#categoryfour

“Are you sure this is gonna work, Dean?” Sam asked as he watched his brother frantically put the final ingredients into the brass bowl on the makeshift altar they’d constructed in the dungeon, right at the spot where Cas had disappeared weeks earlier.

Dean ignored him as he focused on the work, at the tail end of a marathon he’d run trying to find a way to save Cas. At least it had been the only catastrophe he’d had to deal with since they’d saved the world.

They’d saved the whole damn multiverse, canceled Chuck’s publishing contract over their lives, and finally earned their freedom, sure. But at what cost? Was Dean really supposed to just let his only real shot at happiness vanish forever? Didn’t he deserve at least that one small thing after decades of struggling just to get by? And didn’t Jack, of all people, understand that?

Fueled by the weight of Cas’s final confession before he was dragged off into the inky void, Dean had plowed through every resource they had in the bunker’s extensive collection. He’d talked to every hunter and psychic he could find, raided every library with a half-decent collection in a five hundred mile radius. At one low moment, he’d even summoned a reaper to ask if the Empty had a back door he could sneak through to drag Cas back out. None of that research had amounted to anything until a last desperate plea to Jack went unanswered. Dean finally caved and put all his hopes into the only thing he hadn’t tried yet. He went back to Hell to visit Rowena.

Just as he was doing now, Sam had grumbled out his concerns when he’d helped Dean construct the spell to transport him to Hell. Despite his misgivings, Sam had held the portal open for him, with Eileen’s help. Luckily Dean hadn’t had much trouble convincing Rowena to lend a hand to his project. At least, not once he’d managed to find her.

“You poor boy,” she’d said, looking at him with pity after he’d explained their current circumstances. “I bet you didn’t even take my advice from the last time you visited. Never had a chance to properly patch things up with your angel?”

Dean ran his hands up his face and into his hair, turning his back on her for a moment before trying to compose himself. “Yeah, that’s the problem. We kinda got halfway there before things went sideways again. We were good. Mostly.”

She studied him critically, and then nodded once, sure of her assessment. “And there’s just a few more unsaid things left between you, and you want a chance to say them.” She sighed, got up from her chair, and swept across the room to a bookshelf. “I believe I may know a way to help.”