A/N: Thank you to our anonymous reader Zev for your review! I can't wait until Cas's character arc brings him to a point where he knows his own self-worth and has found peace and happiness. He deserves it. Confident and badass Cas will always be awesome! :D

Thank you so much, everyone who's joined us on this adventure! Aini and I both deeply appreciate the support for this experimental collab and will see you again soon! (Aini sooner, haha, she'll be posting regularly through the summer).

Please enjoy the conclusion, and thank you in advance to any anonymous reviewers ^_^

Chapter 8 - Dear Friends, Once More

Mary and Castiel tumbled out the other side of the portal, and both nearly pitched forward onto the ground, but the fact that they were gripping each other tightly somehow managed to save them from the fall. There was a 'brrp' and pop, and they both spun around as the glowing rift zipped shut and winked out before anyone else could follow them through.

She blinked in the sudden daylight, an afternoon sun burning brightly in a blue sky. The tranquil lake ebbed and flowed against the shore, and sentinel pines rose up out of the ground rather than blood-tinged monoliths. They were actually home.

Mary's heart was pounding so fiercely with adrenaline from the fight, that the only thing she could focus on at that moment was breathing in and out. She almost couldn't believe it. She had only just begun to resign herself to their situation, despite her faith in her boys relentlessly looking for her. To be back so soon…it was like whiplash.

She looked at Castiel, who was gazing morosely at the space where the portal had been. She wondered if those other angels really had a shot against Lucifer. She hoped so.

Mary put a hand on Cas's shoulder, drawing his gaze. "Come on, let's go home." Maybe get him cleaned up first, though the abrasions on his face already seemed to be healing faster than injuries dealt by a blade.

With a solemn nod, Castiel turned to head back toward the house, but paused and quirked a confused look at a tarp that had been spread flat over the ground right behind them. Mary's gut tightened; she knew what it was covering.

She was filled with a sudden urge to find her boys as quickly as possible. She could only imagine how wrecked they must be, and hoped they hadn't done anything stupid.

Yet when she and Cas made their way around to the driveway in search of a vehicle, they both paused in surprise to find the Impala still parked there. Were Sam and Dean still here? Or…or had something happened to them after Mary fell through the rift with Lucifer? There had still been the nephilim about to be born, and she knew how worried her boys were that it would turn out to be something dangerous.

Her nerves started firing with anxiety and adrenaline again as she headed for the front door, Cas right behind her. It wasn't locked, just as it hadn't been that night…what was it, a week ago? It felt longer, being trapped in that nightmare world. It must have been equally torturous for her boys.

Mary pushed the door open and stepped inside. At first, the place seemed quiet, maybe empty, but then she heard shuffling and clinks coming from the kitchen. Not sure what she was walking into, Mary nevertheless closed the distance to the kitchen, only to stop in the entry when she found Sam cleaning up a bunch of empty beer bottles.

Relief flooded through her. "Sam."

He jolted upright, eyes flying wide. "Mom?" he asked, voice cracking on disbelief and hope, and she could have wept at it. "Are you- how did you?" Sam sputtered, finally casting the bottles on the table with a clatter and sweeping around to wrap her in a ginormous hug.

Mary lifted her arms to squeeze back as hard as she could. "It's a long story."

Sam suddenly stiffened and jerked back. "Lucifer?"

"Gone," she replied. "For good."

Some of Sam's shock started to bleed into giddiness. "I can't believe it. We thought that…" He trailed off, obviously not wanting to say that they'd thought she was dead.

Speaking of which. Mary turned to glance over her shoulder in search of Cas, and found him hesitating at the corner, as though he didn't want to disrupt their reunion. Did the idiot still not get that he was part of this family unit too?

Sam followed her gaze, and Mary heard him suck in a sharp breath. "Cas?"

"Hello, Sam."

Sam took a step toward the angel, then paused, a slack-jawed smile washing across his face. "Wait, did Chuck bring you both back?"

"No," Cas replied, rolling his shoulder awkwardly. "As Mary said, it's a long story. I was trapped in the alternate reality with her."

"What?" Sam's brows knitted together. "But…we saw you die. Lucifer—" He choked off, eyes squinting against a glint of moisture, before they widened again and he shot Mary a horrified look. "You didn't bring the Cas from that reality back, did you?"

"No, it really is me, Sam," Cas interjected. "The- the Castiel that Lucifer killed was from that other world."

Sam just stared at him. "What- how?"

"Again, it's a long story," Cas said sheepishly. "And Dean should be here for it—"

"Dean!" Sam suddenly yelled, making Mary wince. "Dean, get down here!" He then moved forward and pulled Castiel into a hug.

"God, Cas," Sam let out in a shuddering breath. "I don't care. You're back; that's all that matters."

Castiel closed his eyes and returned the embrace.

Mary looked up as heavy footsteps came lumbering down the stairs, bringing her eldest with mussed hair and bloodshot eyes.

Dean barreled into the room, looking half awake and hungover. "What? What's wrong?" He froze when he saw them, expression shifting between shock, desperate hope, and paralyzing fear as though he doubted what he was seeing was real. "Cas?" he whispered.

Sam stepped back from the angel, and Castiel turned to give Dean an apologetic look.

"Hello, Dean. It really is me. There was—"

Once again, he was not allowed to finish as Dean surged forward and enveloped him in a crushing hug. Mary wasn't sure who was holding on tighter at that point, and she felt her eyes growing watery. For the first time since she'd been resurrected—maybe the first time in her life—she'd finally been able to give her son something he needed more than anything.

Dean's eyes found hers over Cas's shoulder, and his were just as wet, drowning in sheer relief and gratitude and love. She reached out to clasp his hand where it was half fisted in Castiel's coat. He squeezed back.

Sam put his arm around her shoulders, enfolding them all in one big embrace. Just like when she'd found her way back to them before, only now she saw how something crucial had been missing then. But not anymore.

She knew there was a lot to explain, a lot to catch up on. About Kelly and the child, about what exactly had happened in that alternate universe. But right now, all Mary wanted was this moment, her family complete and back together. All of them.

SPN SPN SPN

Castiel stood at the foot of the grave, eyes fixed on the small marker the Winchesters had left there for his counterpart - for him. It wasn't much, just a stone with a roughly etched cross, yet Castiel could envision either Dean or Sam carefully scoring the lines into it and reverently placing the rock over the mound of earth that they'd laid his empty vessel to rest in.

Of all the times Castiel had died before, there had never...never been anything left behind to bury. He wondered whether some form of his alternate was still out there somewhere, or whether an angel's death was truly as permanent as he and his brethren had always assumed. Was it egotistical to believe that that version of himself had deserved some sort of paradise?

Either way, his memory would live on, and hopefully his legacy, in what his death had bought. Castiel thought about Gabriel and the other angels, wondering how they had fared in the battle, hoping they had survived. He would probably never know for sure… but in his heart, he believed they would.

Reaching into an inner pocket of his coat, Castiel pulled out the book that he had taken from the tiny bookshelf in that other world. The weathered copy of Good Omens was a little rough, a little worn from use, but somehow that was fitting. Castiel eyed the book, then slowly knelt to set it next to the stone.

"I'm sorry," he said out loud, though it was unlikely the words would be heard by anyone but himself. "I wish there had been something to hang on the wall. Something to commemorate you with. But, for whatever it's worth… your family will be alright. I have faith in that. And I don't believe they need any trinkets to remember you and… and what you meant to them."

Castiel closed his eyes, contemplating the other angels' grief and how Sam and Dean might have been similarly grieving. His chest tightened to imagine his friends in so much pain. For several moments, he remained still, before finally heaving a sigh and climbing back to his feet. When he turned, he startled to find Dean standing a few feet away, watching.

"I thought it was you," the Winchester said in a subdued tone.

Castiel ducked his gaze. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Don't- don't apologize for being dead. Or not dead." Dean looked away for a moment, rubbing a hand down his face. When he turned back, there was a sheen in his eyes. "I couldn't even do it."

Castiel frowned, not understanding.

Dean gestured toward the grave. "Sam had to. And you deserved a hunter's pyre, but I just couldn't live with…" His voice broke.

Castiel ached to hear the same pain he'd heard in Gabriel's voice now so audible in Dean's. He shook his head, and took the few steps to reach out and clasp his friend's shoulder. The angel wished he knew what to say to ease the burden Dean seemed insistent on carrying.

"You have nothing to feel guilty for." If anyone was to blame, it was himself.

"I couldn't even come out here and honor you like you deserved."

Castiel lowered his head. "I know we were on strained terms…"

"No. No, Cas, that wasn't- after Lucifer and you and Amara, I thought things were finally going to be good. And then that night in that barn with Ramiel...I almost lost everything, again. And we got our Hail Mary save, again. And then you disappeared for weeks, only to find you were in Heaven. And the thing with the Colt-"

"I know-"

Dean barreled over him, "And we lost you again when that baby-God pulled some sort of crap. So yes, I was pissed, because we were losing you all over again after fighting so hard to save you. I'm never able to save you."

Castiel opened his mouth, his first instinct to assure Dean that it wasn't his job to save him, but then he thought better of it. Although he still—and would always—consider himself a guardian to the Winchesters, the truth was that it had been working both ways for longer than Castiel had realized. The same closeness he'd seen among the angels in that other reality… he had that, too. Right here.

He remembered how wistful he'd felt at first seeing his alternate self with his grace fully intact, his wings as strong as ever, but Castiel knew in his heart that given the chance, he wouldn't have traded the Winchesters for that. They were his choice. They kept him… well, not human, but they kept him himself.

"You did save me," he whispered. "So many times, Dean. When I doubted, when I was an outcast from Heaven. I told you that the things we've shared together have changed me. They rescued me from a life of...apathy. And blind devotion." Castiel hadn't had Gabriel in this world to save him, to help him find a purpose to fight for. Dean had done that.

And as for blind devotion...Castiel now saw that Dean was right. Something had happened in the playground the night the unborn nephilim had helped him kill Dagon. He wasn't entirely sure what, didn't know how to make up for abandoning the Winchesters like he had. But that...tether, or whatever it had been, was gone now. Perhaps severed by his time away in the alternate reality, perhaps only once Jack had been born. Either way, Castiel no longer had that subversive drive urging him down such a path.

"Dean," Castiel spoke up again hesitantly. "About Jack- about the nephilim."

The hunter looked up at him, an understandable wariness in his features. "Yeah?"

"We need to find him. But," he quickly added when Dean shifted, "not because… I mean, he's going to be unimaginably powerful. Now he's out there, and it's… my fault. Taking Kelly, leaving you-" How was a simple apology supposed to cover this? Castiel shook his head, momentarily overwhelmed. "I should have- I mean, I never…"

Dean was still watching him, some of the tension loosening. He took a breath, then pointed out, "Yeah, we need to find him. Sammy's been working on it. But it's not your fault."

"I left you there. I turned my back on you in favor of him."

"I know that wasn't you."

Castiel's jaw ticked in frustration. Maybe not completely, but it had still been him.

"Look, man," Dean went on with a shrug. "Whatever was going on, whatever wasn't going on, I don't know. But no matter what, you don't have to apologize. Let's just enjoy the fact that you're here, okay? That's all I care about."

In that moment, it was all Castiel wanted to savor, too.

"So… what now?" he asked.

Dean straightened and gestured back towards the house. "Now we have work to do. You with us?"

Castiel smiled. "Always."

He cast one last look at the grave that'd been meant for him, but mercifully had not come to pass. He was loved. And he was home. And together, they would face this potential threat. Together, they would venture once more into the breach.