This story is all Aini NuFire's fault because after I did "On the Edge of a Knife" she suggested an AU of
"The Rapture" where the boys save Cas. So I hope you enjoy this, Aini- it's not like I *need* more excuses to whump Cas ;)

And this is a sequel to "On the Edge of the Knife" so you should probably read that one first so you can understand some of the things referenced in this story. Also, yes, this is both an episode and a Season 4 AU.

Actions and Consequences

A Supernatural Fanfic

Chapter One

Dean slumped heavily down on the end of the bed, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off a headache. It had been a rough few weeks, and not only because they had just found out that their lives were being written as a series of crappy novels, by an alcoholic author who was also apparently a prophet of God—oh yeah, and also that they had a half brother who was dead before they could even get to know him. No, on top of all these surprise revelations, Dean had had to keep an eye on Sam, making sure the kid was doing all right.

It hadn't been nearly long enough since Alastair had kidnapped Sam and tortured him mercilessly for the better part of two days. And yeah, the demon might be dead now, killed by Dean's own hand, and Cas might have healed Sam's wounds, but there were still scars. A hell of a lot of them. There was also the residual crap from their long talk after the fact; Dean going into more detail about what happened in Hell, and Sam…well, Sam confessing as to just how he had amped up his psychic powers while Dean had been Downstairs. To say Dean hadn't been happy to find out Sam had been sucking demon blood was an understatement, but he did try to see things from Sam's point of view, and to the kid's credit, he hadn't had any since.

But apparently quitting demon blood cold turkey wasn't any easier than any other addictive substance and Sam had been going through one hell of a withdrawal period on top of everything else. He'd been fine at first, but as soon as it started to wear off, Sam had been going into a downward spiral of heath issues. Even now Dean watched as he shuffled around the motel room, grabbing his stuff for a shower, looking like he might pass out any minute, dark bags under his bloodshot eyes. Dean hated seeing his brother like this, but when he'd suggested—reluctantly—that they could try weaning Sam off of it instead, the younger man had returned with a firm 'no'. Dean had to admire his dedication, but still, it hurt to watch the kid suffering. At least he knew it could only get better. Hopefully.

Dean himself was exhausted, having slept poorly of late. Facing Alastair again had brought back his Hell nightmares in full force—not that they'd stopped at all since he got back topside. But now he had new ones to add to the collection. This time with Sam on the rack and Dean standing over him with a knife, actually going through with cutting him up. Sometimes it was Cas too, the angel looking at him with pure disappointment like he was a complete failure.

Dean simply shrugged out of his over shirt and collapsed on the bed, deciding he would take a shower in the morning. He was already asleep by the time Sam came back out of the shower.

Castiel stood under a streetlamp in a park, listening to the night sounds. It was peaceful, and he enjoyed the moment, knowing it wouldn't last for long.

The flap of wings, ended the tranquility soon enough and he looked over to see Zachariah standing a few yards away, hands in his pockets and a small, slightly amused smile on his face that did nothing to fool Castiel.

"Hello Zachariah," Castiel said emotionlessly.

The other angel nodded and stepped closer. "And how are you tonight, Castiel?"

Castiel ignored him and instead said, "You wanted to see me."

Zachariah nodded. "Yes, I wanted to talk to you. You see, big stuff is happening."

"I am aware of that," Castiel replied blandly.

"As you should be," Zachariah said. "But, perhaps you are not entirely aware of how important it is to keep certain things, shall we say, off the table?"

Castiel frowned. "I don't know what you mean."

Zachariah sighed heavily. "Castiel, I'm gonna be honest with you, you haven't been at your best the last few weeks. I mean, first you kill Uriel—"

"He was a traitor," Castiel said firmly. "His death was regrettable, but necessary for the safety of all of us."

"True, but still," Zachariah said. "If you had been paying attention to your garrison instead of gallivanting off with your human charges, you may have seen the signs earlier and sent Uriel for correction instead of having to kill him. He could have been saved. Instead, we lost a good soldier at a time we need all the help we can get."

Castiel looked away from the other angel, jaw clenching. He hadn't been gallivanting off with the Winchesters. He'd helped Dean save Sam from Alastair and in the process they had gotten rid of the demon, and found out who was killing the angels. Besides, Uriel was way past any conditioning Heaven could have performed on him. He wanted to raise Lucifer, after all. And since he had been recruiting, Castiel had spent the last few weeks trying to weed out the others who had been with him. So far he had only found a couple, and it unnerved him, wondering how many others could be ready to stab their comrades in the back at any given moment. But he didn't say this out loud to Zachariah. He knew from experience that it would not change the angel's attitude toward him. But then, nothing really did.

"And then there was the little snafu with Lilith," Zachariah said more firmly, drawing Castiel's attention back to him.

The angel frowned again, cocking his head to one side. "What about Lilith? I know we were not able to apprehend her, but we stopped her from making the deal with Sam…"

"Exactly," Zachariah said. "You interfered. You know the rules, Castiel, you are not allowed to interfere, especially with something written by a prophet. Not to mention purposefully putting said prophet in harm's way."

Castiel pressed his lips together. Yes, he had warned Dean, tipped him off as to how to get rid of Lilith, but everything had turned out okay in the end. Yes, he had known that he was technically going against Heaven's wishes when he told Dean that, it just had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Lilith would have killed both the Winchesters and their story was not at an end yet.

"You can't just make your own rules, Castiel. Not now. The apocalypse, what will come to pass, is already written. To change it is to go against God's will," Zachariah said firmly.

"That was not my intention," Castiel replied.

"Of course not," Zachariah said, a mocking ring in his voice. "You always think you're doing things for the right reason. That's always been your greatest flaw, Castiel."

The angel shifted uncomfortably, wondering where Zachariah was going with this.

"But, we're all busy, stressed, so I'm willing to let you off with a warning this time," Zachariah said in a businesslike manner. "I just wanted you to understand, that future slips will not be tolerated. All you need to know, is that you are not to interfere with anything dealing with Sam Winchester and the demon Lilith. He will kill her, but not yet. Not until it is time."

Castiel frowned slightly. Time? What did Zachariah mean by that, but before he could ask, the other angel stepped forward, clapping a hand on Castiel's shoulder.

"Now you had best go back to your duties, Castiel. We'll talk again soon."

Castiel nodded as Zachariah flapped his wings and disappeared. But what he said was still nagging at the back of Castiel's mind. He needed to know what Zachariah meant by that.

And there was only one way to do that.

Castiel appeared in the prophet's house, finding Chuck Shurley asleep on the couch, empty beer cans and bottles of liquor littered around him. He stood there awkwardly for a moment, watching the man twitch in his sleep, obviously caught in some kind of nightmare. Castiel had a lot of experience with humans and their nightmares. He would occasionally visit the Winchesters at night, and try his best to soothe the nightmares—the memories and the fears of things that could have, or hadn't yet happened—that caused them to twist in their sheets, agony etched across their features. It was not always so easy, but the least he could do for them was give them a few hours of peaceful sleep. After everything they had been through, they deserved that much.

He thought of doing the same for Chuck now, but he needed the human awake, he needed to know something.

"Chuck," he said. The man only moaned, and turned onto his side, clutching a pillow to his chest. Castiel shifted awkwardly and said louder, "Chuck."

The prophet started with a little cry, bolting into a sitting position and gasping for breath, looking around, wide-eyed. "C-Castiel?" he asked when he caught sight of the angel. "W-what are you doing here?"

Castiel crossed over to him so he was closer to the couch. "I need to know something," he said.

"What?" Chuck said, scrambling to his feet. "Look I'm trying to write as fast as I can, it's…it's a lot to go through. The visions haven't stopped since you and Sam and Dean popped up. Come back next week." He started toward the kitchen, but Castiel reached out and grabbed his shoulder.

"I can't wait until next week, this is imperative that I find out as soon as possible," Castiel said.

Chuck looked between Castiel and the hand he had on his shoulder with wide eyes. "Okay, sure, what do you need to know?"

Castiel lowered his voice earnestly, as if that could stop anyone from hearing if he was being spied on. He had tried to shut off 'angel radio' as Dean called it, but he was never sure how well that worked. "Chuck I need you to tell me what happens with Sam and Lilith. What happens if he kills her?"

Chuck glanced away, shaking his head as he started backing away from the angel. "I—I can't tell you that."

Castiel frowned, following him a step. "Why not?"

Chuck continued shaking his head and retreating. "Zachariah. He told me I wasn't allowed to tell anyone anything. Especially the Winchesters."

"You're not telling the Winchesters, you're telling me. I'm an angel, Chuck," Castiel said firmly, crowding him into the wall.

Chuck let out a squeak and flattened himself against the wall. "I know, I know, but…your character arc, I know where it's going. I know you'll tell them, and Zachariah—he'll be sure to find out. I don't want to mess with him. He seems like he means it when he makes a threat. I can't—I can't deal with this anymore. I'm not sleeping, drinking myself into oblivion isn't working…this is gonna kill me!"

Castiel closed his eyes briefly, trying to muster some patience before he said, "Chuck, just tell me this at least. Killing Lilith…is that one of the Seals?"

Chuck's sharp intake of breath and the way his eyes widened told Castiel all he needed to know. A sickness began to form in the pit of his stomach as he stepped away from Chuck and allowed the man to scurry away. "It's as I feared," Castiel said mostly to himself. He knew there had been something Heaven was keeping from him. Had begun to suspect it while looking for the rest of Uriel's Lucifer loyalists. But he hadn't quite wanted to believe it. Hadn't wanted to believe that the angels didn't want to stop the apocalypse from happening at all. They wanted to start it.

"Thank you, Chuck," Castiel said quietly. "I won't bother you again."

"Castiel," Chuck called as the angel made to leave. "Just…be careful, okay?"

Castiel didn't reply. He knew exactly the danger he was in, the lines he was stepping over. But even Zachariah's warning earlier that night was not enough to keep him from passing this message on. He thought about the conversation he'd had with Anna when she had found him in the Winchesters' hospital room. How he had confessed to having considered disobedience. He knew little good would come of it, but he couldn't shake the fact that it felt like the right thing. After all, if it was no longer God giving the orders in Heaven, then wouldn't that mean that following the ones giving by whoever it was would be worse than rebelling against them? He was starting to see that perhaps Anna had been right all along.

But right now, he had to get the information he had gathered to the Winchesters. They were quickly loosing the war against the Seals and Castiel knew it wouldn't be long now before everything came to a head one way or another. The least he could do was give the Winchesters a heads up as to what was to come. Perhaps then they might be able to do something to stop it when even the angels couldn't.

Dean was sitting on the edge of the dock, fishing pole in hand and the tranquil lake in front of him. It was so peaceful, quiet, he could have sat there for hours just enjoying the scenery.

Then there was a disturbance in the air behind Dean, a familiar sound that he chose it ignore for a second before a voice spoke beside him, "We need to talk."

He started slightly and turned to see Castiel standing beside him. He sighed in realization. "I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

"It's not safe here," Cas told him, glancing around as if someone might pop out at any second. "Someplace more private."

"More private?" Dean asked, glancing up at the angel. "We're inside my head."

"Exactly," Cas said quietly. "Someone could be listening."

Well crap. Dean didn't like the sound of that at all. Nor did he like the tone in Cas' voice, and the shifty way he was looking around. Inside Dean's head. "Cas, what's wrong?"

Cas didn't answer, he simply reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper which he handed to Dean. "Meet me here. Go now," he said insistently.

Dean's eyes widened, but as soon as he opened his mouth to say something else, Cas was gone.

Dean looked down at the paper, seeing an address written on it. Damn, if Cas couldn't even say an address out loud in the apparent privacy of Dean's mind, then what the hell was going on?

Dean's eyes flew open with a sharp intake of breath as he woke back in the motel room. He blinked a couple times, trying to figure out if the dream he'd had actually happened, or if it had been a…well… a dream.

But there was an address inscribed in his head that he remembered reading off the paper Cas had handed to him, and Dean knew this hadn't just been a dream.

He sat up, and tossed the covers aside, flicking on the lamp beside his bed as he crossed to the one Sam was sleeping on and jiggled his brother's shoulder.

"Hey, get up," he said.

Sam moaned and came to groggily. Dean kind of hated waking him up, knowing that Sam had been sleeping poorly and at the same time, always exhausted from the effects of the demon blood withdrawals, but he didn't know what he was walking into with Cas and he'd like the backup. Even if Sam probably couldn't even shoot straight right now.

"What?" Sam groaned, squinting at the clock.

"It's Cas. Something's up; he asked us to meet him."

Sam frowned, sitting up with another groan. "In the middle of the night?"

Dean shrugged, already grabbing his clothes. "He said we needed to talk. We leave in five."

Dean began packing the Impala while Sam slowly made his way out of bed, and dressed. Dean swallowed hard, watching the discomfort on Sam's face out of the corner of his eye. The kid didn't share every little pain with Dean, but big brothers knew, and Dean knew Sammy was hurting. He just didn't know how else to fix it besides letting Sam sweat it out. That didn't mean it wasn't killing him to see his brother suffer like that though.

To his credit, Sam was ready in five and they got into the Impala and made their way outside of town to an old factory that Cas had given them the address for.

Castiel waited anxiously at the abandoned factory where he had told Dean to meet him. He watched for the big black car to drive up, knowing he didn't have a lot of time. Regardless, of what happened within the next few hours, he knew it was going to end badly for him. Zachariah would eventually find out about his visit with Chuck, and then the inevitable punishment would happen. Castiel just wanted to be able to pass the news along to Dean before that happened. After that, he didn't care what happened to him. This was all too important to everything—to the world and humanity itself—for him to ignore.

"Father, forgive me," Castiel said quietly, praying to the absent Father who may or may not be there anymore. "But I feel this is the right thing to do."

Something pricked in the back of his mind, and for a breathless moment, he thought it was his Father, reaching out to him, but then he recognized it simply as the signatures of other angels.

Castiel's eyes snapped wide open, feeling his brothers coming toward him. He glanced around again for any sign of Dean, but there was none.

"No, not yet," he said and hurried inside the abandoned building. If he was going to be taken, he wasn't going to go without a fight. Not this time. He had to find a way to get out of there and meet with the Winchesters.

He swiftly ran to a bare wall and yanked up his sleeve. Pulling out his angel blade, his cut deep into his forearm and as blood welled up, he dipped his fingers in it, and began to smear it over the wall, forming the banishing sigil.

Once he had finished with that, he started on a warding sigil too, but it was too late. The door blew open of its own accord and in strode Zachariah and several other angels. Castiel spun to meet them, blade already in hand, and blood dripping down his arm.

"Castiel, we wondered where you had gotten to," Zachariah said conversationally, stopping a few yards from the angel, hands slipping into his pockets with a nonchalant air.

Castiel didn't say anything, not wanting to incriminate himself. Perhaps Zachariah didn't know why he was here.

But of course he did. Zachariah always knew. He cocked his head to one side. "I really hope you don't think you can fight your way out of here, Castiel. Because in case you haven't noticed, you're outnumbered here."

Castiel shook his head. "I'm not going with you."

"Is this rebellion? Is that it?" Zachariah said, almost eagerly. Castiel knew Zachariah was just waiting for the moment he got to denounce him. This would not be the first time Castiel was to be punished at Zachariah's hands.

But…it might be the last.

But he wasn't going down without a fight.

"Is it rebellion, Zachariah?" he asked darkly. "Or am I the only one questioning orders we don't even know are coming from God?"

Zachariah shook his head. "Oh, Castiel, I see that Uriel got to you after all."

"No," Castiel cut him off. "I am not loyal to Lucifer by any means. I just want to avoid this war if it is not truly necessary. And if you let Sam Winchester kill Lilith, you know what will happen."

Zachariah narrowed his eyes. "It will come to pass. It's written, Castiel."

"By who?" Castiel demanded. "Because for some reason, I don't think this is God's will."

"How dare you question what is our father's will?" Zachariah snapped, stepping closer to Castiel as the other angel took a step back. Only a little further now. "You have spent too much time with those humans, Castiel, they have corrupted you! It seems I have to teach you your place. Again."

Castiel took another step back as if about to run. Zachariah smirked.

"Come on, now, Castiel. You know you can't run. Come accept your punishment. It will all be easier after that."

"I'm not running," Castiel said firmly. "I'm just buying myself some time."

He leapt for the banishing sigil he had made earlier, but before he could clap his hand against it, someone tackled him from behind.

One of the other angels who had come with Zachariah had come around behind him and gotten the jump on him. Castiel twisted around, getting his blade up and swiping at the other angel. His opponent jumped back and barely dodged Castiel's blade.

By then the rest of the angels were coming to accost Castiel while Zachariah shouted at them to take him down.

Castiel lashed out with his blade, slashing one of the angels across the chest, and stabbing another in the arm. He didn't really want to have to kill his brothers, but his message was too important to not deliver.

As much as he hated running from a fight, he thought of simply flying off, but before he could spread his wings, a length of chain came out of nowhere over his head, and was jerked firmly around his upper arms and locked behind his back. Castiel cried out as sigils flared briefly on the metal links, and then his blade was slipping from his hand and he was collapsing to the ground, limp. Not only did the sigils paralyze him, but they bound his grace, and his wings. He could feel them pressing the ethereal appendages painfully against his back, keeping him grounded and powerless.

Zachariah strode over to him and kicked him onto his back, looking down with a high-and-mighty expression. "Did you really think you were going to get out of this one, Castiel?"

Castiel just glowered up at him. Zachariah sighed and shook his head, turning to the other angels. "Take him. We have a lot to talk about."

Castiel was hauled to his feet and whisked off through the ether. Even if he could have put up a fight he was given no chance this time. He just couldn't believe he had failed.

How was he going to get his message to the Winchesters now?