Title: Turn Back the Clock
Author: lt_indigo
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Length: 3,948 words
Warning: none
Summary: In which Dean is offered the chance to change the past.
Author's note: Set in the aftermath of 7.17 "The Born-Again Identity"

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He couldn’t do this: he couldn’t get Cas back and lose him all over again in the same day. He couldn’t just trade Cas for Sam. This was bullshit! Why couldn’t things just go their way for once? Why couldn’t the three of them just be healthy and happy and left alone to do their own thing for once in their lives? Why was it always down to them to save the freaking world?

He pulled the car over at the side of the road and deliberately didn’t look at Sam because Dean knew damn well that Sam would have that sympathetic, understanding look on his face; the one that he saved for wheedling important pieces of information from grieving family members and for when Cas was in deep, deep shit. The look that meant he really wanted Dean to talk about his feelings or some such crap. Because Sam knew noth… no, Sam knew fucking everything, because he always did, and Dean couldn’t look at that amount of understanding, that level of sympathy right now. He just couldn’t deal with it. He needed space to think, to work out what he could do to save Cas. Work out who was left for him to turn to.

He shoved the door open with both hands and stumbled out of the car, the soft grass of the verge cushioning his unsteady steps when what he really wanted – what he really needed – was harshness that jarred his knees, an edge of physical discomfort to distract him from his tumultuous thoughts, sharpen his mind so that he could have that clarity that came with the hunt.

There was a copse of trees maybe a hundred yards from the car, too small to be home to anything nasty, offering tantalising seclusion, somewhere away that he could get himself back together and then work out how to put his angel back together again.

He made it – barely – before he collapsed to his knees and lost what little there was in his stomach. This – this was too much. The world couldn’t demand this of him again: Dean had given everything – his dad, his brother, his angel – to bring a screeching halt to the apocalypse. He had watched Sam be buried by memories of Hell, drag himself back out only to lose himself to Lucifer. He had watched Bobby fight a bullet to the fucking brain to try and help them one last time. He had seen Cas self-destruct before learning to ask for help, and now he was beyond even that as he was trapped in a fight inside his own head against his older brother. And Dean was just so done with it all. All the bullshit of their lives.

But who was left to help them? Who was left alive out of their allies? Not Bobby, not Gabriel, not Anna, not even Balthazar. And there was no way in, well, Hell, Dean was going to make another crossroads deal, because Crowley wanted Cas too damn bad for that. There was no-one.

No, there was one person left who cared about Cas, who had the mojo to help him. The question was, would he listen? Did he care enough?

“Look, God,” he stuttered out, his mind slipping easily into ‘prayer mode’ after so much practice in praying to Cas, “we’ve had our differences; things have been said, and I think You know I wouldn’t ask, but it’s Cas. He’s… Jeez, I don’t even know exactly, but he’s not okay, and who knows what he’ll do, what he can do right now? And I’m scared – he can’t protect himself right now, and I can’t be there for him because of this mess… Just, please. He needs Your help.”

“I’m impressed, Dean.”

The voice was soft, gentle, and he knew it from somewhere. He looked up slowly, his eyes snagging on the pristine white shoes and slacks, and his mind tried desperately hard not to fall into the threatening flashback to that hideous memory of Lucifer wearing the same when he was riding Sam in 2014. Because this wasn’t Sam – the voice was all wrong and those feet weren’t big enough for his gigantic brother. He forced his eyes up to look at the face of this intruder, this interloper in his sanctuary.

“Chuck?!”

Chuck smiled serenely and stroked his hand across Dean’s cheek to brush away a tear.

“No, Dean; Chuck is my vessel. Prophets are peculiarly gifted that way.”

Figured. The body language was all wrong for Chuck anyway – this dude was standing tall and self-assured and didn’t reek of booze and stale sweat. The suit was spotless (and who wore a white suit, really?), the hair and beard both neat and tidy, the eyes bright.

“It took faith, and a lot of courage, to make that prayer,” Chuck said, His eyes soft. “But more than that, it was your love for Castiel that called me here.”

Dean flushed but said nothing. He had only just started admitting that to himself, goddammit; there was no way he was ready to be called out on it by Cas’ dad, of all people.

“Castiel is… special,” Chuck continued, His eyes softening as if He could see what Dean was thinking. And He probably could, if Dean was honest with himself. “He has never been quite like his brothers, and I was glad to see that he found you. He deserves someone who can care for him.”

“He deserves a family who aren’t complete fuckwits,” Dean snapped, finding that he was unable to censor the thought before it escaped him. And he had so wanted to keep his cool and play nice with this guy. This was the guy who could help Cas, after all: Dean needed to play nice with Him, given that He was here and all, paying attention for once in the last few thousand years.

Chuck actually nodded in agreement. “That’s a fair assessment,” He admitted ruefully. “But I believe your father once told you that family doesn’t end with blood?”

Dean frowned, because that… yeah, that was his dad, wasn’t it? Bobby. Because Dad had done his best, but Bobby was the one who had raised them, treated him and Sam (and Cas, come to think of it) as his own. Bobby was more of a father than Dad had ever been, and Dean realised that he had thought of Bobby that way for a long, long time. But what was Chuck driving at? Oh. Really?

Chuck gave a gentle snort of laughter. “Yes, Dean, really. Castiel is your family now; yours and Sam’s. You chose each other, and that means an awful lot more to him these days. It’s been nice, seeing him grow up.”

Dean got to his feet, feeling the need to not be kneeling in front of this asshole, even if He was God Himself. The extra height gave him a psychological advantage, at least in his own mind. He steadfastly ignored the part that knew this guy could wipe him off the face of the Earth if he had half a mind to, because that part really wasn’t helping with his height advantage thing here.

“Were you riding Chuck’s ass all along?” Dean growled. Because even if this so wasn’t the time, he needed to know. Had He been talking to them all along, watching them try and fail and stumble and… “Did you watch Ellen and Jo die? Did you watch Cas get blown up by Raphael?”

Chuck shook His head. “No, Dean. I took Chuck as my vessel right at the very end; I led you to Stull Cemetery, but nothing before that. I fully intended to step in if you were not able to stop Michael and Lucifer yourselves.”

“Why the fuck did you wait? Sam spent two hundred years in the Cage because you waited!”

Chuck wouldn’t meet his eyes. God wouldn’t meet his eyes. That was kind of weird, and Dean wasn’t sure whether to feel proud of that accomplishment or worried.

“Neither of my boys… well, none of them really, except for Castiel, had any respect for humanity,” He said slowly. “The fact that it was the two of you and the intense fraternal bond you share, that defeated two archangels, will have given them something to think about. At least, I hope so. Had I intervened, they would have seen it as me taking a side – Michael would have thought I was choosing Lucifer’s, and Lucifer would have thought I was picking Michael’s. Or they might have assumed I was picking humanity over them and banded together to destroy everything –I don’t know.”

Dean eyed Chuck for a good minute, because on the face of it, that was actually quite well reasoned. It made sense, and was something he had never thought about before. He had tried to come up with any kind of reason to try and give to Cas, to make excuses so that he didn’t feel that his dad was a deadbeat. Because Dean knew what that realisation felt like, and it sucked. Bad. He hadn’t wanted Cas to go through that, but he hadn’t been able to think of it.

Then: “Like you don’t have enough mojo in Chuck’s little finger to swat those two if you wanted.”

Chuck’s expression became a little more stern then. “Yes, Dean, of course I have. And they wouldn’t have learned any respect for humanity if I did. I didn’t come here to argue the apocalypse with you.”

“Cas.” Dean’s voice cracked. It was one syllable and he still couldn’t get it out properly. But Cas was in a locked ward with an untrustworthy demon bitch keeping an eye on him while he was seeing Lucifer crawling out the walls or whatever. And Dean couldn’t think of anywhere right now he would rather be, even though it would mean seeing Cas suffering.

And before he knew it, he was there; the same room Sam had been resident in not four hours beforehand, with God at his side. Now, there was something Dean never thought he would hear himself say, or even just think. Cas was sat on the bed, unmoving. He might have looked peaceful, certainly more so than when he had been flinching at everything and everyone earlier, if not for the fact that Dean knew he would have acknowledged his presence readily, probably even with a small smile. He definitely would have noticed the presence of the Almighty himself, because there was no way Cas would have missed Him, even though he had never seen Him before.

Chuck touched Cas’ face tenderly and for the first time Dean truly appreciated that this was Cas’ Father here, the guy who had created him from stardust or whatever. And He did care.

“Dean,” He said eventually, a note of concern in his voice.

“What?” Dean couldn’t look away from Cas and those unblinking, unseeing blue eyes. He was just waiting for the moment where Cas would come back to life, pick up the unnecessary bits of himself, the bits of the vessel that enabled him to interact with this human world.

“Oh, do you need me to go so you don’t fry me or something? Guessing you’re a bit less subtle than Cas when he goes all nuclear?”

Chuck’s hand caught his wrist and stopped him turning to the door. “No,” He said gently. “This is something even I cannot solve. There are layers upon layers of complexity conspiring against Castiel’s psyche at the moment.”

“But…” Dean couldn’t comprehend: this was God. He was supposed to be omni… The one that was all-powerful. How could he not be able to heal Cas?

“But we can do something to prevent this from happening,” Chuck said. “I am as capable as my sons at bending time. So, tell me, Dean: when would be the best time to return to?”

He blinked slowly, his brain still kind of stuck back at God not being all-powerful after all. “What?”

“Bearing in mind we cannot alter the outcome of the apocalypse, so nothing before then, when would be the best time to make the changes that will prevent Castiel from causing himself so much damage?”

How the hell was Dean supposed to know that? If God couldn’t fathom it out, how was he? Because, by the sounds of things, it wasn’t just this latest thing with Sam and Lucifer that was messing with Cas’ head. Was it the Leviathan possession? The rest of the souls from Purgatory? Something he had done during the civil war?

“Dean, tell me what my son has been doing since I resurrected him last, after Stull.”

Dean shrugged helplessly and sat down beside Cas. One hand hovered pointlessly for a moment before deciding ‘screw it’ and taking Cas’ hand in his. Cas might not be there right now, but it was grounding to be able to do this, to touch him. Last time Dean had touched him, it was helping him to his feet after he had released the monsters back into Purgatory.

“He missed bits of the story out,” Dean admitted. “He’s been so screwed up he didn’t even tell me. So, after Stull, he headed back to Heaven. He figured that things were a mess up there and the angels would need his help straightening things out.”

Chuck nodded. “That’s why I brought him back a seraph – I gave him the seniority to be able to do that.”

Dean glared. “Dick move, keeping him weaker than Raphael. That assclown wasn’t down with the whole ‘no apocalypse’ routine, wanted to get things back on the rails. And Cas… Cas ended up making a deal with Crowley just to keep his head above water.”

Chuck’s eyes closed and He slumped against the counter. “So that’s… He’s been poisoning himself with tainted souls in place of grace.”

His eyes were desperately sad when they opened again, but Dean refused to feel sorry for Him. Maybe He hadn’t known about Raphael, but He still could have paid attention, could have helped. If even Sam and Dean were noticing that shit was going on with the angels, He must have done.

“So that’s where it all went wrong? I should have made him an archangel? I thought about it, but it seemed too big a jump.

Dean shrugged, and his treacherous mind tried to fathom what Cas would be like as an archangel. Would it change him, make him like his dickbag older brothers? Okay, so Cas wasn’t as mindlessly set on following orders as Michael and Raphael, but the only other examples of the breed were Lucifer and Gabriel; neither of whom were exactly model citizens. Okay, so Gabriel had come good in the end, but he still owed Dean for a few dozen deaths. And he made the dick move of getting himself killed by Lucifer when he could have vamoosed and made himself useful elsewhere. He could have helped Cas get Heaven straight.

Chuck was watching him with an expression oddly akin to Cas’ when all his attention was on Dean, when he seemed kind of charmed by how Dean saw things.

“Gabriel? Yes, maybe giving him a boost and a nudge in the right direction might be useful too.”

“But you said nothing before… Gabriel’s still alive?” That was too much. This was getting insane.

“Licking his wounds over in Europe, last I saw him,” Chuck said with a small smile. “He was very badly wounded by Lucifer; he isn’t what he once was. But that is something easily fixed. Shall we?”

“Whoa, whoa.” Dean shied away from the two fingers Chuck had reached out. “Less zapping, more explaining.”

There was a little sigh, so faint that Dean could pretend to have not heard it if he wanted. And with the big G potentially about to set things right, maybe that was the best thing to do. Because there was no way that Dean was leaving Cas to sit in this dank little room with its peeling paint and slightly rusty bedframe for a moment longer, not now he was back here again, with Cas’ hand warm in his. Not when he maybe had the opportunity to feel Cas respond to having his hand held. Not when he could maybe save Sam properly. Was that even possible? He didn’t know how Cas had done it before, when he had yanked Sam’s body out of the Cage but not his soul, and he couldn’t imagine that Archangel Cas would find it as easy as Seraph Cas had, given that the Cage was meant to hold archangels.

“I’m sending you back to the moment I resurrected Castiel,” Chuck said. “At that point, I seem to remember that you were badly beaten, Bobby was, um…”

“Dead,” Dean spat out.

“Yeah. Cas will heal the two of you, and you will change the events that followed. Cas will still have work to do in Heaven, because that’s who he is, but Gabriel will help him and you will help them both avoid what came to pass here. I don’t want to see My youngest parading around believing he’s Me again.”

Dean nodded. He didn’t want to see that either. And he so desperately wanted to ask about the ‘youngest’ thing.

“I will put the situation your brothers found themselves in right. I can’t take away all their time in the Cage, but I can at least cut down the time they spend there, minimise the effect it has on them.”

It would do. It was better than nothing, and God, Chuck, whoever seemed to be pro-not-Apocalypse Now. He also seemed pretty much okay with Dean holding Cas’ hand, with the feelings that were worming their way out and insinuating themselves firmly in his brain now that Dean was acknowledging them.

Slowly, Dean stood, and he turned his back on God, bent back down and brushed his lips very softly against Castiel’s. It was a promise, nothing more.

“See you on the other side, Cas,” he whispered before turning back to God.

“And Dean, one last thing?” Chuck hesitated, his fingers hovering a mere inch from Dean’s forehead. “Don’t screw with my boy. I will know, and I will make Zachariah’s torture look like child’s play.”

Dean gulped. “Yessir.”

And suddenly Dean was blinking up into the bright sunlight that haloed Cas as the angel – shit, the archangel stood over him, smiling gently. Dean remembered this.

“Cas!” He scrambled to his feet and hugged him close. “You’re okay!”

“Yes, Dean,” Cas said, that voice a soft rumble in his ear. “I am better than okay.”

“You’re awesome,” Dean told him, trying to hold things together, not to rush things just yet. Because when he opened his eyes and looked over Cas’ shoulder, Bobby was still lying there, neck broken and eyes glassy. There were things that still needed doing before he could make sure that Cas stayed okay.

Cas seemed to follow this, either reading his mind or simply feeling the moment Dean went from relaxed to stiff. Because it wasn’t easy, even knowing that Cas could fix Bobby in the blink of an eye, knowing that they could change things, that the Leviathans would never be released from Purgatory, that Dick Roman would not get in that lucky shot that ended it all.

Cas extricated himself from Dean’s embrace easily and knelt at Bobby’s side, healing him with barely a thought even though Dean remembered that when Cas had been blown to pieces by Lucifer, he had been so human he had slept the previous night, he had eaten and drunk and done all the things humans needed to do. And now he was an archangel.

Dean explained to Bobby and Cas what Sam had done, much as he had before. Because he didn’t want to go through all this with Bobby when he wasn’t sure yet what he was going to say to Cas. He didn’t want all the questions that Bobby would inevitably have and have to drag Cas’ name through the mud for something he hadn’t even done yet; for something he would now never do.

Bobby had climbed back into his battered old truck and started on the long drive north. And Dean slid onto the hood of the Impala. Cas perched next to him, and Dean took the opportunity to slide his hand into the angel’s. Cas glanced down curiously, then back up at Dean’s face.

“I know you gotta go back upstairs,” Dean said, hoping he didn’t sound half as bad as he felt just saying the words, “but don’t stay too long, yeah?”

“Dean,” Cas said carefully, with that little frown of his; the adorable one that he did when he was trying to fathom humans out. Or really, just Dean. “Your promise.”

He knew which promise Cas was referring to, even though Dean had made another one more recently; a new promise that Dean was fully intending to keep. (And he wouldn’t have to feel bad about not keeping his promise to Sam, since Sam would be out of Hell soon enough.)

“Lisa’s not the one for me, Cas.”

And he closed the gap, kissed Cas for the second time in the space of an hour. Only this time, Cas responded. He was cute and clumsy, but he got the idea quick enough. His lips were soft and warm, and sent tingles up and down Dean’s spine.

Dean had pulled away, leaving things sweet and chaste for now, before their guest had a chance to ruin the moment. But she tried.

“Sheesh, you two took your sweet time.”

Dean sniggered. He couldn’t help it. Chuck had said that Gabriel “wasn’t what he once was”, but that was ridiculous. Because she was just a kid, probably no older than Adam; maybe British, more Sam’s type than Dean’s: tiny, maybe even shorter than Meg’s latest vessel, or Ruby’s last one, but just curvy enough that Dean wouldn’t have turned her down; dark blonde waves cascading over her shoulders and familiar eyes the colour of sunlight shining through whisky.

“Eat me, Gabrielle.”

The pint-sized archangel grinned and raised her eyebrows. “Oh, Deano, you wouldn’t want to upset Daddy by flirting with Cassie’s sister on the first date, would you?”

Cas, for his part, looked scandalised. Insomuch as Cas ever did. “Gabriel, what are you wearing?”

She turned that hundred-Watt grin on Cas. “Fourth generation nephilim,” she said proudly. “My great, great granddaughter.” She dusted off her hands on her jeans, making them cling to her slim legs. “Isn’t she a looker?”

She kind of was, actually, but no way was Dean going to say that out loud. Not after the flirting comment.

“And like you can talk, kid, with that empty vessel of yours,” Gabriel continued playfully before straightening and going all business on them. Which was kind of terrifying in Gabriel, because his – her – business generally meant trouble for Dean.

“Now, Daddy insists I help get Heaven straightened out, says we might have to kick Raph into touch, and that your boy toy can tell us all.” She eyed the pair of them carefully. “And I’m guessing He hasn’t exactly given you any lessons about how to rock all that extra mojo you’re carrying?”

Cas rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “No,” he admitted sheepishly.

“So, Deano, tell me how you’ve got your mind shoved in that body?”

Dean flicked a stray blade of grass off the hood of the car nonchalantly. “Your Dad talked to you and you haven’t guessed?”

“Figures.”

“Yeah. So, anyone fancy fixing the world over beer and pizza? I'm starved.”

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