same frequency. This was some other version of himself — some kind of doppelganger.
"You're on my frequency," said Castiel to the doppelganger.
"Oh, the angel-radio?" said the doppelganger. "Yes, I noticed the same thing. Is that what drew you here?"
"Angel-radio?" Castiel echoed, frowning, for he'd never heard the etheric senses referred to in this way. But that was trivial; what really mattered was... "You are..." Castiel said slowly, "... me?"
The doppelganger nodded.
"Some other version of me?" persisted Castiel.
The doppelganger nodded again, and said, "And you're the version of me from the other universe, correct? The destroyed one, where the Apocalypse happened."
These words sank home with the force of revelation.
Castiel managed to tear his eyes away from that eerily familiar face and he looked around once more, at the quiet woods; at the unburned trees, and the peaceful nighttime sky, lit only with stars; at the gentle rolling wooded hills. Hills whose contours, Castiel slowly realized, precisely matched the contours of the devastated landscape he had just left. The cabin, too, was standing in the same location as the sad rectangle of ruined foundation-stones that had been smouldering on the other side.
Understanding dawned.
"This is a parallel universe," Castiel said, still looking around.
"I believe so," agreed the doppelganger. "Your universe has been virtually destroyed, as best I can understand. In this universe the Apocalypse never happened. A rift was opened between our two worlds, and you were able to cross over."
"And you're... me?" Castiel said slowly, returning his gaze to the doppelganger's face. "Another version of me?"
The doppelganger nodded again. "Apparently we share similar taste in vessels." His eyes drifted down to Castiel's clothes. "And in clothing, too, it seems. I must say, I've rather missed that coat. It's Jimmy's, right?"
Castiel frowned at him. "But... how can the Apocalypse not have happened here? How was it averted?"
"We stopped it," said the doppelganger. "Some seven years ago now."
"We... the angels?" said Castiel, his frown deepening, for somehow that seemed unlikely. There had always been a nagging suspicion in the back of his mind that Heaven had not really done all that could have been done, to stop those sixty-six seals from being broken.
And sure enough the doppelganger shook his head, a faint smile creasing his face. "I meant, the Winchester brothers and I. I left the armies of Heaven long ago. The Winchesters and I stopped it."
"You... left Heaven?" Castiel repeated.
Again that faint, lopsided smile. "I rebelled. I fell." He didn't even sound ashamed. In fact he then added, unbelievably, "I would make the same choice again."
How any version of myself have possibly rebelled against Heaven? Castiel wanted to say, staring at the doppelganger. I was the commander of a garrison for eons. I've been promoted to command an aerial battalion. I'm loyal, I'm steadfast, I'm obedient... It's simply not possible, not if you're truly a version of me...
The steady gaze of the doppelganger's eyes had a glint of sympathy. "Your Apocalypse never had to happen," the doppelganger said. "Heaven wanted it to happen. Wouldn't you agree?"
It was heresy, of course. Absolute heresy. And Castiel ought to have struck him down for it immediately. And yet, still staring at the doppelganger, Castiel hesitated.
The doppelganger said slowly, as if studying him, "So you've had your doubts too," and Castiel could not deny it, much as he wanted to. He knew already, as well, though he hated to admit it, that there might indeed be certain conceivable circumstances — exceedingly rare, very unlikely circumstances, but possible circumstances — that might call those faint flickers of doubt in his heart to flower into something more.
A wail from an upstairs window broke his train of thought — and with it came a pulse of power that made them both stagger.
"Dammit," said the doppelganger, swearing with a casualness that shocked Castiel. "I have to return. There's a nephilim being born."
"The nephilim's here?" said Castiel. "And, wait — being born? One of that power and only an infant?"
He was even more alarmed at what the doppelganger said next: "A nephilim of Lucifer's seed, not to put too fine a point on it. He has tremendous power; that's what opened the rift between our worlds. But I think he may have potential for great things, not just evil. His mother's birthing him now — I must be there. But, look—" The doppelganger paused, glanced toward the rift, and he looked again at Castiel, and a glint of hope sparked in his eyes. He took a step closer, gripping Castiel's arm. Castiel wanted to draw back, but could not; he wanted to think of this strange twin as an evil twin, but he simply could not, and he stood mutely as the doppelganger said:
"Lucifer lives. Unfortunately. We did stop the Apocalypse, but Lucifer remains alive. There was a fight here — by any chance, when you came through, did you see a man in a leather jacket? Short blond hair? And a couple of other men? I was knocked out and I've got no idea where they went. Might they have gone through to your side?"
A man in a leather jacket, kicking another man who lay curled helpless on the ground.
"I did see a human in a leather jacket," admitted Castiel. "And several others."
That brought a hiss of frustration. "Lucifer went through then," said the doppelganger. "No doubt Sam and Dean followed him. Or they went through, and he followed them." His grip tightened on Castiel's arm. "Either way, we must stop him. Listen to me: the man in the leather jacket is Lucifer," he said intently, "and apparently he's gotten into your universe."
"We already have a Lucifer," said Castiel, "and one's been quite enough."
"Well, now you have two. Can you go back through? You might have a chance to stop him. You've still got power; I can feel it. You've still got your wings, haven't you?"
Castiel blinked at him, and said, slowly, "Well, I'd have to check with my superiors—"
The doppelganger actually rolled his eyes, and almost shook him. "No, you don't. Time's too short anyway; you've got to make your own decision. I've got to stay with the nephilim — " (Here he glanced back up at the window.) "I can't leave. Please, can you go, and protect Sam and Dean?"
"Sam and Dean?"
"One's taller, long brown hair. The other's shorter, and he looks... like..." The doppelganger hestitated, as if something about the "Dean" was not easily describable, and finally he said, "Well, neither is wearing a leather jacket right now, and neither of them has blond hair, so just look for that. They may need help, and certainly Lucifer must be stopped at any rate. Please, go, try to help them. Lucifer might think you're me, actually —" Then the doppelganger's eyes dropped again to Castiel's clothes, and he paused and stared at Castiel's coat for a long moment.
Then he abruptly let go of Castiel's arm and stepped back. A moment later he was shucking off his own coat.
"What are you doing?" said Castiel, bewildered.
"Take these. Wear these," said the doppelganger. He was yanking off his striped tie now, and then he held the coat and tie out toward Castiel. He added, "If you wear these, then Lucifer will think it's just me again. My power's low, and he knows that; but you're at full-strength, aren't you?"
Castiel hesitated.
"Look into my eyes," suggested the doppelganger. "I'm telling the truth."
Castiel looked into his eyes.
And in a moment he saw it all.
It wasn't a vision exactly, more an impression of the doppelganger's patterns of thought. Everything doppelganger had said, he believed to be the truth, and as Castiel stared into his eyes it seemed something of the doppelganger's heart bled into his own.
For a moment he knew what it was to live in the world as it should have been, with two brothers in it, the ones Heaven had tried so hard to bring into being; for a moment, he understand that desperate choice to abandon Heaven, years ago. For a moment he glimpsed the strain of the terrible battles, the wild gambles, the burned wings, the awful mistakes, all the guilt, all the loss...
But the world had survived.
The trees still stood. Humanity still flourished.
And there was something else as well. Castiel couldn't quite pin it down, but he knew, all at once, that this other Castiel had found something of great value here. Something to do with humans... something to do with... (Castiel was actually squinting now, trying to make it out.)... with...
... family?
Yes, family.
And something else too.
But it was something that Castiel had never felt himself, and so he could not grasp it. He could only see that it must be something of immense value.
"Take these," said the other Castiel, shaking the coat and tie at him impatiently. "Take them. Put them on, and go through. Find Lucifer. He'll assume you're me and he'll assume you're at low power. It may give you an advantage. Oh, and— I can't fly anymore. So don't use a flight attack, or that'll give away the game."
Castiel nodded, and shucked his own coat and tie off rapidly. He handed them to the doppelganger (first extracting his angel-blade from his coat-sleeve). He took the new ones, and pulled them on. A slightly different tie; a slightly shorter coat; minor details, maybe. But details mattered in war.
"Wait," said the doppelganger, and he pulled something from an inner pocket. A comb, of all things; a simple plastic pocket-comb. Castiel blinked, but let the doppelganger comb his hair down rapidly.
"That'll have to do," said the doppelganger. "Remember, the man in leather jacket is Lucifer. Don't you dare stab the wrong person. I think it's a short, tight-fitting jacket now, sort of reddish. His vessel has short blond hair. And he almost always also has an extremely annoying sarcastic look on his face, if that helps."
There was another burst of power from the upstairs window, and they both flinched. "It's time," the doppelganger said, glancing up at the window in alarm. "I've got to go. Hurry. Run. And take care of Sam and Dean."
The doppelganger turned and bolted for the house, Castiel's coat and tie still over his arm.
Castiel stared after him for a long moment before shaking himself into action. Unlikely it all was, impossibly unlikely, but in an eerie way it all was starting to make sense. Leather jacket, Castiel thought, tucking his angel-blade into the sleeve of his new coat. He had no idea who "Sam and Dean" were — those "Winchester brothers," maybe? It didn't matter; if a second Lucifer had been loosed upon his world, and there was a chance to stop him, that was all that mattered. And since the angel-radio was not functioning, Castiel had to make the decision on his own, without consulting his superiors.
He felt an odd sense of elation as he turned and strode toward the rift.
The familiar wasteland of home greeted him, oddly harsh and bright after the eerie calm of the other universe. When Castiel came through the rift, two men were standing directly ahead of him with their backs to him, very close by. No leather jackets, was all Castiel noted. No leather jackets, not Lucifer. He shoved between them, his angel-blade already sliding into his hand, because ahead stood a man with short blond hair, in an absurdly tight-fitting red leather jacket — and, sure enough, a distinctly sarcastic expression on his face.
Lucifer. It had to be.
Castiel strode toward him. One of the men behind him was yelling something now, over and over; "Cas," it sounded like, but since it was not a familiar nickname, it barely registered. As Castiel drew closer he could feel the aura of power coming from the man ahead. Yes, archangel-level power, and with that distinct tinge of pride and hatred; Lucifer, definitely.
Normally Castiel would have attacked with a series of brief flights, using all his best feinting and dodging skills. But, knowing that Lucifer would be expecting the doppelganger, and that the doppelganger was flightless, Castiel merely strode directly forward.
It seemed an insanely foolish approach, far too obvious and far too direct. Castiel's skin was virtually crawling with tension as he marched closer, his wings twitching anxiously. But he managed to keep to a mortal walk, as agonizingly slow as it felt.
And sure enough Lucifer merely smiled. His only counterattack turned out to be the mildest twitch of a finger. Castiel braced himself but felt only a slight buffeting power that knocked almost gently against his right side. Without even thinking he parried it with one sweep of his right wing (his wings, of course, though not currently manifest, could act as shields). The long flight-feathers parried the blow easily, even from the next-door dimension, and with some amazement Castiel realized, He thought that would knock me aside. He thought that's all it would take!
Lucifer, puzzled, twitched a finger again; Castiel curled both his invisible wings forward this time and fended off that blow as well. Lucifer's eyes widened. Maybe he had started to realize who was facing him, but it was too late now; Castiel was upon him, sliding the blade home. The desperate flicker of red in Lucifer's eyes was wonderful to see.
But it was not to be so easy. Maybe it was the nearby power of his own satanic spawn; maybe the native Lucifer of Castiel's own world was loaning the alien one some power; whatever it was, Lucifer somehow survived the initial killing stroke. And now he knew what was up, and the game was given away, and he threw Castiel away with a tremendous blow this time. Castiel felt his feathers smoking from the power of it. He did survive, but he was flung some distance.
"Ooo, no fair," Lucifer hissed, curling over his wound. It had damaged him but had not killed him. "Cheater," he added, and then he was gone.
Castiel sprang to his feet in alarm, looking all around. He shook out his wings and flew in a trice to the top of the hill, scanning around; he flew to each corpse, he investigated each hellspire, he even checked the newly dead man in the black coat. (The other two men had disappeared.) This was all accomplished in under a second, of course, and Castiel found nothing.
Either he flew farther away, in which case I should simply go notify my superiors, thought Castiel, staring around at the sky, or he went back through the rift.
To that unharmed world; that preciously quiet, peaceful world. With its dark trees, and quiet stars. And a weakened, flightless, other-Castiel.
Castiel ground his teeth.
I should go notify my superiors, he thought. If I fly farther away, out of range of the interference, I'll be able to contact them. But the next quick wing-flutter landed him directly before the rift. He walked through.
The same two men he'd shoved past earlier were standing facing him. Castiel halted before them, looking around; Lucifer was not in sight.
He would have spun then, to guard his back.
He was a veteran of a thousand battles. When alone with no backup, the rule us, one must watch one's own back. Which also meant that any time an entry or portal was crossed, one first checked ahead, then stepped aside, then turned, to see if anybody else was coming. Check ahead, step to the side, and turn to check one's back. It was basic. It was elementary.
But one of the men, the taller one, called "Cas!" again — that same sound as before, and this time it registered: it was a nickname. And this time it was clear that the two men were looking at him. Castiel entirely forgot to check his back. Instead he looked at the two men.
The next moment was his last, but Castiel learned many things in that moment.
He saw the tall one's face crease into a startled smile; he thought, I've never seen a human seem so pleased to see me.
These are the Winchesters, he thought next.
These must be the "Sam and Dean".
We three — Sam and Dean and my other self — saved the world.
These are the men I abandoned Heaven for.
These are my family... they should have been my family. I just never got the chance to meet them.
He looked at Sam; and then he looked at Dean, and Castiel thought, Oh. I understand now. The blade struck home.
A/N - This started as what I thought would be a happy fix-it fic, because of course, our Castiel survives. (If you're wondering where he ended up, he's in the nursery standing in the corner on the other side of the crib, about to speak to Sam. The camera never panned to that corner and Sam never looked over there.)
But as I started writing the happy fix-it fit, it became clear that an entirely different tragedy would have to happen.
Maybe Jack can fix it.
The title is from a line in the song "All Along The Watchtower."