The Good Life (Book 11, The Life Series, Supernatural)

The Future

At home in the bunker, I was researching for days and hours at the map table. Amara and Dean were sitting nearby with Aiden, eating.

Sam walked in, looking around at all of the notes around me. "What's up, Beautiful Mind?"

I sighed, exhausted. "Guess I just figured we can't exactly track Dagon, so I've been reading up on nephilim, trying to figure out how much time we have before..."

"'Lil Lucifer pops?" Amara finished.

"Yeah," I answered. "Okay, so we know Kelly got pregnant sometime in early December. According to the lore, nephilim don't need 9 months to get to full term, so I think she will be giving birth around May 18th. Which means..."

"We have less than a month to find her," Amara finished.

"Yeah, and exactly no idea where to start," Sam told us.

"Okay, but even if we do find her, what then?" Dean asked.

"I don't know," I told them. "I mean, I--I..."

We heard the bunker door open, looking up to see Castiel walking in.

Aiden smiled when he saw him. "Cas."

Castiel walked downstairs toward us. "Hello."

"Hey," I told him. "You're all right. Um... Where have you been?"

"Let me rephrase that for Ness," Dean told him. "Where the hell have you been? And why have you ignored our phone calls?"

Castiel hesitated. "Where I was, the--the reception was, uh, poor."

"No bars?" Dean asked. He looked at Sam, Amara and me. "No bars. That's his excuse. Wow."

"I was in Heaven," Castiel told us. "I was working with the angels. When I saw Dagon had captured Kelly, I--I thought they could help."

"And?" Sam asked.

Castiel sighed, shaking his head. "Nothing."

"Well, at least you're back," I told him. "We're glad you're back."

"Really?" Dean asked. "No, I'm sorry. Okay, 'cause while you were striking out in Heaven, we had a shot at Dagon, and we lost."

"I know," Castiel told us guiltily. "I received your messages."

Dean nodded sarcastically. "Oh, you did--you did receive the messages? Okay, that's good."

I sighed. "Dean..."

Dean looked at Castiel. "So not only were you ditching us, but you were also ignoring us? That's great. 'Cause we really could've used the backup. But, uh, you were too busy with, um..." He clicked his tongue. "What was it? Nothing?"

Amara shook her head. "Dad..."

Dean looked at Castiel. "What the hell is wrong with you, man? You know, whatever. That's..." He chuckled bitterly. "Yeah. Welcome back."

Sam gave him a look. "Dean, y—"

Dean shook his head, walking away.

***********

Sam, Dean, Amara and I were in the library.

I was researching, still going on no rest.

Dean took the book I was reading away from me. "Hey, come on, Ness. "Get some sleep, all right? You're not gonna find Dagon tonight."

"Guys, what if we've been going about this whole thing the wrong way, you know?" I asked. "I--I mean, we--we can't track Dagon, right? We know that. We've tried. But--but what if we can track the nephilim?"

Amara cleared her throat. "How?"

Sam sighed. "Well... Okay, the baby's half-angel, right? So remember Gadreel?"

"The psycho angel who took your body for a test drive?" I asked. "Yeah, what about him?"

"All right, well there was this, uh, there was this spell," Sam explained. "Cas and I were working on it--to--to find him."

"Yeah, but it didn't work," Dean told him.

Amara sighed. "Yeah."

Dean looked at Sam. "You needed Gadreel's grace, and he couldn't yank enough out of you."

I started to think about applying that to our current situation, chuckling in realization. "Of course."

"Of course what?" Amara asked.

"Of course I am an idiot," I told them.