The Year of Redemption

Chapter 28: The End Where I Begin

"Hello, Dean." Dean spun around and saw the brown-haired lady with the gray peacoat. For a second, he recognized her sapphire blue eyes. But the next instant, they were brown again.

"What am I supposed to do now?" he asked her.

"You'll know," she replied simply.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Do you remember the last fight you had with Cas? About Sammy?" she asked all of a sudden.

Dean had no idea what this had to do with anything. "Yeah...?"

She looked Dean straight in the eyes and spoke as though her words had profound significance. "Sometimes family has to stab you in the back, Dean."

Dean was still confused. He didn't know how this was helping him. Then again, he also had no idea how she knew about their fight, or how she knew exactly what he had said to Cas.

She continued, "But sometimes family is the only thing you can count on to save you too." She stared at him intently, as if she was willing Dean to make some sort of meaning out of her riddles. Dean was about to say something back when her eyes flashed to sapphire blue again. "And sometimes family is closer than you might think," she added.

Dean looked straight at her. All at once, he knew why she had seemed so familiar. "Cas?" he asked incredulously. She smiled, and his eyes widened more. Dean pulled her into a tight hug, then held her at arm's length, studying her face. Her eyes were still deep blue. "But, how?" he asked.

"I'm just his life force," she explained. "He was very strong to be able to hold onto me and try to guide you. You didn't think he'd let you do this alone, did you?" Her eyes twinkled, and Dean recognized more and more of Cas in them. "You must continue on your own now, Dean." She stepped away from him, and he dropped his hands from her arms.

Dean was about to protest, to ask her more questions, when she smiled and then vanished in a blaze of light. An obsidian foot appeared with the word "Faith" inscribed on it. Dean picked it up and placed it in the cauldron with the rest.

The Enochian symbols on the outside of the cauldron began to glow, lighting up one by one. Dean had collected all of the pieces.

"He must collect the pieces and meld them back together," a voice whispered, kicking up a sudden breeze that made the torches flicker against the cavern walls. "He must dip his hand in holy water to put the fire out and seal them back together." Then the breeze abruptly died down.

Dean knew what he had to do. He grabbed a torch from the wall and threw it in the cauldron. The engravings on each obsidian piece began to glow. The words rearranged themselves into Enochian symbols that matched those on the outside of the cauldron.

The pieces started to vibrate, then shift in the cauldron and meld themselves together. The flames became larger, and Dean could no longer make out what was happening inside. Once the flames turned blue, Dean grabbed a jug of holy water sitting along the cavern wall and threw it on top of them. There was a simmering sound, and the fire was extinguished, leaving a trail of steam coming from the cauldron.

Just then, the torches along the wall began swaying in another breeze that spontaneously came up. Dean heard wings fluttering, then soft footsteps on the earthen floor. He turned away from the cauldron and saw shadows dancing on the walls in the corridor.

"Alright, Cas, time to go." Dean peeked into the cauldron. A body was laying at the bottom in a shallow layer of water. "Up you go," Dean said, grabbing the body under the shoulders and hauling it out of the cauldron. It was still hot, and it burned Dean's skin where he touched it, but Dean ignored the pain.