Chapter 6: Chuck

Gabriel and Lucifer reached the room on Dean's final word, the two archangels exchanging a charged glance as they entered the cell. Sam moved to the side as Gabriel carefully sat down on the mattress beside Dean, gently touching his fingers to Cas's forehead. "Michael's burned him almost to death. I don't know how he's even holding on right now."

"Can you heal him?" Dean looked up at Gabriel, his eyes half-blind with a faint blue light from Cas's fading grace. His right hand was still gripping Cas's arm tightly, his left held in a fist in an echo of the grip his soul had on what remained of the angel's essence.

"There's nothing to heal, Dean. His vessel, his body, is whole and healthy, it's his grace that is injured. Just as I can't heal his burned wings, I can't regenerate any other part of his true form. Only dear old Dad can do that. I don't think Michael realized how much damage he did." He paused for a long moment before dropping his eyes to the ground. "Or he knew that Cas would die and he lied to you about healing him."

Lucifer tilted his head and reached out to place a hand on Cas's forehead. "He has so little grace left. I don't think he has enough to regenerate what he lost." His hand brushed Dean's as he pulled away and he grabbed Gabriel's shoulder in shock at what he found. "Brother . . ."

"Yes, I know."

"What?" Sam looked back and forth between the two archangels and for a long moment, only the sound of Cas's strangled breathing filled the silence.

Gabriel sighed and reached out to take Sam's hand, projecting as much calm into the hunter as he could. "Castiel is missing a tiny piece of grace. The rest of his grace is burned and dark, but still there inside him. This piece, it's not burned, it's gone. He gave it to Dean at some point in the past few hours. The only reason Castiel would do that was because he was too weak to heal him but he wasn't willing to let your brother suffer."

"Can I give it back? Would it be enough to help him?"

"It's bound to your soul now," Gabriel replied sadly. An idea blossomed in his eyes, and he clapped his hand on the hunter's shoulder. "However, that does give me an idea of how to save him. Just hold your hands tightly around his grace, Dean. I think I know what to do."

Lucifer furrowed his brow as he realized what Gabriel was considering. "He needs grace. More of his or someone else's shouldn't make a difference. If he could get a jumpstart, he should be able to start healing on his own. Even so, it will take a long time."

"As long as he has time, that's good enough," Sam replied, casting worried eyes over the strain on his brother's face. Dean wouldn't be able to keep a tether on Cas much longer.

"He wouldn't let me do this if he was conscious, but at the moment he has no choice and this is the only option we have." Gabriel turned to his brother archangel, flipping his blade in his hand and offering Lucifer the hilt. He materialized a short vial, half the length of his finger, and raised his chin to expose his neck. "Can I trust you, brother?"

Gold eyes met clear blue, and the older brother nodded. Reaching out with the blade, Lucifer made a tiny cut at the base of Gabriel's neck, carefully suctioning a minute amount of grace into the container before healing the wound. The bottom half of the vial swirled with glowing, bright blue archangel grace, Lucifer holding his finger over the top to keep it from returning to its owner. He handed Gabriel his blade back and raised his own chin, smiling at the shock in his brother's eyes. "He might need a bit more, and I was always stronger than you."

Gabriel chuckled, reveling in the sibling camaraderie that he had not experienced in eons, taking a tiny amount of Lucifer's grace and healing the wound, holding the full vial near Cas's mouth. As the super-powered grace flowed into the seraph, he gasped and almost jerked free of Dean's arms, his eyes shooting open and glowing with his own restored power. Dean pulled free from his mind as Cas's flickering light returned to a steady beacon, maybe not as bright as before but no longer in danger of fading out. The two archangels watched proudly as their raven-haired brother slowly returned to consciousness and stared up at Dean, shock in his crystal blue eyes.

"You're not Michael."

"We had a last-minute rescue. Michael isn't a problem anymore, I hope."

"For the moment he is safely contained," Lucifer replied, Cas turning his head to stare at the two blonde archangels.

"How? Why? Gabriel, Lucifer . . . I don't understand."

"Well, after Michael got free and grabbed the two of you, lil' bro here returned to his hulking moose and sprung me from the Cage into a constructed vessel after I promised to be on my best behavior. He heard your human pray for you on angel radio, and we were able to pinpoint your location and save you."

Cas sighed in something between shock and relief, resting his head on Dean's shoulder. "You promised that you would save me, and you did."

"I almost didn't, honeybee," Dean whispered, so focused on the angel that he didn't see the amazed look Sam exchanged with Gabriel, or the little cheer dance the three huntresses shared outside the cell. They could see that Dean had finally accepted his feelings for the dark-haired angel during their ordeal as Michael's hostages. "He broke me, and I'm sorry about that. Seeing him holding you by the neck . . . God, Cas, it was too much for me. I thought that accepting Michael was the only way to save you. I had to do something."

"I know, Dean. I'm not angry at you, I promise. I was so . . . I gave up when you left with him. When I thought I would never see you as you again, it was too much."

Dean sighed, his eyes brimming with tears that he no doubt would refuse to shed in front of so many people, tightening his left arm around Cas's waist and raising his right hand to cradle the angel's head. "Don't do that to me again."

"Stop pissing off archangels and I think I can assure you of that."

Dean laughed, his tears fading as he finally relaxed, finally realized that he and Cas were safe and with their family again. Dean slowly released his tight hold on the seraph, pushing himself to his feet and pulling Cas up to stand beside him. The angel turned to face his friends, clearly unconcerned by his lack of shirt or the strange way his coat sat on his shoulders. The tips of his wings stuck out above the collar, but they were covered in black t-shirt bandages and the humans hadn't seen them at all. Cas looked at Gabriel, shrinking away from the sudden flash of pity in those golden eyes.

"Cas, it's okay to show them. Maybe they know some way to help."

Cas nodded and turned around, slipping his trench coat off his shoulders and gripping it tightly in one hand. He felt Dean's gentle support as Sam gasped, the huntresses moving into the cell with the hope that they could be of some comfort to the angel. "Michael pulled them all out," Cas whispered brokenly, resisting the urge to flex against the tie holding his wings in place. "I still can't hide them."

"We'll find a way to heal them, Cassie," Gabriel comforted, reaching out to place a warm hand between his brother's shoulder blades, smiling as the younger angel relaxed. "I'm sorry he did this to you, again. I don't know if you remember . . ."

Cas nodded when Gabriel trailed off, turning back to face the group. "I remember Michael's idea of behavioral correction. But what else could I do, except try to protect Dean?"

Gabriel chuckled at the hunter's blush. "It's what makes you a good guardian angel, Cas."

"It makes him a great deal more than that," a surprisingly familiar voice countered as the amulet that Dean had hung around Cas's neck began to glow with a brilliant white light.

The three angels turned toward the back of the cell, staring in speechless shock at the deceptively short man with brown hair, blue eyes, and scruffy brown beard who had suddenly appeared in the dilapidated building. A man that Castiel had been certain must be dead. Dean reached up to touch the necklace, shaking his head.

"Chuck?"

His voice seemed to break the angels out of their stupor, Lucifer glaring angrily as Cas tilted his head in confusion and Gabriel took a handful of steps forward. "Dad?"

"Hello, son," Chuck greeted, warmth in his light blue eyes. "Sons," he amended, extending his glance to include the other two angels.

Claire laughed, stowing her angel blade as she stepped forward to take a position just behind Gabriel. "No way. You're God? Like, The God?"

Chuck nodded, smiling brightly as Dean groaned and threw his head back. "This is the last thing we need right now. Seriously?" He returned his gaze to Chuck, tilting his head as his shoulders and arms tightened in fury. "Where the hell were you ten hours ago when your less sane son was torturing the fuck out of my angel?!"

Chuck twitched his finger and turned off the light emanating from Cas's necklace, his calm, kind expression never wavering. "Free will is part of the package, for humans and archangels. And, also one incredibly rebellious seraph." He nodded at Cas, but the smile on his face softened any blow the raven-haired angel might have felt. "If you remember, I wrote the book before you lived it. I knew that this was coming, but I had to let it play out."

"You let him suffer like that, you let him almost die, for the sake of free will?"

"For the sake of this," Chuck replied, waving one hand at Dean's comforting arm around Cas's waist and the other at Sam standing just inches behind Gabriel. "For the sake of seeing my fourth son return from his self-imposed exile. For the sake of seeing my second son released back in the world and getting along with his siblings, at least somewhat. For the sake of seeing my first son returned from insanity to a place where he can finally heal. And for seeing my most obedient and devoted son receive both the reward that he has wanted for years and the one that I have wanted to give him."

Sam seemed to catch on a bit quicker than his brothers, Jody and Donna looking up at the taller hunter for some sort of an explanation. "Uh, Gabriel is fourth, Lucifer is second, Michael is first, and Cas is the obedient one, I guess."

"I'm not," Cas whispered, bright eyes meeting Chuck's. He wanted to be as comfortable around the man as he had when he was just the Prophet Chuck, but he couldn't help but be nervous. "I'm not obedient or devoted. I'm rebellious and broken." He waved his hands at his bandaged and featherless wings, his eyes bright with unshed tears. "What can you see in me, Father?"

Chuck stepped forward, squeezing Gabriel's arm as he passed and reaching out to cup Cas's face in one hand. "Let's take this conversation somewhere more private."

Dean shook his head and looked around in shock. Between his last two words, Chuck had teleported the entire group of angels and hunters back to the bunker, the group from the lobby of the police station standing under the stairs in a circle around Michael's unconscious form while the three huntresses had landed on one side of the main table across from the three angels and two Winchesters.

Sam turned to Jody and gestured toward the group of hunters by the door. "Hey, can you get Michael carried down to the dungeon and keep them out of here for now? Tell them everything went well and we'll meet in an hour or so for a debrief."

"Of course, Sam." Jody and Donna headed for the group of hunters, both of them grabbing one of Claire's arms with one hand and forcefully guiding her away, knowing that the boys and the angels needed some time alone.

Clearly, Lucifer was not interested in time alone with his father. He hadn't stopped glaring the entire time, flaring his grace for a second before turning to storm away. Gabriel saw him open his wings to leave, reaching out to grab his older brother's arm in an effort to make him stay. Lucifer turned and sighed, closing his wings as Gabriel pulled him to one side, gold eyes meeting angry blue. "Luci."

The older archangel nodded, glancing at Chuck before returning his gaze to his brother. Their father was watching as the hunters moved Michael out of the main room, temporarily distracted from his other two sons' conversation. "He cast me out, Gabe. He sent me away for loving him so much. What am I supposed to say to him?"

"Luci, you haven't seen him in hundreds of thousands of years. This is our chance to rebuild our family, to have what you and I have always wanted. Don't let your anger keep you from being happy. I want you to be my brother again, and He's kind of a big part of that."

"I can't forgive Him for what He did," the Devil growled, his eyes flashing red.

Gabriel smiled and tilted his head to the side. "You must have forgiven him a little, because you're saying the capital H's again."

The older archangel sighed and dropped his head. Part of him was thrilled to have a brother to talk to again, one who wasn't insane and trying to kill him, but being a family again with their long-absent father was asking a lot. "Gabe."

"Just talk to Him, okay? I can't say I completely forgive Him for leaving, but I think we can both be strong enough to have a conversation. Besides, we're going to need help with Michael if we want to do anything other than throw him back in the Cage."

Lucifer let the red fade from his eyes as he slowly nodded. "It's good to have you back, Gabe."

"It's good to have you not stabbing me, Luci."

Sam and Dean looked up in confusion as the two archangels burst out laughing, returning to the table and claiming two chairs on the opposite side from Chuck, Cas, and the brothers. Sam met Gabe's eyes and raised his eyebrow, but the archangel shook his head and indicated that they could talk about it later.

Dean cleared his throat as the last of the hunters vanished deeper into the bunker, their footsteps swallowed up by the huge building. "Ok, Chuck, spill." He paused as he realized what he had said, green eyes narrowing slightly as he stared at the smaller man and struggled to maintain his composure. "Or do we call you God now?"

"Let's skip the G-word. I prefer Chuck," the author replied brightly.

"Ok, fine. Chuck. Cas has been through a lot today, so if you could explain yourself in ten words or less, that would be great."

Gabriel snorted, shaking his head when all eyes turned toward him. Chuck thought for a moment before answering, holding his hands in front of his chest as a brilliant blue-white ball of light appeared above his palms. "I have a gift for Castiel, my most obedient son."

Cas smacked Dean on the shoulder as he realized that the hunter was actually counting Chuck's words, satisfied that he had met the hunter's arbitrary limit. They were interrupted by Gabe's strangled gasp, the two archangels appearing in a flutter of wings behind their brother, each of them placing a hand on one of Cas's shoulders. "What's going on?"

Gabriel squeezed the seraph's shoulder, unable to contain his vibrant grin. "He accepts, Dad."

Lucifer reached for the tie roped around Cas's wings, releasing the knot and letting it fall to the floor. "How long did that take you?"

"After I brought Castiel back as a seraph, I abandoned my human life and went into seclusion. While I was there, I started working on this. It has taken me almost six years to get this far. It isn't enough to create something from scratch, but it can work on someone who is already a seraph. If he accepts it."

"Father, what's going on?"

"It's your reward, Castiel. Do you accept?"

Cas looked at Dean, confusion in his crystal blue eyes, relaxing as the hunter slowly nodded. He had no more idea what was going on than his angel did, but the Chuck he knew was a good man and if he said it was a reward than it was. He couldn't imagine that God would intentionally hurt his "most obedient son".

"Yes, I accept."

Chuck stepped forward, the light in his palms swirling. "Sam, Dean; close your eyes."

The hunters closed their eyes, turned away, and buried their faces in their arms. By now, they were well accustomed to protecting themselves from sudden bursts of angelic power. Chuck held the light out and let it touch Cas's chest, the two archangels squeezing his shoulders in support as the ball of grace entered him, exploding outward in a flash of light too bright for a human to look at. Castiel screamed, more as a means of relief than in response to any actual pain, falling to his hands and knees on the floor as his brothers and father stepped away.

"Cas?!" Dean turned back to the table, running over to kneel beside his angel as two huge, fully feathered blue-black wings slowly unfurled and arched above his head. The hunter caught his breath in shock as a second pair of wings stretched out below the second, followed by a smaller third. "Cas, you said that a seraph can't manifest all six wings."

"A seraph can't," Gabe replied proudly, manifesting all three pairs of his own golden wings, Lucifer following suit with dark red wings tightly folded against his back.

"Oh God," Sam breathed, shaking his head and completely unable to tear his hazel eyes away from the kneeling angel. Dean glanced at him with a "what the hell" look on his face, still not quite understanding what had happened. "Chuck made him into an archangel."

"I can feel it," Cas whispered, flexing his wings as he tested the strange sensations of having all three pairs attached to his human vessel. His eyes were glowing with a sapphire light, shades darker than it had been when he was a seraph. "This power, it's so . . . I think I can feel the stars breathing . . ."

"What?"

Gabriel shook his head. "It's hard to interpret, the connection that archangels have with the universe. We took a while to get used to it, and that was before there were tons of planets and humans and stuff. Luci and I can help him get through this transition."

Dean reached out and cupped Cas's face in one hand, raising his head so their eyes could meet. He felt like he was staring into the soul of the universe, billions of stars swirling in his angel's blue eyes, but he resisted the urge to fall too deep. "Hey, come back to me, honeybee."

"Dean?"

"Cas, look at me, ok? Gabe and Lucifer are going to help you later, but for now can you just focus on your human form and try to remember what it's like to just be Cas?"

"I will try, Dean." Cas rocked back onto his heels, slowly rising to his full height and folding his wings. His eyes were still glowing with that unearthly sapphire light, but he seemed to have gained some small amount of control. "Father, I don't know how to thank you. I don't know why you gave this to me."

"Because when I asked my children to love the humans, some of them tried, some of them refused, and the rest of them gave lip service to the concept. To be honest, I was prouder of Lucifer for refusing than I was of Raphael for pretending when he has always truly hated my favorite creation. And some of them learned to care somewhat, or at least learned not to see humans as worthless mud monkeys, but you, Castiel, were the first angel to ever love humanity. I know that you used to sit and watch them, and sometimes you would secretly help them or heal their children, and I know how long you have loved Dean. You rebelled against Heaven, against three incredibly powerful archangels, and died multiple times, but you never gave up."

"But I made so many mistakes," Castiel argued. "I freed the Leviathans, I broke Sam's mind, I made deals with the King of Hell, I killed Raphael, helped kick the angels out of Heaven, and I am responsible for the death of more than two-thirds of the Heavenly Host. Everything is broken and wrong because of me."

Chuck shook his head. "You're looking at it wrong. You stopped Uriel from destroying Dean. You saved him from being forced to become Michael's vessel against his will. You stopped your brothers from starting an Apocalypse that would have destroyed most of the world, and then you prevented Raphael from enacting his plan to start the whole thing all over again. The Leviathans were an unfortunate side-effect of that situation, but you helped Dean and Sam end that threat, as well."

"And Metatron tricked you with that whole kicking everyone out of Heaven thing," Dean soothed, wrapping his arm around Cas's waist. The newly minted archangel seemed to have gained some control, the glow gone from his eyes and his wings slightly more settled. "And you were a human for months; that's certainly punishment enough."

Cas chuckled, slowly relaxing. "I just don't feel that worthy."

"You stood up to me, baby brother," Lucifer pointed out. "Even though you knew I would kill you. It was kinda brave."

"And you stood with Chuck against Raphael." Sam glanced at the one-time prophet, tilting his head. "Well, that was kind of pointless, but brave anyway."

"Why do you think I kept bringing you back? I have always been proud of you, son."

Gabriel placed his hand on Cas's shoulder, ruffling his golden wings as they disappeared. "You need some peace and quiet to get used to your drastically increased power level. Come with me; I know just the place." Gabriel vanished with a rustle of feathers, Castiel opening his wings and flapping once to follow. They had never seen the actual action of the wings flapping, only heard the sound, and both hunters were glad they finally got to experience it.

Left alone facing his father, Lucifer flexed his shoulders and hid his own wings, a hardness in his eyes to match the stubborn set of his chin. Without saying a word, he stalked past the hunters and vanished deeper into the bunker, headed for an empty bedroom. Chuck sighed as his son left, having no idea how to talk to the child he had banished eons earlier, so he settled on offering a friendly smile to the hunter brothers.

"So, what now?"

Sam ran his fingers through his hair, finally accepting that the threat was over, that he had saved his brother, and that he had survived an assault on an angelic garrison led by the most powerful of the Archangels. "I need to go talk to the hunters and make sure that Michael is locked down. Uh, Chuck, are you going to talk to him? We didn't really have a plan beyond catching him and saving Dean and Cas."

"Yeah, I'll talk to him when he wakes up. Hopefully he's happier to see me than Lucifer was."

Sam nodded and turned to leave, pausing mid-turn as something occurred to him. "Chuck, you've been gone a long time. I mean as God, not as the prophet persona you maintained. Why did you come back now? Why did you turn Cas into an archangel?"

Chuck sighed and walked around the table, running his fingers over the wood grain. "It's hard to explain, to be honest. I wasn't going to return. I planned to write an autobiography and just fade away, but Metatron convinced me that I am still needed here."

"Metatron? You have got to be kidding me." Dean shook his head and turned away, clearly remembering his less-than-pleasant time with the ex-angel scribe.

"He helped open my eyes," Chuck replied. "To see him argue, with me, about how wonderful humanity is, to hear him defend it . . . I'm still kind of processing, I guess? But when I saw that Lucifer and Gabriel, who have done nothing but fight for millions of years, band together to save a human and the angel who fell for him . . ." He trailed off, shrugging. "I didn't have words. And I always have words. I knew that I had to return. For the sake of free will, I had to let the fight play out, but seeing Castiel's strength in the face of his strongest brother . . . seraphs don't stand up to archangels. They aren't designed to, they don't want to. He surprised me, and I am not often surprised."

"Are you going to help with Amara?"

Sam slapped Dean on the shoulder in reprimand, but Chuck clearly didn't mind the question. "Yeah, I've thought about that. When I locked her away before, I had the help of the four newly-created archangels. She's pretty much my equal in power, maybe a bit stronger, so I needed my sons' power to win."

"And now there are four archangels again," Sam mused. "Although one is really new to his powers and one is certifiably insane and mostly homicidal."

Chuck shrugged. "We have some work to do, granted. And it would help if Lucifer would talk to me. I think I'll start with Michael as soon as he wakes up."

"Uh, yeah, good plan. I'll go check on him." Sam turned to walk away again, heading down the long hallway into the bowels of the bunker and the pack of hunters waiting for him there.

Dean's stomach growled at that moment, the hunter shrugging at the sound. "Been a while since I had something other than Cas's hoarded snacks to eat. I'm going to cook something up."

"Oooh, got any bacon?"

Dean looked at Chuck incredulously, a slow smile spreading across his face. "You eat bacon?"

"Of course."