So, we're finally at the last chapter. I honestly never thought this fanfiction would be this long, it's taken almost a year to write! :) Anyway, hope you all enjoy this chapter and it's a good enough ending. A huge, massive, ginormous thank you to everyone who's ever reviewed, added this story to their favourites or story alert, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. All the great reviews have given me the motivation to carry on with this story, and I hope you've all enjoyed it from page one (I know some bits of it aren't that fantastic). I wish I could give you all a hug! The first chapter of the sequel- if you want one, that is- will be up next week. I've already got the plot roughly sorted and a little bit of it written, so I'll get that out a.s.a.p. So again, another huge thank you to you all! :) And of course to Eric Kripke and Co. for giving me such great material and characters to work with, and to all the boys of Supernatural for being so gorgeous! :)

Castiel didn't know what to do with himself after his brutally painful conversation with Miriana. He didn't want to go and sit somewhere quiet to think like he usually did, but there was no one he wanted to talk to, no one who could make feel him feel any less miserable; not even Embriel. So he decided to return to the room where they were holding Dean, through lack of anything better to do. He didn't really want to, as he hardly expected the elder Winchester to have lost his surly, biting attitude in the time he'd been away, and he knew he would make him feel even worse. But he didn't have anywhere else to go.

When he returned to the elaborately gilded room, his sharp ears picked up the faint bleeping sound that emanated from that odd contraption that Dean called a 'mobile'. Dean was waving it around in front of him, frowning and muttering, and Cas soon realized he was trying to contact Sam. He would never reach him, and if he did, it might already be too late.

"You can't reach him, Dean," he stated unhelpfully, "You're outside your coverage zone."

Dean didn't turn to face him, but he saw him slowly slip his phone back into his jeans pocket, "What are you gonna do to Sam?" he asked in a quietly controlled voice.

He sighed heavily, moving across the room to lean against the wall, "Nothing. He's going to do it to himself."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean growled, his eyebrows furrowing into a dark line above his stormy green eyes.

What was even the point of answering him? Dean would only be as furious as Miriana was, and he didn't think he could stand being subject to such blistering anger and fury again. And if he told Dean too much, he would only face Zachariah's wrath. He dropped his eyes to the floor.

"Oh right, right," Dean said in a resigned tone, "Gotta toe the company line."

He paused for a long second, looking him up and down with cold eyes, "Why are you here, Cas?"

"We've been through much together you and I," he said formally, "And I just wanted to say, I'm sorry it ended like this."

Dean raised his eyebrows as if surprised, "Sorry?" he said in an almost disbelieving tone.

He let out a sharp little laugh, turned away for a brief second, then pulled his arm back and slammed his fist into the side of Castiel's face, with all the strength he possessed. He felt the blow, felt the sharp crack of knuckles against his cheek, but there was no pain, not even the slightest spark. It didn't even register on an emotional level; his fight with Miriana seemed to have drained him of everything he had.

Dean spun around and let out the tiniest little hiss of pain, clutching his knuckles. Jesus, what is that guy made of, granite or something? He thought to himself, clutching his throbbing fist in his hand, determined not to let his pain show. He gave himself a second to get over the pain by swearing colourfully inside his head before he could trust himself to speak again.

"It's Armageddon, Cas, you need a bigger word than sorry!" he snapped, turning back round to face him.

"Try to understand," he implored, "This is long foretold, this is your-"

"Destiny?" Dean finished his sentence for him, "Don't give me that holy crap. Destiny...God's plan? It's all a bunch of lies, you poor stupid son of a bitch! It's just a way for you bosses to keep me and keep you in line!"

Why did everyone always insist on shouting at him all the time? Miriana, Dean- all he was trying to do was be a good solider like he always had been, and keep the woman he loved safe. He couldn't help the fact that those interests often clashed. He couldn't help the fact that every decision he made seemed to be the wrong one. He didn't mean to hurt anyone; it wasn't in his nature.

"You know what's real?" Dean asked, "People. Families. Miriana. That's real. And you're gonna watch them all burn?"

His heart did the usual hiccup at the sound of her name, but he ignored it, focusing on the burn of anger instead.

"What is so worth saving?" he demanded, "I see nothing but pain here. I see inside you, all your guilt, your anger, confusion. In paradise all is forgiven. You'll be at peace. Even with Sam."

He had to look away from the disgusted look in Dean's eyes. Both Dean and Miriana had the exact same facial expressions when they were angry. If he didn't know better, he'd have thought the two of them were brother and sister.

It was impossible to ignore Dean when he very deliberately leaned down and caught his eyes, "You can take your peace...and shove it up your lily white ass."

He was so tired of the argument, but Dean carried on regardless, "Because I'll take the pain and the guilt, I'll even take Sam as is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise."

He tried to get a word in edgeways, but Dean just kept talking, and he turned away, "This is simple Cas!" Dean snapped, "No more crap about being a good soldier. There is a right and there is a wrong here, and you know it."

"Look at me!" he barked, shoving at his shoulder, "You know it."

"Now you were gonna help me once, weren't you?" Dean asked, pleading in his tone. Of course he remembered it, that night he had desperately flitted all over the earth trying to escape from Zachariah's ever determined angels and tell Miriana and Dean all the awful things he had learned.

"You were gonna warn me before they dragged you back off to bible camp. Help me now, please," Dean begged. An unbidden thought of Miriana came into his head; he'd told her he'd do anything for her, and he hadn't been lying. There was a chance, a fast fading hope, that he might be able to do something...but the more he thought about it, the more he realized it was a terrible idea. There wasn't anything he could do, he just wasn't strong enough.

"What would you have me do?" he asked quietly.

"Get me to Sam, we can stop this before it's too late," Dean replied, hope colouring his voice.

"If I do that," he said, "We'll all be hunted. We'll all be killed."

"If there was anything worth dying for," Dean said, his voice suddenly quiet, in sharp contrast to his furious shouts of before, "This is it."

He shook his head slowly; it wasn't worth dying for. It was pointless and hopeless, and if he did this, he would never see Miriana again. And that thought hurt more than anything.

Dean gave him one long, disgusted look, "You spineless, soulless son of a bitch."

He paced away from him, his tone full of quiet fury, "What do you care about dying, you're already dead, we're done."

He felt that odd sting in his eyes and the burn in the back of his throat, and he spoke his voice was oddly strangled, "Dean..."

"We're done," Dean snapped, his tone final.

He didn't linger, he fled from the room like he had fled from Miriana's, not entirely sure where to go next.

Miriana didn't remember falling asleep; she remembered crying a lot and crawling into bed, soaking the pillow with her tears. The next thing she knew, she was being roused awake by the shrill sound of her mobile ringing. Grumbling, she struggled out of the curled up position she was lying in and fumbled around on the bed covers until her fingers closed around her mobile. Her cheeks were sticky with dried tears and her throat felt tight and dry. She cleared it before she answered her phone in as even a voice as she could manage.

"Hello?" she said.

"Miriana, I need to tell you something," said Nate's panicked voice, "It's about Sam."

"What about Sam?" she muttered groggily.

"We have to stop him killing Lilith," Nate said, his voice tense. She could practically see his long, lanky frame twitching with nerves.

"How do you know about that?" she demanded.

"It doesn't matter," Nate snapped, "But listen. Sam's gonna kill Lilith right? But killing Lilith is the final seal. If he's kills her, the apocalypse will be kick started."

A cold, sickly feeling washed over her, chilling her blood to ice in her veins. So Castiel and AJ had been right. The apocalypse was going to start tonight; just not in the way she could have imagined. She wondered if Castiel knew of Sam's role; he must do, she reasoned to herself. That was the reason he had let Sam out of the panic room in the first place.

"Where is he?" she asked, swallowing all her fear and trying to do something useful. It wasn't too late. There was still a little time.

"A convent in Ilchester, Maryland," Nate replied, "I'm on my way there now."

"Alone?" Miriana shrieked. This was far too dangerous for Nate to caught get up in. He was just a kid, far too young to be chasing after powerful demons and getting involved in heaven's grandiose plans.

"Calm down, Miriana," said Nate, his tone returning to its typical whiny teenage note, "I'm fine. And besides, I'm not just sitting on my ass and waiting for this to happen. You wouldn't."

"Don't model yourself after me, Nate," she said in a weary voice, "It's not a good idea. Promise you'll wait for me to get there before you do anything."

"Whatever," Nate muttered, "Look, just get your ass in gear and stop wallowing. It's Saint Mary's convent. Get moving."

After that he abruptly hung up the phone. She was so surprised by his brusque behaviour that for a minute she just stared at the phone clasped in her hands before she came to her senses and flung herself off the bed. She changed quickly into a pair of jeans and a shirt, briefly running a comb through her hair, wincing when it tangled in the knots. She slipped on her leather jacket, and stuffed all off her possessions into her bag as quickly as she could manage, and grabbed her keys from the table by the door, trying hard to ignore the coil of dread in her stomach.

There was nowhere on the earth that could him peace tonight. Usually the secluded, golden beach in Crete calmed Castiel down, but tonight the indigo waters and dusky evening sky just felt cold and indifferent to his suffering. Lucifer was about to rise and the battle was about to begin, but he had no one to comfort him and nowhere to go. He thought that Zachariah might have found him and given him another list of tasks to do, but evidently he didn't require his help. Why would he; everything was already in place for the aftermath of Lucifer being released from hell, including the plans for Sam and Dean Winchester. When Dean found out what he was to be used for, Castiel only hoped he gave Zachariah absolute hell over it.

He flitted all over the earth, trying to find somewhere quiet enough for him to sit and think for a while, but he found nowhere. When he finally came to a stop, he found himself somewhere painfully familiar. Miriana's bedroom. He hadn't even intended to go there, but he had somehow subconsciously made the decision to stop there. There was no sign that she'd been in there recently as everything remained in the same place; well almost everything. He noticed that there was a heavy looking, leather bound book lying on the desk by the door. Ever curious, he moved across the room and flipped open the first page to find a picture of a laughing baby, her chubby little arms outstretched towards the camera. The next page showed another picture of the same rosy cheeked baby, this time clutching a dark haired woman, who was smiling widely. It was only when he studied the woman's familiar face that he realized with a jolt that the pretty baby in her arms was Miriana. He flipped through the next few pages, each one of them showing Miriana at a different stage of her life; a chubby, bright eyed little toddler being helped to walk by her father, a lanky limbed child with mud stained knees to a slightly gawky, awkward looking teenager, mostly dressed in oversized band t-shirts and smiling shyly at the camera. Most of the pictures of Miriana's teenage years showed Nate, barely older than a toddler, clinging to Miriana like a limpet, an adoring expression on his face. He flipped through a few more pages, until he came that showed Miriana on her 21st birthday, her arms around a young looking Sam and a slightly inebriated looking Dean. He traced his fingers over her wide, bright smile, frozen on the glossy page, feeling an odd lump rise in his throat. All that life, all those memories could be so easily lost, burnt away to ashes in the final conflict between Michael and Lucifer. Without even thinking, he pulled the picture of the closest thing he had once had to friends from its frame on the page and slipped it in the pocket of his trench coat. He glanced out of the long window at the end of the room; there was still a band of a pale light along the horizon. There was still time. He took one last glance around the room, taking in a deep breath of the perfume that lingered in the air, very aware it would no doubt be the last time, then returned to Dean.

As hard as she tried to keep her mind away from him, Miriana couldn't help but let her thoughts drift back to Castiel. There were no distractions on the long, dark roads on which she was driving, nothing to keep her mind off him. She hadn't meant to be so cruel towards him but the fear that had been steadily growing all day had made her lash out. She wanted to apologize, wanted to tell him she loved him too, but she didn't think she could face him again, nor she did honestly believe he would want to talk to her. She always screwed everything up; her whole life was just a catalogue of mistakes and bad decisions. She wondered if it would ever end.

She soon saw the shadow of the convent looming on the horizon, crumbling and dilapidated. It was clearly not visited often, as the road that led to it was potholed and uneven. After a few minutes, she saw a dark shape beside the road, and when she drove a little closer, she saw Nate's lanky figure leaning against the side of the car, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. His head shot up when he saw the headlights and heard the crunch of gravel as Miriana's juddered down the road. He threw his arms around as soon as she stepped out of the car, and she felt the slightest tremor in his thin frame. He was scared. Really scared. She hugged back as hard as she could, patting his back. He felt cold, even though he was wearing a thick leather jacket.

"Are you okay?" she asked tentatively, her voice muffled by his shoulder.

He instantly released her, a broad but somewhat forced smile on his face, "I'm great!" he said, his tone falsely bright. She gave him a weak smile back, not entirely convinced by his bravado.

"Is that where Lilith is?" she asked, nodding towards the ramshackle ruins of the convent.

"Yeah," he replied, eyeing the silhouette warily, "There's a ton of other demons as well. I don't know if Sam's here yet. I haven't seen a car, but he could be round the other side."

"Well then," Miriana in a businesslike voice, opening the boot of her car, "We'd better get going."

She opened the clasp of the demon proof box and pulled free the knife, sliding it through her belt. Nate watched her apprehensively as she pulled two shotguns free, handing one to him along with several rounds of rock salt bullets.

"What if there's loads of them, Miriana?" he asked, all pretence and false bravery gone from his voice. She turned to look at him, his face suddenly and painfully young.

"I've got your back," she said, thumping his shoulder gently with her closed fist.

He nodded quickly, taking a deep breath and loading the first round of rock salt into his shotgun. They set off walking, picking their way over the rubble and tangled briars that blanketed the ground beneath their feet. It was dreadfully quiet, not even the sounds of birds or other wildlife. Maybe they knew what was about to happen and had decided to go somewhere else. She couldn't say she blamed them.

"Your bruises look better," Nate said suddenly.

"They feel better," she said, surreptitiously brushing over the areas on her cheeks that had been bruised.

"Have you seen him since?" Nate asked, the slightest note of contempt in his voice.

She paused for a second, wondering whether or not to lie. "Yes," she said eventually.

"What did he have to say for himself?" he asked coolly.

"Nate, let's not get drawn into this argument again," Miriana said wearily.

"Well, I'm sorry, but he's such a d-"

She cut him off by throwing an arm across his chest. She had just caught a flash of movement that looked oddly like car headlights in the distance.

"What?" he asked, tensing all over.

"I think I just saw a car," she replied, squinting at the dark horizon, "Let's just keep walking."

They kept walking across the uneven ground, Miriana keeping her eyes trained on the spot where she had the flash of movement. It was only once they got closer that Miriana saw the battered yellow car.

"Bloody hell!" she barked suddenly, so Nate jumped about a foot in the air, "That's Ruby's car!"

"The demon that's with Sam?" Nate questioned.

"Yeah," Miriana replied, breaking into a run, aware that they had a while before they would reach the convent, "Hurry up, Nate."

Castiel knew from the second the foundations of Chuck's house starting shaking that he was in some serious trouble. He thought there was a slim chance he might escape, but any hopes he had were effectively removed as the plaster on the walls started to crack and flake away.

"Oh man, not again," yelled Chuck, as the cupboards sprung open, releasing a rain of plates and cups that fell to the floor and smashed. The high pitched whining in the room increased tenfold, until the noise of it sent sharp needles of pain through his head.

"It's the Archangel," he roared at Dean struggling to make himself heard of the cacophony of noise. Dean turned to him, his eyes wide with panic.

"I'll hold them off, I'll hold them all off," he yelled, "Just stop Sam."

He lifted his arm and placed his palm flat across Dean's forehead, concentrating as hard as he could through the noise, focusing on the dilapidated convent. A second later he felt air underneath his fingers, proving that Dean had gone where he needed to go.

The light was getting brighter and brighter by the second until it made his eyes ache, and the pressure in the room seemed to increase until it was hard to breathe. Regardless, he raised his chin and squared his shoulders, determined to face almost certain death with as much dignity as he could manage. He couldn't fight off the archangel; he would never be strong enough to bring down something so powerful, but he could give the Winchesters a little time.

He felt Chuck's hand on his shoulder; frowning, he looked down at the prophet, not entirely sure what the gesture meant under such circumstances. He dropped his hand instantly, looking sheepish, lowering his gaze to the floor. He felt the pain start then, a dull ache in his chest, twisting around his spine. He squeezed his eyes tight shut against the burn of white light, feeling a ripping sensation in his chest, as if something was pulling him into two pieces, tearing him apart right down the middle. There was time for one last thought of Miriana, and a silent prayer that she would survive and live happily before his world exploded.

Miriana's legs were burning by the time she had reached the wrought iron gates outside the convent and every ragged breath burned in her throat, but there wasn't time to stop. Every second wasted was one step closer to Lucifer being released from hell and bringing the apocalypse with him. She sprinted down the gravel path that led to the crumbling front steps of the convent, spraying stones over the overgrown grass. Nate was close behind her, gasping for breath but easily keeping up with her with his long legged stride. She threw herself against the huge wooden doors, wrenching the iron handle with one hand, throwing all her weight against the decaying wood. She let out a scream of frustration when it refused to budge, merely creaking in protest as she slammed her fists against the door. She intended to test one of the boarded windows on the bottom floor of the convent, hoping that there was a gap big enough to crawl through, when Nate grabbed her arm in a vice like grip, pulling her back.

"What?" she yelled, frustrated.

He said nothing, but merely pointed towards the far end of the convent. She followed his trembling finger towards the windows and watched in horror as a vivid, bright white light began to seep through the cracks in the boards over the windows.

"Oh my God," she whispered, frozen to the spot as the light spilled out further and further over the dry, overgrown grass. There was the slightest noise that could be heard over the whispering of the grass, a high pitched whine that was discomforting, and she felt something like a wave of electricity pass over her, seeming to stretch her skin tight over her bones.

"Move," she breathed out, "Nate, we need to move."

She tugged at his arm, but he stayed glued to the spot, his face a mask of horror.

"Nate, come on," she shrieked as the whine began to grow in volume and intensity. He finally seemed to come back to his senses, following Miriana as she raced back down the steps of the convent, her heart thundering in her chest. The shocking white light was almost blinding now; Miriana had to squint her eyes against the onslaught as the two of them raced back across the vast expanse of waste ground towards their cars. The whine had turned into a single long roar of noise that seemed to press painfully hard against Miriana's eardrums, making her head throb. A sudden gale had started up, tangling Miriana's hair and kicking dust up into her eyes.

They were close to their cars now; they were sprinting so fast, spurred on by adrenalin. Just before they reached them, there was a noise like an explosion behind them, and Miriana felt some invisible force throw her forward, sending her flying over the ground and finally skidding to a halt, cutting open the knees of her jeans on the jagged stones that littered the ground. She glanced around for Nate, and felt a surge of panic when she saw him lying on his back, spread eagled, blood streaming from his temple. She crawled over the stones, shaking him and shouting his name over the roar of the wind and the painfully high pitched scream of noise that had now reached such an intensity she was forced to cover her ears. She glanced back over at the convent, or rather the space where the convent used to be, and saw a huge column of burning white light spearing the dark, turbulent skies, reaching right up into the heavens, blotting out the stars and bathing the land all around them in cold, harsh white light. It was creeping outwards in all directions, speeding towards them with frightening speed. With her last vestiges of strength, she grabbed hold of Nate's jacket and heaved his long, lanky body across the stones, pulling him behind the shelter of her car, just before another explosion rocked the landscape, the white light washing over them and covering Miriana's vision in a blanket of painful white.