Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cold Iron Tavern – Somewhere Off Route 93

The jukebox was dead now—choked on static, leaving only the hum of the cheap lights overhead. Salt crusted the floor in brittle rings. Half the devil’s traps were smudged. No one fixed them.

This wasn’t a safe house.

It was a powder keg.

Four hunters hunched over a warped table, nursing drinks like curses. They didn’t look each other in the eye—not yet.

Dixon finally muttered, “You seen the new reports?”

Mac grunted. “The ones from Missouri?”

“Yeah. Whole demon nest gone. No exorcisms, no bodies. Just ash. Like something holy and wrong passed through.”

“They said it was Sam Winchester,” Keller whispered. “But not the Sam we knew.”

“You mean the freak who drinks demon blood?” Mac sneered. “He ain’t ours anymore.”

“He never was,” Dixon said, darkly. “Always stood just outside the fire.”

“Now he is the fire,” Red added, voice low. “Eyes glow like molten gold—some say red, too. Like something cracked open in him.”

“Because of her,” Keller snapped.

Silence fell.

No one had ever seen her. Not really. Only heard the stories. Only imagined the shape of her from the wake she left behind.

Aurora.

The Source. The Witch of Light. The Cosmic Temptress. The thing that made Sam glow.

“She’s got power that doesn’t make sense,” Dixon said, eyes flicking to the warded window. “Some say she burned up half a fae court in New Orleans just for touching her man.”

“She’s not human,” Red muttered. “No angel either. Something older.”

“Something wrong,” Mac said. “Whoever she is—she’s the one who turned Sam into the Severance. You hear that name?” He leaned forward, voice like gravel. “You know what it means?”

Keller nodded slowly. “Judgment. They say he can tear souls from flesh now. Demons see him and flee. Angels? Can’t even smite him.”

“Because of her,” Dixon repeated. “She made him like that.” 

Red leaned back, eyes glassy. “Word is Sam’s been in her bed since Lebanon. Some say Dean too. Like they pass her grace around like whiskey.”

Mac spit into the corner. “That ain’t love. That’s corruption.”

“You ever seen a woman like that with a man like Sam?” Keller asked, eyes sharp. “Quiet. Awkward. Always looking like he don’t belong anywhere. Now he’s walking around with eyes full of apocalypse and a goddess on his arm?”

“No one ever chose Sam,” Mac said. “Not really. Now he’s been chosen by something unnatural.”

Dixon shook his head. “And Dean? Poor bastard followed him straight off the cliff. You hear what they’re saying now?”

“What?”

“That Sam’s the left hand. Aurora’s the right. Dean’s just the pretty sword they’ll wield when the world ends.”

A slow dread bled into the silence.

“You think she’s real?” Mac finally asked, almost afraid to.

“She’s worse than real,” Keller answered. “She’s watching. That’s what they say.”

Red glanced around the room. “Then maybe we shouldn’t be talking.”

“No,” Keller said, standing. “Now’s exactly when we talk. The angels are already whispering. They want her taken out. Say she’s the root of all this.”

“She glows, you know,” Dixon added, voice low. “Eyes like starlight. Can’t look at her too long. Messes with your head. Makes you forget who you are.”

“Then we remember,” Keller said grimly. “We remember what it means to be hunters. Because if she is real—and if she’s made Sam Winchester into something monstrous and uncontrolled—then we don’t just hunt monsters anymore.”

She shoved open the tavern door, letting the cold night roll in like a warning. “We hunt gods.”

The door slammed shut behind her.

And in the quiet that followed, no one said her name again.

Aurora wasn’t herself in the dream.

Not exactly.

She floated somewhere behind his eyes, riding the curve of his spine like a shadow that didn’t belong—watching, feeling. The air scalded his lungs. His limbs dragged, heavy as lead. His skin burned, fever-hot, stretched too tight over a soul unraveling.

Sam was walking. Always walking.

Through dust. Through blood. Through silence thick with judgment.

And the weight—God, the weight.

It wasn’t just his body breaking. It was his spirit splintering. The Trials weren’t purifying him. They were peeling him back, layer by layer, until nothing remained but pain and purpose and the bitter taste of being forsaken.

She felt it. All of it.

His loneliness. His self-loathing.

The part of him that still dared to hope someone might save him—and hated himself for it.

“Don’t stop,” he rasped—not to her, to no one. To the void. “Don’t stop, or none of it will mean anything.”

He coughed.

Blood bloomed across his lips like rust.

Aurora reached for him—tried to pull him back—but she had no hands here. No body. Only witness.

“You’re not meant to survive this,” something whispered behind her. Chuck, maybe. Or the void. Or worse—Sam’s own belief.

She screamed at it anyway.

But Sam kept going.

Until his knees gave out.

Until he vomited blood and wiped it away like an inconvenience.

Until he crawled forward—clawing toward salvation made of knives.

She woke with a strangled sound—not a word, not a gasp. Just grief, raw and splintered.

Her whole body shook. Her face was wet. She clutched the sheets like she could tear herself out of the memory.

“Sam—” The name tore out of her, broken. “Oh god—oh my god—Sam—”

He jolted awake beside her, voice rough with sleep.

“Hey—hey, what’s wrong? Aurora—?”

But when he reached for her, she flinched—not from fear. From heartbreak. A beat later, she folded into him, spine softening, collapsing against his chest like she was made of water and regret.

Her hands gripped his shoulders, hard.

“You were dying,” she sobbed. “You were so alone—and no one stopped it—no one—”

Sam stiffened beneath her.

“I felt you,” she whispered, forehead to his. “You thought you were supposed to die. You wanted to. You thought it would make you clean.”

Her voice cracked on that word. Her chest heaved with sobs—too raw for rhythm. Just grief, in freefall.

Sam wrapped his arms around her.

“Aurora—”

“You let it happen.” The words came in gasps. “You let yourself vanish. Didn’t even fight. Didn’t even ask to be saved. You just—” Her throat caught. “You just surrendered.”

She was still trembling. One hand flattened over his heart like she could anchor him there by force.

“You can’t ever do that again,” she said. Fierce. Broken. “You can’t—”

“I’m not that man anymore,” Sam said quietly. “I promise.”

But she wasn’t hearing him yet. Her hands cupped his face, reverent and shaking.

“I would’ve stopped it,” she whispered. “I would’ve burned the sky to stop it.”

Sam exhaled. A tremor rippled through him.

And she broke again—sobbing against his skin, kissing him like it was the only prayer she had left.

The room went still. Only her breath, ragged and broken, filled the quiet.

Sam sat up, back against the headboard, arms locked around her. She curled in his lap, legs folded beneath her like she no longer trusted the floor.

Her face pressed to his chest. Still crying.

Still shaking.

“Aurora,” he said gently. “Look at me.”

She did.

Her eyes glowed—wet starlight spilling down her cheeks. She looked shattered.

“I want to tell you the rest,” he said. “You should know how bad it got.”

Her lips parted, but no sound came. She only nodded—already bracing.

Sam traced slow, grounding lines along her spine.

“The Trials were meant to close the gates of Hell. Three tasks. Biblical stuff. Kill a hellhound. Save an innocent soul. Purify demon blood.”

“You volunteered,” she said softly.

“I did. Dean tried to stop me. He knew. But I couldn’t let him do it. I thought it was my penance. For Ruby. For the Cage. For every time I let someone use me. I needed it to mean something.”

Her fingers tightened in his shirt.

“Each task chipped something away,” he said. “By the second one, I was coughing blood. By the third…”

He stared out the window.

“My body was shutting down. My soul too. I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. But I kept going. I thought… maybe if I died closing that gate, it would matter. My life would finally matter.”

“You wanted to die for meaning.”

He met her gaze.

“Yeah.”

Her grief caught in her throat like a stone.

“I didn’t have a tether to your soul back then,” she said. “I was sealed away. But if I’d been free—Sam, I would’ve come for you.”

“I know.”

“Chuck made you believe pain was purification. That death was a virtue.”

Sam’s voice went flat.

“He did that a lot.”

Aurora cradled his face, palms trembling.

“You are not the sum of your punishments.”

His throat bobbed.

“And you’re not ruined by mercy,” she said. “Or love. Or survival.”

“I didn’t know that until you,” Sam said.

She kissed him—soft, desperate, sacred.

When she pulled back, her eyes shone like dawn.

“Don’t ever think your life is something to trade.”

“I don’t,” he murmured. “Not anymore. Not with you.”

She rested against him again, wrapped in his warmth.

And this time, the silence didn’t sting.

It held.

Dean was already at the round oak table, hunched over a chipped mug of black coffee like it might vanish if he looked away. Morning light slanted through the tall manor windows, spilling gold across the floor and warming the fine grain of the wood. The place still felt too big. Too quiet. Too British.

Sam padded in barefoot, flannel pants slung low on his hips, damp hair curling slightly from the shower. He poured his coffee, dropped into the chair across from Dean, and exhaled a sigh that was half caffeine withdrawal, half existential dread.

Dean didn’t look up right away. Just sipped, swallowed, then said, deadpan:

“Morning. Where’s your twin flame? Still glowing upstairs?”

Sam snorted softly. “She’s taking a bath.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Alone?”

Sam gave him a flat look. “Yes, Dean. She’s exhausted. Let her bathe in peace.”

Dean grinned but didn’t push. Not yet. Instead, he watched Sam over the rim of his mug—the same way he always did when something wasn’t sitting right.

“What happened?” he asked, finally.

Sam hesitated. Stirred his coffee even though it didn’t need stirring, like the motion might line up the words.

“She dreamwalked,” he said. “Into my memories. The Trials.”

Dean’s mug thunked against the table. “She what?”

“She didn’t mean to,” Sam added quickly. “I’d been thinking about it the night before. I guess the bond… pulled her in.”

Dean frowned. “Pulled her in how?”

“We’re fully converged now,” Sam said. “Emotions, thoughts, energy. Apparently memory too. She slipped into my head while I was sleeping. Woke up screaming.”

Dean froze.

“Tears,” Sam said quietly. “Panic. Like she was trapped in it. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even talk for a minute.”

Dean’s smirk was long gone. “Jesus.”

Sam nodded, staring down at his mug like it might explain him. “She didn’t just see it, Dean. She felt it. Like she was in my body—watching it fall apart. Watching me keep going anyway.”

Dean looked stricken. “She saw what it did to you.”

“She lived it,” Sam said. “And it broke her.”

The silence after that was brittle.

Dean set his mug down gently, like any louder sound might crack the moment.

“You okay?” he asked, voice soft now. No edge, no sarcasm. Just the worn-in tone of an older brother who’s patched too many wounds.

Sam shook his head. “I don’t know. She touched something in me I’d buried. And when she shattered, I felt it too. Like it was happening all over again.”

Dean exhaled slowly. “Did she say anything?”

“She said if she’d been free, she would’ve come for me. Said she would’ve burned the sky to stop it.”

Dean rubbed a hand across his jaw. “Hard to argue.”

Sam gave him a tired look. “That’s not the point.”

“Sure it is,” Dean shot back. “You’ve been carrying this idea that you had to bleed to matter. That dying would fix what living couldn’t. She’s just the first one strong enough to call bullshit and back it up.”

Sam let out a weak laugh. “And you didn’t?”

“I yelled plenty,” Dean muttered. “Didn’t mean you listened.”

Sam leaned back, coffee forgotten, fingers loose around the mug. “It’s terrifying,” he admitted. “Being seen that clearly. No walls. No filters. Just… her. Feeling everything I tried to bury.”

Dean nodded slowly. “And yet, you’re still here.”

Sam looked up.

Dean added, rough but steady: “Maybe it’s not about reliving it. Maybe it’s about her seeing it—and not flinching. Not walking away.”

Sam blinked. The truth of it hit harder than he expected.

“It’s the only thing that’s ever made me feel whole,” he said softly.

Dean watched him for a beat. Then—because he was Dean—he smirked and broke the silence with perfect timing.

“So… bath time? Or are you about to light up and blow the windows again?”

Sam groaned. “Dean—”

“I’m serious. We just got this place patched up. And I like this chair.”

“I’m not talking about this with you.”

Dean raised a hand. “Hey, your love life’s basically a cosmic building code violation. I’m just being responsible.”

Sam stood, muttering under his breath, and moved to refill his cup.

Dean called after him, “Love you too, sunshine.”

Sam didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

Aurora had lived at Iron Oak on and off for the better part of five centuries. By every measure, it was her home. Not just a place she inhabited, but a sanctuary shaped by her will, sealed in grace, and held intact against the erosion of time.

She had stood silent in the stone circle beneath the old oak the night William Winchester pledged himself to the Men of Letters—her grace hidden behind the veil, but watching. Always watching. She’d been there for his children’s births. And their children. And every bloodline that followed, born under this roof with starlight in their veins and tragedy already woven into their futures.

Each child had been wrapped in her light before the world had a chance to wound them. Her protection wasn’t infinite—but it was fierce, deliberate, and deeply given. Her grace had soaked into the walls like oil into limestone. It was why Iron Oak had never fallen. Why it had endured fire, betrayal, blood, and silence.

Because she was still here.

Because she remembered.

And because no god—not even Chuck—had ever erased what she had claimed.

She exhaled and unplugged the drain. The swirl of bathwater hissed like a retreating breath.

Aurora rose from the tub, skin flushed with residual heat—and something deeper. Something raw. Her grace thrummed like a buried fault line, close to rupture. The dream still pulsed behind her eyes, vivid and searing.

Sam, kneeling. Writhing. Screaming.

The Trials had hollowed him out with surgical precision, stripping him cell by cell until only suffering remained. Any other man would have died. Should have died.

But Sam hadn’t. Not because he was saved.

Because he wasn’t allowed to die.

Chuck had written him into agony, into sacrifice, into narrative. And then walked away.

Aurora touched the mirror but didn’t meet her own gaze. She looked past it. Past the fury. Past the ache.

There had been a moment in the dream—one awful, blinding instant—when Sam looked up, eyes black with pain, mouth bloodied, and apologized. For not finishing. For surviving. For failing to die for a god who had already condemned him.

That was what shattered her.

She had lived for thousands of years. She had witnessed every cruelty man and monster could devise. But nothing compared to the story Chuck had carved into Sam Winchester’s bones.

Her hand curled against the glass. Power flickered at her fingertips—silent, vicious.

The Archive had whispered where Chuck’s remnants lay. A dare. A test.

She could follow that thread. She could drag him from whatever hole he was rotting in. Not out of justice. Not even for vengeance.

Just to see what he looked like when he begged to be unwritten.

Her glow spiked at the thought—molten gold pulsing beneath her skin, freckles shimmering like star-burn. Her body strained to contain what she had become. She looked incandescent. Untouchable. Dangerous.

And yet all she saw in the mirror was grief.

For a heartbeat, something ancient stared back. Not a woman. Not even a celestial. Something older than either. First fire and a long memory.

Her thoughts clawed back toward Chuck. Toward the broken husk he still was, hiding somewhere in reality, still convinced he was safe. She could find him. Could reach into his chest and pull.

But that would be a mercy.

And Chuck didn’t deserve mercy.

Aurora exhaled, the thought burning away like wildfire and leaving only smoke.

She touched her chest—where Sam had held her after the dream. Where his pain had bled into her grace and shaken her to her core.

Her voice was a breath, barely sound.

“I would’ve come for you. I should have.”

But she hadn’t.

Because Chuck had locked her away.

Because fate had sealed her absence into the page.

But now?

Now she was free.

No more scripts.

No more pages.

Only fire.

Only choice.

The days slipped by in golden fragments.

Sunlight slanted through the mullioned windows of Iron Oak, catching dust motes like stars that hadn’t finished falling. The air smelled of old books, warm tea, and freshly oiled wood. In the silence between footsteps, the house exhaled memory.

Sam still couldn’t quite believe it.

Living in a rambling English manor hadn’t been on either of the Winchesters’ bingo cards. Much less owning it. And yet—here they were. Drinking coffee at a kitchen table older than America, walking barefoot through corridors that whispered in Latin, sleeping beneath carved beams that had watched almost every Winchester heir be born and buried.

But there was no blood on their hands now. No war at their heels. Just a peace so astonishing it almost hurt. It wrapped around them like a truce signed in stars and stubborn love.

They explored Iron Oak room by room, puzzle by puzzle. Sam discovered libraries hidden behind paneling, staircases that shifted when coaxed in Enochian, and an attic chamber filled with magical artifacts that Dean instantly dubbed Aurora’s Wacky Crap Room. They found letters penned by William Winchester, spells scrawled in blood, and a still-burning torch from the night William swore his oath.

Aurora moved through it all like breath returning to lungs. She didn’t walk these halls—she belonged to them. And the manor knew it. Its walls brightened at her touch, its wards softened. Even the bitter ghosts fell silent when she passed.

Sam watched her as one might watch a comet: in awe, a little undone, never wanting to blink.

Dean, meanwhile, hit village life with all the grace of a hurricane in a pint glass. He declared war on the pub’s trivia night (“I am American history”), got into a heated argument with three retirees about cursed football teams, and nearly started a brawl after claiming American beer counted as real beer.

“If you’re dehydrated and desperate,” he added, draining his third Guinness.

When accused of cultural theft, Dean raised his glass. “Not appropriation. Domination.”

Cas watched with serene fascination, occasionally stepping in to keep Dean from being tossed out. Aurora, delighted, sampled every beer alongside them, offering absurdly detailed tasting notes—“this one tastes like regret and barley”—and reminiscing about a 1500s brew that “could knock a grown man flat in half a sip.”

In London, the city gleamed under slick stones and cathedral shadows. Aurora led Sam to Hatchards, the oldest bookstore in the city, her hand warm in his. They lost a full day there, trailing fingers across vellum spines and marginalia penned by long-dead scholars. In a sun-drenched alcove, she pressed her palm to a carved shelf.

“I placed a sigil here,” she whispered. “Early 1800s. I couldn’t bear to lose this place. Too many stories live here.”

Golden light bloomed beneath her touch—like the shelf had been waiting for her return.

Sam didn’t speak. He only watched, overwhelmed not by magic, but by how much of herself she’d quietly poured into the world. How fiercely she protected what she loved, even when it didn’t remember her name.

Later that week, she dragged all three men—Sam, Dean, and Cas—to the Royal Opera House.

They had tuxedos tailored for the occasion. Aurora arrived in emerald silk, her hair twisted like fire and shadow. The maître d’ bowed so deeply Sam thought he might topple. “Welcome back, Lady Ashworth,” the man murmured—like she’d never left.

She swept through the place like royalty. Which, technically, she was.

Dean lasted until the second aria before muttering, “Is this still the same song?”

Cas, poised in a midnight-black tuxedo, eyes fixed on the stage, replied, “It’s a cadenza, Dean. It’s… elaborate suffering.”

Aurora, two seats down, smirked without looking.

Dean’s snort nearly got them thrown out.

Afterward, they slipped into a shadowed bistro. Aurora insisted on dessert, espresso, and a winding conversation about memory, time, and choosing joy even when the world didn’t make room for it. She spoke like someone tasting the world again for the first time.

Sam never wanted to stop being the one she shared it with.

Even Dean seemed looser. Not entirely—there were still sharp edges and things unsaid—but he laughed more. Teased less defensively. Let Cas linger close without bristling. Something was unwinding in him. Something ancient and coiled.

And Cas, ever watchful, looked at Dean like he’d known him in every possible lifetime.

For now, Iron Oak held them all.

A place outside of time, at least for a breath.

Sam knew it wouldn’t last. Nothing ever did.

But for now—he let her laugh. He let the world stay soft.

And she burned, radiant.

Chapter Text

The church had once been sacred. Now it was sanctioned rot.

The altar had collapsed. Pews were smoldering memories. Stained glass had blown apart into powdered jewel dust, glitter scattered across scorched stone. And still the shadows lingered—not because they belonged, but because they were afraid to leave.

Inside the skeletal nave, a ring of hunters stood in the wreckage, boots planted in salt and iron, shoulders tense, eyes sharp. Work lights stuttered against ruined columns, casting everything in the frantic hum of temporary survival.

Then they arrived.

No fanfare. No trumpets. Just two men where there hadn’t been a moment before.

The first wore a sheriff’s badge dulled by centuries and something older than law. His eyes held the patience of things that don’t need to explain themselves. The second wore a bloody flannel half-buttoned over a t-shirt that might’ve once belonged to a prophet. Or a corpse. He grinned like sin wearing a halo.

They weren’t human. That much was clear.

They didn’t say hello.

“You smell like fear,” Flannel said, stepping past the salt ring like it was a chalk doodle. “And ambition. Hunters.”

The Sheriff’s voice rolled out like scripture carved into stone. “You’ve been playing soldier. Bless your hearts.” He smiled without warmth. “But the game changed.”

A hunter near the wreck of a holy-water barrel barked, “Who the hell are you supposed to be?”

Flannel turned his head slowly, like humoring a toddler mid-tantrum. “Messengers.” His grin sharpened. “Not the Hallmark kind.”

“We’re angels,” the Sheriff clarified. “Obviously. And before you get excited—no, we’re not here to smite anyone. Yet.”

“Since when do angels dress like drifters?” another hunter muttered.

Flannel cocked a brow. “Since vessels stopped being choirboys and started cooking meth behind gas stations. Heaven doesn’t issue trench coats anymore. We wear what’s left.”

The Sheriff’s gaze swept the nave. “You’re worried. Good. You should be. You felt it—the sky breaking, the ground twitching under your boots.” He tilted his chin toward the rafters. “That wasn’t weather. That was power unbound. Creation… under revision.”

The hunters traded looks, jaws tight, fingers twitching near triggers. One finally snapped, “What does that mean?”

“It means you’re not the apex anymore,” Flannel said sweetly, voice like sugar poured over glass. “There are new gods. And you used to drink beer with them.”

“Sam Winchester,” the Sheriff intoned. “And her. The one you’ve been calling a rumor.”

The room went still.

“Aurora,” Flannel breathed, almost reverent, almost mocking. The name hit the floor like a blade.

“She’s not Heaven,” the Sheriff said. “Not Hell. She’s what comes next.”

“And Sam?” Flannel leaned in, eyes wild. “He’s been rewritten. Severed. He’s not your Winchester anymore.”

The youngest hunter spat, “He still bled for us. Fought beside us.”

“Sure,” Flannel purred. “And now he bleeds galaxies.”

The Sheriff ground powdered glass under his boot. “They burned the Hollow Court out of New Orleans without lifting a hand. Glamour shattered. Magic ran screaming. The city still hums like a wound.”

“And Heaven?” Flannel sneered. “Still handing out pamphlets.”

A grizzled hunter folded his arms. “So they’re a threat.”

“We’re saying,” the Sheriff replied, voice like a gavel, “they don’t owe you. And they don’t kneel.”

“Not to us,” Flannel cut in. “Not to Chuck. Not to Hell. And sure as shit not to you.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awe. It was a calculation.

“They’re divinity with a pulse,” the Sheriff said. “And when they wake up fully…” He smiled, and didn’t finish.

A hunter’s voice cracked through the hush: “Then what? You here to warn us? Threaten us? Beg a seat at the table?”

Flannel’s grin widened, fever-bright. “Warn? No, sweetie. We’re here to advise. Because if you try to summon them, or cage them, or preach at them…”

The Sheriff finished, each word heavy as judgment: “They’ll erase you with a look. And no one—Heaven or Hell—will mourn you.”

A gust slammed the church doors wide. Cold air roared in, unnatural.

They didn’t walk out. They just weren’t there anymore.

The hunters stood in the ash and aftershock, trying to calculate a war they weren’t even invited to.

Above, the rafters groaned.

Like the bones of the world were shifting.

Or waiting.

Outside, the wind pressed against the glass with the low murmur of a warning too far off to heed—yet too close to ignore.

Inside the study, all was still—until Aurora stopped breathing.

Sam felt it instantly. Her fingers dug into his palm, sudden as a blade’s bite. Her posture went rigid, then unnervingly still—the kind of stillness that came before storms, revelations, and bloodshed alike.

“Aurora?” Sam’s voice was soft, but the air thrummed like a plucked wire.

Her eyes widened, dark irises shifting like molten coins sinking through dark water.

“They’re moving,” she said flatly. “Hunters in basements with salt and silver. Angels regrouping in ruined churches. Demons whispering beneath fault lines. Witches carving our names into bone.”

Dean snorted, rolling his shoulders. “So, just another day?”

Aurora’s lips parted, her voice hollow. “They’re summoning us.”

Dean blinked, then let out a low whistle. “Summoning. As in black candles, dead languages, and way too much confidence summoning?”

Aurora nodded once. “Crude rituals. Desperate prayers. Half don’t even believe we’ll answer. But the ones who do…” Her voice dropped, sharp as a scalpel. “They think if they shout loud enough, we’ll have no choice but to come.”

Sam’s brows drew together. “Can they?”

Aurora’s expression softened—not with comfort, but pity. “No. Not really. Celestial beings hear it. We feel the pull. But we choose if we answer.” She dragged her finger through the air, tracing an invisible thread. “It’s like a mosquito whining in your ear—an irritation that someone, somewhere, thinks they own a piece of you.”

Dean’s mouth curled. “Great. So we’re cosmic telemarketers now. ‘Hi, we noticed your warranty on the apocalypse is expiring, press one to—’”

Aurora cut him off, voice suddenly edged. “They’re not calling. They’re trying to define us. Angels are feeding hunters stories: that I corrupted you. That Sam glows because of me. That you don’t age because you orbit me. That neither of you are men anymore.”

Dean barked a laugh, dry as gunpowder. “So the party line is ‘Beware the glowing witch-goddess and her Winchester boy-toys’? Cute.”

Aurora didn’t smile. “They say I take you both to bed. That I’ve remade you into something… other.”

Sam’s jaw flexed hard. “Because God forbid anyone believe this is love.”

Her eyes softened for him, but her tone stayed cold. “Love frightens them more than power. Because love doesn’t obey.”

Cas spoke for the first time, his voice quiet but razor-sharp. “Heaven has always feared love. It makes soldiers disloyal. It ends wars they want to fight.”

Aurora exhaled, steady now. “Hunters believe what they see. They see you glow, Sam. They see you untouched by time, Dean. They see me walk through fire and history without bowing. And they’re afraid—not of us, but of what it means if the rules they’ve lived by crumble.”

Dean’s voice carried the bitter humor of old scars. “Hunters don’t like rewrites. Our whole job was ‘shoot first, salt the ashes later.’”

Sam looked at Aurora, searching. “So what do we do?”

Her gaze burned steady. “We gather the ones who remember. The ones who stood with the Winchesters, not against them.”

Dean gave a humorless smirk. “So, basically, a reunion tour. ‘Come see your favorite hunters—now with extra glow.’”

Aurora’s lips twitched. “Because if we don’t… they’ll summon something worse. Something that doesn’t make jokes.”

Outside, the wind howled, scattering dead leaves across the stone paths like brittle bones.

Inside, Sam tightened his grip on her hand, the echo of his name ringing in the distance—not a summons, but a reckoning.

Even godlings needed allies.

And beings this powerful, when cornered—don’t fall.

They burn.

Five hunters. All young. All stupid in slightly different flavors.

Two jarheads still high on steroid rumors and fresh kills. One with witch-blood and an ego to match. One soaked in last-call whiskey and borrowed bravado. And one—barely old enough to shave—still carrying baby fat like innocence that hadn’t gotten the memo.

The abandoned mill stank of wet stone and desperation. Water dripped from rusted rafters in mocking rhythms. A cracked red summoning circle sprawled across the concrete like an open wound—ragged, still bleeding chalk and fury. Candles hissed in the corners, flames twitching like nervous animals.

They clutched their weapons like charms: salt rounds, silver, holy oil, Latin ink scrawled on forearms. One brandished an angel blade like it might tuck him in at night. Another gripped a rosary as if it could apologize on his behalf.

Jesse, their leader, held up the scorched parchment like scripture.

“This is it. The sigil. The angels swore it would work.”

The youngest scoffed. “Since when do we trust angels?”

“You wanna wait?” Jesse snapped. “Wait until what hit New Orleans hits here? That wasn’t demons, kid—that was Sam Winchester and his witch-bitch. You wanna wake up to your block turned into glass?”

Silence. Sour, uneasy. Even the shadows seemed to lean away.

Jesse stepped into the circle. No hesitation. No reverence. Just fury in a borrowed ritual. He sliced his palm open—practiced, neat—and let blood fall across the sigil.

He chanted. Butchered Enochian clawed at the air.

The candles flared wrong. Sickly gold. Shadows crawled backwards. The heat died.

Then—pressure.

The air compressed like a god had exhaled into the world’s lungs. Salt sizzled. The circle pulsed—void, color bleeding out of the room.

And the scent.

Ozone. Burnt copper. Starlight locked in ice.

The thrum came next. Not heard—felt. A bass so deep it shook bone. The walls groaned. One split down the center, stone opening like teeth.

Then the voice.

Not from the circle. From below. From within.

“You reach with dirty hands.”

It wasn’t sound. It was an inscription carved behind Jesse’s eyes. He dropped the parchment. Tried to scream—but silence closed around his throat like a fist.

Light erupted.

Not flame. Not energy.

Light. Pure. Seething. Divine.

It tore through the circle like judgment sharpened to a blade.

One hunter slammed into the wall so hard the pipes screamed. Another dropped, shrieking, blood streaming from his ears. The witch-blooded one tried to banish it—his tongue caught fire mid-word. The rosary melted in the youngest’s hand.

Jesse stood frozen, pupils blown wide, mouth an unformed prayer.

The voice again. Colder.

“You seek to leash a storm.

You scrawl judgment in stolen chalk.

Do you even know the name you reach for?”

The cracked wall spiraled inward. Stone twisted like reality reconsidered its shape. Then—

Nothing.

No Sam. No Aurora. No angel.

Just the echo of something watching. Waiting. Deciding.

A final exhale of ozone and ash, starlight and smoke.

Jesse staggered back, hands shaking. Then he saw his palms—skin slick with blood, seared now with golden marks. Celestial. Smoldering. Branding him for what he dared.

The youngest, curled on the floor, whispered through cracked lips:

“What… what did we call?”

Jesse couldn’t answer.

Not because he didn’t know.

Because he did.

They had brushed the edge of something vast.

And she—

The flame between stars, creation unbound—

had looked back.

Just long enough to burn a message into their bones:

Never reach again.

Dean’s palms slammed onto the edge of the map table, rattling the ward lines carved deep into its surface.

“They tried to summon him. Not ask. Not beg. Just yank him in like he’s a damn hellhound on a leash.”

The table throbbed with residual light—not holy, not infernal, just wrong. A summoning had torn open a circle in southern Ohio. Not a prayer. Not a plea. A command.

Aurora stood at the far end of the room, draped in a silk robe the color of midnight stormclouds. She hadn’t entered. She had simply been—like light waiting behind your eyelids.

Her golden radiance didn’t flicker, but her head snapped sharply, as if tugged by an unseen string. She felt it. Not pain. Not damage. Just the jolt across their bond—the way her essence resonated when someone spoke his name with power behind it.

“That was not a calling,” she said softly. “That was a claim.”

Cas appeared at the threshold, grace tucked tight into his vessel. “They failed.”

“This time,” Dean snarled. He turned to Sam, who stood barefoot in the hall, jaw clenched like wire. “You felt it?”

Sam’s voice was low, dark. “Like fishhooks dragging through my spine. Angel runes. Blood. Desperation.”

Dean shoved away from the table. “I know that town. I’ll go. They’ll listen to me.”

“They always did,” Aurora said, moving toward him. Her light was steady, clear gold, unshaken but watchful. “You were the one they trusted when their gods didn’t answer. When Heaven shut its gates and Hell laughed in their faces.”

Dean grunted. “Yeah, well, I also wasn’t glowing like a nuclear relic. No offense.”

Sam gave him a sidelong look. “None taken.”

Aurora’s gaze didn’t leave Dean. “They trusted you because you were human. Mortal. Angry. Reckless. But theirs.”

Dean’s frustration flared. “You saying I shouldn’t go?”

Aurora’s voice cut sharp. “I’m saying they won’t see Dean Winchester anymore. They’ll see the man who carries my grace. A shard of something older than their oaths. You walk in there, they’ll smell Heaven on your breath and Hell under your boots. They won’t understand it.”

Dean snorted. “Yeah, well, I am confusing. Ask anyone.”

Aurora’s mouth curved, dry and dangerous. “You’re a bridge between the world they knew and the one they fear. And bridges, Dean—don’t always survive the crossing.”

The joke burned out in his chest like an old match.

“And what, we just wait?” he snapped. “Let them carve Sam’s name into blood bowls and mutter half-remembered trash from dead angels?”

Sam stepped forward, calm but iron-sure. “We wait because we choose to. Not because they tell us. Not because we’re afraid.”

Cas’s voice slid in, quiet but final. “This isn’t just the hunters’ fear. It’s Heaven’s design. Fear spreads faster than truth. And frightened hunters shoot first.”

Dean’s fists curled tight. “They’re our people.”

Aurora stepped closer, light flickering across the map lines. “Then let’s make sure they stay that way.”

The air shifted. The tension didn’t break, but it bent—redirected.

Dean blew out a breath, the fight leaking out of him. “Fine. We wait. But don’t ask me to like it.”

Sam’s aura flared. Aurora’s glow shimmered in answer. For a moment, the lamps flickered—though no hand touched a switch.

“They won’t,” Sam said, voice low and final. “Not twice.”

Chapter Text

The sky didn’t fold.

It twitched—like a muscle about to tear.

Dawn halted. Clouds hung in place like baited breath. And above the treeline, reality itself flinched.

A ripple rolled through Iron Oak—deep, deliberate. Not storm, not tremor. Something older. Hungrier. The manor didn’t crack. It recoiled.

Wards groaned under the floorboards, flared once—gold and furious—then settled into a pulse that wasn’t quite human.

And then—silence. Heavy as a verdict.

Aurora’s head lifted where she sat beside Sam, already glowing. Her gaze locked, molten-gold and unblinking.

“They’re here.”

Dean was already half into his jacket. “They?”

Cas appeared at the threshold like he’d been called by war itself. “Angels. At the perimeter.”

Sam didn’t speak. His fingers brushed Aurora’s—bracing himself. Her grace was rising, sharp and unhidden.

They moved together—Sam, Aurora, Dean, Cas, Markus, Henry—through the ironwood grove. Sigils lit along the bark as they passed. The land itself bristled awake.

At the standing stones, three angels waited like a loaded gun with the safety off.

Their vessels were patchwork: a drifter in a filthy coat, a military stiff with dead eyes, one in bloodstained leather. Unimpressive. But the sky warped behind them anyway.

They hadn’t crossed the wardline. That mattered.

The one in the middle stepped forward, smug and hollow-eyed.

“Aurora, the Source. Sam Winchester, Lucifer’s vessel.”

Dean snorted. “Do they hand out scripts, or is this improv night at the end of the world?”

Aurora didn’t blink. “Speak.”

The angel faltered, then pressed on. “The balance is shattered. The Hollow Court burned. Realms bend toward your names.”

Markus scoffed. “Maybe Heaven should’ve taken better notes.”

Sam’s voice cut in, quiet, hard. “Not toward. Because of.”

The leather-jacketed one hissed, “Abominations.”

The air around Aurora cracked.

She didn’t flare. She didn’t scream.

She stood. Eyes lit gold. Grace gathering so fiercely the trees recoiled and the stones sang.

Dean muttered under his breath, “Oh, great. Now you pissed off the sun.”

Henry stepped forward—not shielding her, but the others.

Aurora raised a hand. The wardline pulsed like a heartbeat. The leather angel flinched, fear flashing.

“You dare stand here,” she said, her voice like glass shattering, “after running from the world you were charged to guard? You call him a monster. You dare call us abominations. Do you not smell your own rot?”

The military angel sneered. “There is no order. Only collapse. You’ve destroyed Heaven. You threaten the veil. You rewrite the script.”

Aurora’s lips curled, disgust etched into every syllable. “Order? You call hiding in Choirs while humanity bled order? You call abandoning your Father’s creation order? You’re not guardians. You’re cowards. Parasites wrapped in borrowed skin.”

Her eyes seared brighter, and her tone dropped to something venomous. “You’re not my family. You’re Heaven’s abominations.”

The angels recoiled, vessels twitching under the weight of her words.

Cas’s voice cut, sharp and merciless. “She speaks the truth. There is no Choir left. No throne. Just echoes.”

The trench coat sneered. “You’ve built your temple out of men.”

“And Heaven didn’t?” Cas shot back. “Every blade was forged from obedience. Every law enforced by stolen bodies. You’re just tyrants too cowardly to admit it.”

The leader—bleeding now where the wardline licked him—lifted his chin.

“You call him Severance. He’s nothing. Lucifer’s runt.”

Markus surged, but Sam was already stepping past them.

He didn’t blaze. He didn’t rush.

He stood.

And the world went quiet. Not empty. Not still. Quiet in a way that screamed judgment.

Grass bent inward around his boots. Light bent with him—gold, edged in something redder, darker.

“You’re wrong,” Sam said. His voice carved the air.

“I am Severance. Not because of what I was made for. Because I choose what remains. What is undone.”

The angels froze.

Sam lifted his hand—not a threat, just a promise.

“I don’t kneel to Choirs. I don’t answer to the thrones. Test me again—”

His eyes burned molten dark.

“—and I will unmake you.”

Something cracked in the sky. One angel gasped—not at violence, but at certainty.

Markus flanked Sam. “You heard him.”

Henry took the other side. “You remember what he was. You don’t understand what he is.”

The leather one spat. “You think you're a judge of Heaven?”

Sam’s voice dropped, gravity closing like a door.

“I don’t just think that. I am.”

Aurora stepped forward beside him, radiant, wrathful. Her light burned steady, searing.

“You refuse to name him. So I’ll give you what Heaven never did.”

She paused a beat.

“Mercy. Leave.”

The angels faltered. No Choir. No throne. Just six figures—and a new axis of creation. None of it theirs.

They vanished. Not in glory. Not in light.

Gone. Like shadows burned off the bone.

Dean exhaled. “Well, that wasn’t ominous at all.”

Cas kept his arms crossed, eyes on the horizon. “They’ll lie to themselves. But they felt it. Every inch.”

Henry glanced at Sam, hushed. “You didn’t just confront them.”

Sam’s jaw flexed. “Next time, I won’t ask.”

Aurora laced her fingers through his. Her disgust lingered, her wrath still humming in the air.

Behind them, the wardline purred with satisfaction.

The angels were gone.

But the air still shimmered—like heat rising off a grave.

Grass smoked where one had stood, blackened to the root.

Dean planted his boots in the dirt, hands on his hips, jaw tight, like he was daring something else to crawl up from it.

“They really thought they could just march in here,” he muttered. “Like it’s still the good old days.”

Cas didn’t answer right away. His eyes stayed on the horizon, watching it settle like a wound trying to clot.

“They don’t know what to do without orders,” he said finally.

Dean scoffed. “Join the club.”

Sam stepped forward, quiet until the silence pressed against his chest. “They’re not used to hearing no.”

Dean rolled his shoulders, motion sharp, coiled. “Well, they better learn fast. I’m done bowing, Sam’s done kneeling—” he jerked his chin at Aurora— “and she sure as hell isn’t gonna sit around polishing a halo for their approval.”

Aurora’s glow sharpened, her mouth curved thin. “Halo isn’t the word they used.”

Dean barked a humorless laugh. “Yeah, well, they can choke on their thesaurus.”

He looked toward Cas. There was weight behind it—the kind you only shared with someone who’d bled beside you.

“You ever think this was the point?” Dean asked, voice lower. “Not thrones. Not golden cities. Just… us. Holding the line.”

Cas didn’t blink. “I used to believe Heaven would save the world.” His voice was steady, almost cruel. “Now I think we were always meant to replace it.”

Sam’s tone was flint, sparking. “That’s what terrifies them. Not the power. Us. That they were wrong.”

Dean’s bitter smile cut sideways. “We’ve been rewriting the script since Dad shoved a shotgun in our hands.” He kicked a stone across the moss, watching it rattle like a warning no one would heed.

“They’re gonna keep coming. Hunters. Angels. Demons. Every bastard afraid of change. And I’m starting to think we need more than porch lights and family dinners.”

Sam eyed him. “What are you thinking?”

Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “A council. Not robes and crowns. Just people who’ve actually bled for this world.”

Cas tilted his head. “A high council.”

Dean pointed. “Yeah. That. But not the stuck-up kind. No robe-measuring contests. Just people who give a damn.”

Aurora’s voice drifted in, dry as ash. “Touching. Very statesmanlike. Should I fetch you a podium?”

Dean threw her a look. “Hey, I’m not running for office.”

Sam leaned forward slightly, glow flickering crimson and gold. Even in the hush after battle, he looked more force than man.

“Hunters are scared. The world changed. We changed. No one knows what the hell comes next.”

Dean nodded. “Exactly. Chuck’s a corpse, Heaven’s a ruin, Hell’s got Rowena—which, honestly? Good for her. But the rest of us? We’re flailing. If we don’t define what comes next, someone worse will.”

Cas’s voice sliced through, measured, merciless. “Heaven mistook hierarchy for strength. Don’t make the same mistake.”

Dean stood with taut shoulders. “So maybe we stop acting like survivors and start acting like architects.”

Aurora stepped closer. Her grace pressed against them, warm as fire sealed behind glass.

“You understand what you’re invoking. The moment we name it, it becomes real. And the moment it’s real—”

“It will be attacked,” Cas finished.

Sam met her gaze. “We’ve been attacked before.”

Aurora softened—just slightly. “Once it exists, it will be tested. Relentlessly. There’s no going back.”

Sam’s jaw set. “Good. The old world’s not worth mourning.”

Sam thought about the scarred map table in the War Room. Names etched in its border were ghosts—kingdoms that rose and rotted, orders which collapsed under their own pride. But something else hummed there now. Not memory but momentum.

Aurora stepped beside him as his axis. Her fingers laced with his, a quiet defiance of every god who tried to unmake them.

No thrones. No choirs.

Just a room where it can begin again.

Sam’s voice was certain. “We sit together. No crowns. No knives under the table. If the world needs something to believe in… it starts here.”

Aurora’s eyes burned gold. “Then let them see us for what we are.”

Markus emerged from shadow, silver-gold burning in his gaze. “You know this doesn’t end quiet.”

Henry folded his arms, voice crisp, old steel. “It never does. But this time, we write the terms.”

Wind stirred the oaks. 

They weren’t inheriting a broken order.

They were building one no one had dared before.

The hearth crackled low, its light flickering off the stone like firelight caught in memory. The rest of Iron Oak had long since gone still—warded, watched, and bracing for the inevitable. Somewhere outside, the wind was carving its opinion into the trees.

Inside, Aurora was asleep.

Sam stood nearby, arms crossed, mug forgotten on the table behind him. He wasn’t used to seeing her like this—peaceful, flushed with warmth instead of warning. Most of the time, she moved like the room had offended her and she was considering vaporizing it.

Now, she was curled on the chaise like a drowsy goddess, skin faintly luminous, hair falling in riotous dark waves. A single bare foot poked out from under the throw blanket like a flag of truce.

“You’re staring,” she murmured, not bothering to open her eyes.

“I thought gods didn’t snore,” Sam replied, dry.

Her lips twitched. “That was a purr.”

“Pretty sure it scared the fireplace.”

She opened her eyes slowly, golden irises soft in the firelight. “You’re still awake.”

He shrugged. “It’s hard to sleep when half the world’s trying to decide if it should summon you or stab you.”

Aurora hummed, stretching like something feline. “Let them try both. I’m in the mood for a double feature.”

Sam walked over, crouched beside her. “You were really out.”

“I know.” Her voice turned quieter. “It’s new.”

“What is?”

“Being able to sleep without the world unraveling in my absence,” she said. “It started after I was unbound. By you.”

He frowned. “Me?”

Aurora sat up slightly, tugging him down beside her with an ease that belied her size. “I’m at full power now, Sam. Unbound. Unbroken. But I don’t burn through universes to stay that way. I give it to you.” She pressed a hand to his chest, over the grace that now coiled beneath his skin. “And you carry it like it was always yours.”

Sam studied her. “You said it doesn’t hurt you.”

“It doesn’t,” she said with a slow smile. “It quiets me. Grace like mine—it’s made to ignite stars, not rest. But with you, I don’t have to be lit up all the time. I can dim without dying. Do you know what that feels like to something made of light?”

He blinked. “Peaceful?”

She shook her head. “Intimate.”

He swallowed. “And you trust me with that?”

“I’d burn the world down to keep you,” she said softly. “What’s trust after that?”

A long silence stretched. Sam finally said, “So what happens when the rest of the world figures out we’re not going anywhere?”

Aurora tilted her head, gaze flicking to the fire. “Then the game changes. No more summoning circles and angelic propaganda. No more running or rewriting history to keep us contained.”

He sighed. “Do we even want the council to happen?”

“We need something to outlive us,” she said. “Even if it’s just a blueprint.”

Sam leaned his head back against the armrest, staring at the ceiling. “You’re getting poetic again. That’s usually a sign you’re about to blow something up.”

“Or seduce you,” she said, smug.

“Could go either way,” he muttered.

Aurora smirked and nudged his thigh with her foot. “We’re not here to be palatable, Sam. We’re here to be undeniable. Anyone who can’t handle that? Let them tremble.”

“People are trembling,” he said. “Hunters. Angels. Witches. Demons. Politicians, probably.”

“Good,” she said, eyes glowing. “Let them think we’re mythic. Let them pray or panic.”

“And us?” he asked.

Aurora smiled, slow and sure. “We just keep showing up.”

The moon had shifted higher, thin and sharp through the lattice windows. The fire had burned low again, embers tucked into ash like secrets waiting to be spoken.

Aurora lay back against the cushions, her hair a spilled shadow over the brocade, watching Sam with that golden gaze that made time tilt sideways.

“You’re still wound tight,” she murmured.

“I’m fine,” Sam said automatically, and then caught himself.

Aurora arched one brow, slow and knowing. “Sam.”

He exhaled, and moved closer beside her, hands braced on his knees. The space between them was warm, charged and full.

“I keep thinking about how close it all still is,” he said. “The Hollow. The angels. What the hunters believe. What we’re becoming.”

“We’re already there,” she said gently. “We’re just the last to accept it.”

His eyes slid to hers. “I don’t want to become something that forgets how to be human.”

Aurora reached for him. No dramatics, no ceremony—just a quiet, anchoring gesture. Her hand slid over his, then up to his chest.

“You won’t,” she said. “You’re the reason I can sleep peacefully. You’ve anchored divinity to kindness. To choice.” Her fingers flattened over his heart. “I’ve never been so powerful—and I’ve never felt more… grounded.”

He turned toward her fully, drawn in by that low voice, the scent of her skin, the impossible light beneath it.

“And are you tired now?” he asked, voice low.

“No,” she whispered. “Not that kind of tired.”

Their mouths met with slow heat, the kind born not from hunger but certainty. Sam slid his hand along her jaw, thumb brushing the curve of her cheek as she leaned into him like the world tilted in his direction.

When he pulled her into his lap, she didn’t resist. She came willingly, gracefully, settling across his thighs effortlessly. Her fingers threaded into his hair, her lips parting against his, and the fire responded—flaring in sudden gold before dimming into low, pulsing coals.

He undressed her slowly, reverently, inch by inch, as if each piece of fabric was a barrier to something sacred. Her breath caught when he kissed the curve of her hip, the inside of her thigh, his hands coaxing her open with maddening patience. Aurora reached for him, but he pinned her gently with just a look.

“Let me have you,” he murmured.

Sam kissed down her  stomach. He moaned when she arched for him, when her legs parted fully and her breath came out in a broken sob of want.

Her hands tangled in his hair as he worshiped her with his mouth—slow, sure, relentless. Aurora was gasping now, no longer celestial—just Aurora. A woman undone and radiant in his hands.

When she came, it wasn’t small.

Her grace surged out like a wave, washing over him and shaking the very walls. The bond snapped taut between them, yanking at the core of him like a lasso of heat.

He kissed his way up her body, gripping her thighs to spread her further, dragging the tip of himself through her warm folds until she shuddered. He didn’t tease. He didn’t wait.

He pressed inside of her in one long, slow thrust—and everything around them responded.

The chandelier above trembled. The wards flared gold. The air shifted as if it recognized this as a sacred rite. Her legs locked around his waist and her moan was almost a sob.

“Yes—” she breathed. “Sam—God—”

He moved with devastating control—deep, slow, claiming strokes that ground their bodies together in rhythm. Aurora clawed at his shoulders, his back, her lips finding his jaw, his neck, his mouth again.

Each thrust pulled something from her—a groan, a plea, a burst of light.

Sam pressed harder, deeper, until she choked on a cry and dug her nails into his shoulders. He growled into her ear, voice ragged with need.

“You’re mine,” he rasped. 

She shattered under him again, body shaking, grace flaring so hot it made his own essence rise to meet it. They were burning together now and when he came, it was with a roar, a sound pulled from somewhere deeper than sound itself.

Their bond exploded outward—threads of gold and red and white winding around them, through them, above them. The manor groaned and hummed, not in pain, but in pleasure. It knew them. It welcomed this.

They collapsed together, still joined, bodies slick and breathless, hands clutching, lips brushing.

Aurora curled into him, her voice lazy and sated. 

“We still make the stars tremble.”

Sam smiled into her hair. “Good. I want them to remember we were here.”

The next evening, the dining room was hollowed out by silence, the hearth crackling low. Firelight flickered off stone like memory. The rest of Iron Oak had gone still—warded, watching, bracing. Outside, the wind carved its opinion into the trees.

Aurora didn’t move. She stood across from Dean, severe and unmoving, her dress shimmering black on black, light dampened but never gone.

Dean stayed rooted at the table, knuckles pressed into the carved edge like he was holding it together by sheer will. He dragged a hand down his face.

“Long damn night.”

Aurora’s voice was even. “It isn’t over.”

He gave a dry laugh, more air than sound. “God, you people are exhausting.”

Silence stretched. Not cold. Just heavy, like something waiting to break.

“You know,” Dean muttered, eyes on the runes burned into the wood, “there was a time it all made sense. Vamp nest. Salt and burn. Demon in the basement. Now you and Sam glow and reality pops like a balloon at a kid’s party.”

Aurora’s gaze didn’t waver. “You’ve cracked your share of balloons.”

Dean huffed. “Yeah. But I didn’t do it with cosmic grace and—” he gestured vaguely, “—whatever you two have cooking.”

Her reply was level. “No. Just rage and a crowbar.”

He snorted. “Fair.”

For a beat, his eyes lifted to hers. Not soft, not hard. Just tired.

“They’re scared. Not just of you. Not just of Sam. Of all of it. Rules changed overnight, and most folks still think you glow ‘cause you’re about to smite somebody.”

Aurora tilted her head. “And you?”

Dean held her stare a second too long.

“I used to be. Before the Hollow. Before you burned that place down for me. Before I saw what Sam is with you—and what you are without him.”

He let the weight hang, then added, quieter: “Fear doesn’t mean wrong. Fear just means change.”

Aurora moved closer to the table, voice low. “Then let’s make the change mean something.”

Dean scoffed. “Yeah? You think Bobby’s old crew is ready to play house with a witch and a fae?”

“I think they already have,” Aurora said. “They just didn’t notice.”

His jaw twitched. “We’re not built for this. Diplomacy. Politics. Hell, I used to fake FBI badges and hit things with tire irons.”

Aurora’s gaze sharpened. “Now you fake peace talks and hit celestial beings with truth.”

Dean smirked despite himself. “You make it sound noble.”

“You make it look easy.”

He paced a few steps, then stopped. His voice came quieter.

“I’ve been thinking about the Council. We need something. A way to keep the freaks from eating each other alive. I don’t want to build it.” His jaw flexed. “I just don’t want it turning into another monster.”

Aurora nodded once. “Then let’s do it. But make it something real. No robes. No declarations.”

“No banners,” Dean said.

“No thrones,” Aurora answered.

He blew out a breath. “Alright. I’ll talk to Jody. Donna. Folks who matter. Quiet. No fanfare. Just… people who’ll stand.”

Aurora stepped close enough that static rolled off her skin.

“You’ve always been real, Dean. That’s why they followed you through Hell. Why they’ll follow you now.”

He didn’t look at her. Not yet.

“The second we call it a Council, someone’s gonna try and blow us up.”

Aurora’s smile was thin. “Then we’ll teach them what happens when they try.”

Dean finally met her gaze, sharp and unflinching.

“You and Sam. What you’ve built—it’s terrifying. And the ones who oughta be scared? They aren’t. Not yet.”

Aurora’s reply was steel wrapped in silk. “Then let them learn. We’re done hiding. We’re done asking.”

Dean gave a slow nod. “So it begins.”

“Yes,” Aurora said. Her light flared, quiet and certain. “And now it answers.”

Deep in Iron Oak, the stone groaned like it agreed.

Chapter Text

Dean braced one hand on the leaded window frame in the old study, with the other hand gripping a burner phone. He didn’t trust Iron Oak’s wards to keep out every rumor—but he trusted Jody Mills.

He just hoped she still trusted him.

With a sigh dragged from somewhere deep and tired, he hit the dial key.

Two rings.

“Dean?”

Her voice cut through static like a bullet—sharp, wary, threaded with maternal exasperation.

“Hey, Sheriff.”

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “You’re actually calling.”

Dean winced. “Yeah. Been a while.”

“A while? Try a cosmic eternity. You boys vanish, the sky bleeds twice, monsters start acting cute, and not one damn word from a Winchester. I thought you were dead.”

“I’ve been worse.”

The silence that followed wasn’t just anger. It was hurt.

Dean rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I’m sorry, Jody. I should’ve—”

“Damn right you should’ve.”

Another pause. Then, softer: “But I’m glad you did.”

Dean let that land before asking, “How bad is it?”

“You want it sugarcoated or raw?”

“Raw.”

She didn’t hesitate.

“Coven activity spiking. Blood magic for sale in Nashville. A werewolf pack running soup kitchens in Denver. And during the eclipse?” She exhaled. “The moon cried, Dean. But that’s not what keeps me up.”

He braced. “What does?”

“You.”

Dean closed his eyes.

“You and Sam,” she went on. “People are saying you’re not human anymore. That Sam’s turned into some kind of… god. That you’re carrying grace. And the kicker?”

He waited.

“Somebody swears they saw you with a woman glowing like she swallowed the sun.”

Dean let out a grim huff. “That part’s true.”

“No shit.”

“She’s complicated.” A beat. “But she’s Sam’s.”

“Of course she is,” Jody muttered. “Always the weird ones with you boys.”

Dean smiled despite himself.

“Listen,” he said, voice turning serious. “There’s a lot I can’t explain over the phone. But you need to know—we’re not the same anymore. And neither is the world.”

She was quiet for a moment.“Yeah. I know. People feel it. Claire’s visions are back. Kaia’s restless. Even Donna’s muttering spells—and they’re working.”

Dean leaned against the frame, the weight in his chest heavier. “That’s why I’m calling.”

“I figured,” she said. “So. What’s the ask?”

Dean swallowed.

“I need to meet. You. Donna. Maybe one or two others you trust. People who’ll listen before they start flinging hex bags.”

Jody’s voice dropped. “Where?”

“Iron Oak. Old Winchester estate. Not stateside. I’ll portal you in.”

The line went quiet.

“Jesus. A portal?”

“Yeah. Don’t bring salt. The walls are already pissed.”

Another long breath. “When?”

“You say.”

Dean pictured her in her kitchen, boots scuffed, arms folded, working it through.

“I want answers,” she said finally. “Real ones. No evasions. No half-truths.”

“You’ll get them.”

“And if I don’t like what I see?”

“Then you walk. But at least you’ll see it for yourself.”

Another pause. “Okay. Tell me where to stand.”

Dean exhaled, slow. “I’ll send coordinates. You’re going to feel cold wind, don’t fight it.”

“I never do.”

She hung up first.

Dean set the phone down gently. Outside, the loch shimmered, the sky bled gold into silver. The aurora rippled just beyond sight, restless, watching.

And still, she’d said yes.

The Arrival at Iron Oak

It didn’t look like a portal.

Not at first.

Just a shimmer behind Jody’s cabin—an errant slice of heat in the warm dusk, bending the air like something trying to remember how to bleed through. Then runes flared in the soil—bright and brief, like a warning flare: a key, a flame, a sigil written in blood willingly given.

And then it opened.

No sound. No spinning. Just an inhale—then they were gone.

One blink, and they stood on cracked stone just beyond the estate gates. Trees older than anything in South Dakota leaned in like witnesses. The land itself felt aware—like it had been waiting.

Iron Oak rose ahead, all stone and shadow. Not quite a manor. Not quite a fortress. But it remembered power.

Jody stumbled, boots slipping on moss-edged stone. “Jesus. What the actual hell was that?”

Donna’s eyes stayed locked on the estate. “That? That was the kind of magic that doesn’t ask permission.”

The gates didn’t open so much as yield.

No lock. No hinges. Just iron sighing like it knew them.

The air smelled of burnt lavender and old storms. Sigils in the walls shimmered if you looked too long. Grass curled inward in soft spirals, drawn toward the heart of the courtyard like it knew where it belonged.

Then came the footsteps.

Dean emerged first, cutting through morning light like a blade unsheathed. Broad. Solid. Familiar—but not.

Jody froze.

He wasn’t glowing. It was worse. He radiated. Like an old god wearing denim and scars. His green eyes were darker, deeper. Like they’d seen past the veil and come back hungry.

“Jody. Donna.” His voice had gravel in it. “Took you long enough.”

Jody squinted. “You got… taller?”

Dean smirked. “I got weirder. Try to keep up.”

Donna sniffed. “You smell like thunder and whiskey in a blackout.”

“Still me,” Dean said. “Just with upgrades.”

Sam stepped into view. Donna moved back without meaning to. Jody’s breath hitched.

Sam Winchester didn’t enter a room—he bent it. Like gravity. Or prophecy.

Tall, cut from truth more than flesh, his presence pressed against the world. His eyes caught the light and threw it back in molten gold and garnet, like he’d eaten stars and remembered their names.

“Hey,” Sam said softly. “You made it.”

Aurora suddenly appeared beside him. She was just there. Like dusk given form.

Light shifted beneath her skin like slow lightning. Her boots were scuffed, her dress shimmered like heat-haze, her curls fell in shadows and smoke. Every inch of her carried the weight of something you weren’t meant to look upon—and yet here she stood.

Donna whispered, reverent and rattled, “You’re like… a fire trying real hard to stay a woman.”

Aurora's smile was sharp and unreadable. “You see clearly.”

Jody’s jaw set. “And what are you?”

Sam’s voice cut in, protective and iron-calm. “She’s the reason I’m still breathing. That any of us are.”

Dean added, “She also burned half the Hollow Court to cinders dragging my ass out. So. Put that in your notes.”

Donna gave a low whistle. “Jesus.”

“You’re both lit up,” she muttered. “Like a pair of holy lightbulbs dipped in vice and vengeance.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “You’re late to the party.”

Aurora didn’t laugh. But her smile warmed the courtyard anyway.

Sam gestured toward the door. “Come in. The gate doesn’t let in strangers.”

Jody muttered, “Hell of a bouncer.”

Sam’s grin was small, sharp. “It’s also a warning.”

Inside Iron Oak

The sitting room was built for war councils and winter storms. Wide hearth. Arched windows. Furniture too heavy to move, too old to fail. Tea had been laid out—because of course it had.

Dean sprawled in a leather chair like it owed him rent.

Sam stood at the hearth, quiet and watchful. 

Aurora anchored herself beside him—not draped, not lounging, but rooted. Her exhaustion clung like ash, but her radiance never dimmed enough to be ignored.

Jody studied them both. “You’re… different.”

Sam’s brow ticked. “Different how?”

Donna snorted. “Like somebody juiced your souls with celestial steroids.”

Dean grinned. “Better than moonshine. Doesn’t give you the runs.”

Sam’s mouth almost smiled. “We’re still us. Just… unfolded.”

Aurora’s voice slipped through the quiet, soft but sharp. “You’ve carried weight others couldn’t. I felt it before I knew your names. That’s why you’re here. That’s why you’re trusted.”

Jody blinked.

“You’re not just survivors,” Aurora went on. “You’re ballast. The kind that keeps the world from snapping in half when everything else breaks.”

Donna cleared her throat. “You say Hallmark-level stuff like that often?”

Aurora’s golden eyes didn’t flinch. “Only when it’s true.”

Jody’s gaze narrowed. “You love them.”

Aurora didn’t hesitate. “They are my family.”

Sam looked at her then—and the silence in that glance could’ve leveled cities.

Dean cleared his throat, like someone had just thrown a live grenade into his chest. “Alright, feelings time’s over. Let’s talk council.”

Jody arched her brow. “Council?”

Sam stepped forward, firelight catching in the veins of gold under his skin. “It’s time. We can’t hold the line alone anymore. We need structure. Protection. A place where factions listen instead of slit throats.”

Dean nodded. “We’re building it. Not with angels. Not with kings. With people who still bleed, still scar, and keep getting up anyway.”

“With hunters,” Donna said.

Dean’s smirk was sharp. “Exactly. And yeah—we’re glowing freaks now. But we remember who we were. And we’ll fight for the ones who haven’t changed. Yet.”

Aurora didn’t add a word.

She didn’t need to.

The silence tilted toward her, like even the house leaned in. The walls listened and Iron Oak—ancient, warded, alive—seemed to murmur its approval.

The iron gates parted like they remembered who she was.

Aurora led the way, Sam close beside her, their steps easy, mirrored. Dean, Cas, Jody, and Donna followed with varying degrees of guarded curiosity, reverence, and good old-fashioned hunter suspicion.

“Iron Oak isn’t just a house,” Aurora said, her voice low as they passed under the gnarled arch of silver-tipped ivy. “It’s a promise that never breaks. A place built on blood, love, and intention.”

The air shimmered with moss, lavender, old stone, and something else—memory, maybe. The kind that didn’t just haunt, but watched.

“Feels like haunted bricks,” Jody muttered.

“Not haunted,” Castiel corrected, his gaze skimming the hedgerows that angled subtly toward Aurora. “Sentient.”

Donna nudged Dean. “Is it supposed to do that?”

Dean, perfectly unfazed, grunted, “Place has a mood. You get used to it. Like a cat. Except it’s a castle. And it hates strangers.”

They passed a fountain carved with celestial runes. Its water shimmered—not with light, but with moments: a Winchester hunt in Missouri, a child’s birth, a small smile on Sam’s face as he watched Aurora sleep.

Donna’s eyes widened. “Did it just—”

“Yes,” Aurora said gently, without slowing.

Dean muttered, “Pro tip? Don’t look too close unless you like free therapy sessions you didn’t ask for.”

Jody gave him a flat look. “You’ve been living in a psychic house that eavesdrops on your nightmares and you didn’t think to mention it?”

Dean smirked. “Figured you’d notice.”

Aurora’s hand brushed the stone as they moved deeper into the grounds. The wards pulsed gold once, like a heartbeat answering hers.

“It doesn’t show you what you want,” she said softly. “It shows you what shaped you.”

Jody exhaled, long and low. “Hell of a welcome mat.”

Donna crossed her arms. “Yeah, well, if the walls start talking in tongues, I’m out.”

Dean chuckled, low and dry. “Relax. If it didn’t like you, you wouldn’t have made it through the gate.”

The air thickened, the manor looming ahead—waiting. Not inviting. Not threatening. Just aware.

Aurora smiled faintly. “It remembers.”

The Orchard

The trees grew half-wild, bark etched with runes that pulsed faintly as the group passed. The air smelled of earth and apples, the hush of evening pressing close.

Beneath the oldest oak, Henry and Markus waited like they had all the time in the world.

Dean slowed first, jerking a thumb toward them. “Alright. Jody, Donna—Henry Langford. Old friend of the family. And Markus Winchester… our, uh, very extended kin.”

Henry stepped forward, tall and flame-haired, aristocratic even in orchard dust. He inclined his head. “Henry Langford. A pleasure, Sheriff Mills. Sheriff Hanscum.” His vowels carried the weight of old aristocracy, like even his courtesy had tenure.

Markus stayed perched on the low stone wall, an apple turning lazy between his fingers. Then he rose, grin flashing, shirt loose at the throat. “Markus Winchester. Born the year of the American Revolution, so don’t hold the name against me.”

Donna blinked. “Winchester? As in their Winchester?”

“Yeah,” Dean muttered, grimace sliding into a shrug. “Family tree’s got deeper roots than we thought.”

Jody’s eyes narrowed. “And you’ve been alive for how long?”

Markus bit into his apple, chewing slowly, then smiled like a man who’d been waiting centuries just to drop the punchline. “Two hundred and fourty six years. Don’t let the number fool you—I age beautifully.”

Donna let out a low whistle. “Winchester genetics don’t skip generations.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Careful. He hears compliments like prayers.”

Markus grinned wider. “Only when they come from women who know how to shoot.”

Donna smirked. “What gave me away?”

“The way you stand like you don’t need backup.” Markus tipped his apple at her. “I like that.”

Jody crossed her arms. “You always flirt with strangers?”

“Only the deadly ones,” Markus replied smoothly. “Keeps the blood moving.”

Henry cut through with a dry sigh. “Forgive him. Three centuries will teach a man survival, but not humility.”

He stepped forward with a poise that felt carved from stone. “Welcome to Iron Oak,” he said. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Dean muttered under his breath, “Yeah, ‘cause the house told you.”

The wards flickered in the trees, like they might’ve just agreed.

“Dean. Sam.” Markus nodded warmly at both. “The garden’s still intact. Trimmed the vines like you asked.”

Dean gave a mock salute. “Appreciate it. Last time they tried to crawl into the pantry. Thought Cas was gonna smite a tomato plant.”

Jody blinked. “So… you all live here? Together?”

Sam smiled faintly. “For months now.”

“Like roommates?” Donna asked.

“Like survivors,” Aurora said. Her tone sharpened. “Family, forged by what’s left after the world ends.”

Markus studied Jody, amused. “You still look like you’re about to draw on me.”

“Just calculating if it’d matter,” Jody said flatly.

Markus grinned, shameless. “God, I like her.”

Henry murmured, “You like anyone who tells you no.”

“Not true,” Markus said lightly. “I like anyone who can keep up.”

They moved deeper into the grounds, shadows dappling across old stone that hummed faintly underfoot. A fox statue by the hedge blinked—literally—and no one mentioned it.

Cas walked silently beside Dean, their shoulders brushing like it meant nothing, and everything.

Donna caught Cas' glance at Dean—soft, measured. Dean didn’t flinch. Didn’t tease. Didn’t need to.

“I’m gonna need a stiff drink and a full explanation,” Donna whispered.

“You’ll get both,” Sam said. “Probably in that order.”

They reached the great ash at the estate’s heart, its branches arched wide like a living dome. The house loomed beyond—stone and glass, veined with gold, doors older than kingdoms.

Aurora turned, her voice steady. “Iron Oak is not just ours. If you stand within these grounds, it knows you. It remembers you. And if you choose to stay…” Her eyes glinted, dangerous and promising. “You’ll be claimed as much as welcomed.”

Jody folded her arms. “Before I sign up for mystical property rights, I want the truth. The whole of it.”

Aurora inclined her head. “You’ll have it.”

The ground beneath their boots gave a slow, low groan—like the house itself agreed.

And in the hush that followed, Iron Oak seemed to lean closer. Listening.

The sitting room was too beautiful for what was about to be said.

Soft August light filtered through mullioned windows, catching on oak floors polished by centuries. Books lined the walls, their leather bindings fused to the wood with age. 

Jody sat forward on the velvet settee, arms braced on her knees. Donna curled into a wingback beside her, sipping black coffee, eyes never leaving Aurora.

Markus sprawled across a chaise like a predator at rest, shirt half-open, unreadable. Henry sat beside him with measured poise, hands folded. Castiel stood behind Dean, who leaned against the hearth, arms crossed, jaw tight. Sam stood at the window, the light catching in his hair—not glowing, just there, as if the room arranged itself around him.

Aurora sat opposite Jody and Donna in William Winchester’s old chair. No radiance, no spectacle—just gravity, worn into her bones.

When she spoke, her voice was quiet, but forged.

“I suppose we should begin with the obvious. Why Markus Winchester and Henry Langford are immortal.”

Donna exhaled like she’d been holding her breath since the orchard.

“I didn’t know, at first,” Aurora said. “Henry was the first man I was ever intimate with. That was in 1511. I had no idea my grace would alter him permanently.”

Henry inclined his head. “It wasn’t her fault.”

“No,” she cut in sharply. “But it was still me.”

She looked at Donna, her gaze softening.

“I’m not an angel. Not a demon. Not a goddess, though I’ve been called worse.”

She hesitated. The fire snapped.

“My mother is Amara.”

The room stilled.

“My father is Chuck.”

Jody sat bolt upright. “Chuck! God?”

Aurora’s tone was iron. “Yes. That Chuck. But I was never wanted. My parents were opposites. I was the contradiction. A ripple born from friction. I wasn’t made. I happened.”

Donna’s voice was quiet. “You don’t seem like a mistake.”

Aurora smiled faintly, humor sharp at the edges. “That’s kind. But the universe didn’t know what to do with me. So I hid. For millennia. I didn’t touch history. I didn’t touch people. Not deeply.”

Her gaze shifted to Markus.

“First there was Henry and then Markus.”

He rose from the chaise, less smug now. “I fell in love with her as a boy. I never stopped.”

“I thought I could try again,” Aurora said. “But Markus was a storm. Beautiful. Thrilling. But storms don’t stay.”

Her voice chilled. “They stayed with one other. Not me. I came back from Vienna in 1917 and caught Markus’s scent on Henry’s skin.”

Donna flinched. Jody muttered a low curse and shut her eyes.

“It wasn’t the betrayal that broke me,” Aurora continued. “It was the cowardice. I would have stepped aside. But they stole the choice from me.”

Markus’s grin was gone. Henry’s hands curled tight. Neither spoke. There was no defense.

“But you kept them,” Jody said.

Aurora nodded once. “Eventually. I forgave. I remember what we were. What they helped build. Henry seeded what became the Men of Letters and taught me how to build empires. Markus defended this family for centuries with his body and his will. They built this legacy with me.”

The silence pressed heavier.

“Why Sam?” Jody asked. “Why him?”

Aurora turned fully toward her.

“Because he never tried to claim me. He never treated me like a weapon. When I reached into Death’s current to restore his soul, something ancient awakened. Not prophecy. Not fate. Choice.”

Her voice trembled—not with weakness, but with power barely contained.

“Chuck saw it. That’s why he locked me away in 1930. Not to punish me. To keep me from him.”

Sam turned then. Not grandly. Just enough.

“I’m not her leash,” he said, voice low. “She chose me. And I chose her.”

“They call him the Severance,” Cas said. “And her, the Source.”

Dean exhaled, dry as a shot of whiskey. “Together, they’re the Rewriting.”

Aurora stepped forward. “The world is changing. Magic is bleeding back in. We’re forming a Council at Iron Oak. Not to rule. To balance. But we’ll need your help before the old guard tears it apart.”

Jody frowned. “Hunters don’t take kindly to world-shattering truths.”

“Which is why we start here,” Dean said. “With you.”

Outside, a raven shrieked once, then silence.

Donna finally spoke. “After Chuck. After them. After all that—you could burn the world down. How do you not?”

Aurora looked at Sam. Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Because he wouldn’t let me. And now—I don’t want to.”

The silence that followed wasn’t heavy.

It was holy.

For the first time, the room no longer felt too beautiful for what was said.

It felt right.

The great oak table stretched the length of the room, set for ten despite its capacity for thirty. Silver gleamed like starlight, crystal goblets hummed faintly when lifted, as though they remembered kings. The scent of rosemary and charred citrus curled through the air, carried on the warmth of roasted duck, fresh bread, and wine as old as betrayal.

Donna was still blinking at her bread plate like it might start singing. Jody, beside her, had her arms crossed in a way that said she wasn’t impressed yet—but she was listening.

Dean sat halfway down the table, one boot propped against the chair leg, a bottle within easy reach. He wasn’t posturing. He was eating like a man who didn’t have to watch his back.

“I’m just saying,” he jabbed his fork toward Markus, “there’s harmless flirting, and then there’s getting banned from the Fae realms on three separate occasions.”

Markus, lounging like a Renaissance portrait that had gotten loose, lifted his glass. “That was political. And flattering.”

Henry didn’t look up from his wine. “You also flirted with a blacksmith until she melted her anvil.”

“She was inspired,” Markus said, utterly unbothered.

Donna blinked. “Wait—was that a ghost or a person?”

“Yes,” Markus replied smoothly, his smile sharp enough to draw blood.

Castiel, seated between Dean and Sam, tilted his head. “You use charm like a shield.”

Markus raised a brow. “You say that like it’s a sin.”

“It isn’t,” Cas said evenly. “But armor cracks.”

Markus’s grin faltered—just for a breath. Then he tipped his glass. “Angel, you’re no fun at all.”

Dean muttered, “Hey! He’s fun when he wants to be. He just doesn’t want to be with you.”

Aurora, seated near the head of the table, watched with fond tolerance. Her hair was loose, curls spilling over her shoulders, her golden hue catching candlelight like it remembered other stars. 

At last she spoke, her voice dry as smoke. “Storms burn out, Markus. Even the charming ones.”

Markus smirked, but his eyes flicked away.

Donna leaned closer to Aurora, curiosity winning over awe. “So, okay—back up. You’re older than Christianity, you’ve lived through… all this”—she waved vaguely at Markus, then Sam—“and you still picked him?”

Aurora’s smile came slow, unhurried. “He never wanted to use me.”

Sam, beside her, didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look away from her when he lifted his wine.

“You’ve been hunted?” Donna asked softly.

“Across centuries,” Aurora said. “Men who wanted my power. My silence. Sam never asked for any of it. He just… stayed.”

Jody raised a brow. “Even after everything?”

Aurora’s voice was level. “Especially after everything.”

Markus leaned forward, mouth opening for a monologue—but Jody cut him a look sharp enough to slice. He sat back with a grin, pretending it was his idea.

Castiel spoke instead, his voice steady. “She didn’t choose Sam for prophecy. She chose him because he never asked her to be anything but what she is.”

Under the table, Sam touched Aurora’s hand. She turned slightly toward him, her shoulder brushing his, and the room leaned in as if listening. Their bond wasn’t loud—it was gravitational.

Jody noticed. Her gaze softened. She looked at Dean, then Markus and Henry, then back at Aurora. “So… what happens now?”

Aurora met her eyes. “Now, we protect what’s left. And build something that won’t crumble at the first sign of power.”

Donna looked around the table, grinning. “A celestial. Two immortal exes. A Winchester. Another Winchester. An angel. And a duck.”

Dean pointed at his plate. “That duck saved my life.”

Markus raised his goblet. “To enduring beauty, inconvenient destiny, and surviving your own mythology.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “You are the most.”

“Thank you,” Markus beamed.

Henry sighed, but his tone was wry. “He once seduced an entire monastery.”

“They needed cheering up,” Markus said.

Donna laughed so hard she nearly choked. “I like this place.”

Jody leaned back, her eyes scanning the strange, fierce family stitched from myth, mistake, and choice. She looked at Aurora one last time.

“You ever think about burning the world down for what it did to you?”

Aurora’s gaze slid toward Sam, her light stirring faintly under her skin. “I used to.”

She lifted her glass, calm, certain.

“But now? I’d rather build one with him.”

Sam’s hand tightened around hers. He didn’t need to say a word. His eyes did all of it—steady, fierce, unrelenting.

The table hummed once, faint but clear—like Iron Oak itself had heard and approved.

And for the first time that night, the silence wasn’t tense.

It was true.

Chapter Text

The day had bled into indigo dusk. Iron Oak’s lanterns flickered alive, amber light stretching across stone and hedge. The world was mercifully still. No auroras. No fractures in the sky. Just the rustle of trees and the clink of dishes being cleared away.

Jody sat on the back steps, mug of tea in her hands. Dean came out a moment later, hovering before dropping down beside her with a grunt, beer balanced on his knee.

They let the silence breathe. Neither needed to fill it.

“I didn’t expect this,” Jody said finally.

Dean tilted his head but stayed quiet.

“I didn’t expect it to be good,” she clarified. “Thought maybe you’d lost your damn minds. Or power warped you into something else. Thought I’d see monsters wearing your faces.”

Dean sipped his beer. “And?”

Her sigh was soft, but it landed heavy. “And I was wrong.”

That made him glance at her.

“You were still Dean at dinner,” she went on. “Ate too much. Talked with your mouth full. Kept one eye on the room like you were waiting for trouble. You’re sharper, maybe meaner around the edges, but you’re still you. Sam too. Different, sure. But he listens first. He still cares. Still looks at her like he already lost her once.”

Dean’s jaw tightened. “He almost did.”

“I figured.” She nodded, voice quieting. “That’s the look of a man who already grieved.”

The silence after that weighed thicker.

“I was scared,” she admitted. “Not of you hurting us. Just scared you weren’t really you anymore.”

Dean’s voice dropped. “Yeah. I get that.”

“But you are,” she said firmly. “Changed, sure. Altered, maybe. Hell, you’re walking reactors at this point. But the core’s still there. You’re still the Winchesters. Just… mythic now.”

Dean huffed. “Mythic. Great. Tell that to the fridge ward that wouldn’t let me grab a beer until I blessed it.”

Jody smiled despite herself. “Must’ve been one hell of a fridge.”

They let it sit. He drank. She sipped. The sky blinked with stars like it remembered another world.

“You know what scared me the most?” she asked finally.

Dean gave her a sidelong look.

“That I wouldn’t matter anymore,” she said. “That Claire, Alex—all of us—wouldn’t matter. That you’d float off into the sky and leave the rest of us behind.”

Dean’s answer came low, no hesitation. “You’ll always matter.”

Her eyes searched his. “Swear to me.”

He turned fully, gaze solemn. “I swear. You’re family. You’ve always been family.”

Jody blinked fast, muttering, “Great. Now I feel like a Hallmark card.”

Dean grinned. “Want me to cry? Might turn the sky purple.”

She laughed, loud and real. “Don’t you dare. I just got used to the gold cracks.”

Dean leaned back, staring up. “We didn’t ask for this.”

“I know.”

“But if we’ve gotta build something new… at least it’s with people who give a damn.”

“Damn right.” She nudged his knee with hers.

But Dean could see she wasn’t done. Dean’s voice dropped. “You’ve been sitting on something since dinner. Spill.”

Jody groaned. “Jesus, Dean.”

She pinned him with a look. “Aurora’s grace. How’s it in you? She doesn’t look at you the way she looks at Sam. So how?”

He stared at the horizon, jaw working. “She saved me. Years ago. When I thought I got abducted by aliens? Wasn’t aliens. Hollow Court. Fae glamour. Bad shit.”

Jody paled. “Dean…”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “They got me. Violated me. Aurora burned half their pit dragging me out. Wiped the memory so I wouldn’t break.” His laugh was bitter, empty. “Didn’t come back till recently. Now I remember pieces. Enough.”

Her hand tightened around her mug.

“I didn’t sleep with her,” Dean went on. “Not that it would’ve worked. Her kind doesn’t roll into bed with mortals unless she wants to rewrite their DNA.”

Jody blinked. “What?”

He waved it off. “Long story. Point is—I almost died on a hunt in Ohio. She broke off part of herself to keep me breathing. It stuck. So yeah. I’m part celestial now. Microwave a human soul with divine trauma, shake well.”

Jody’s throat worked. “So… not human. Not angel. What, then?”

Dean shrugged, but his voice was flat. “Unkillable, apparently. Fae can’t touch me. Angels can’t smite me.”

Her gaze sharpened. “And Cas?”

Dean stilled. Then, soft: “Cas doesn’t care what I am. He’s seen all of me. Even the parts I couldn’t. He’s the one thing I don’t have to explain.”

The quiet that followed was holy.

“You really are still Dean,” Jody said at last.

He smiled faintly. “Just irradiated.”

She nodded slowly. “I’ll tell Claire. About the Hollow. About what Aurora did.”

Dean’s voice snapped harder. “She’s not going after them.”

“She won’t,” Jody promised. “But she’ll be proud you burned it.”

Dean looked back toward the house. His voice dropped. “Wasn’t just me. Aurora saved me. Cas anchored me. Sam forgave me.” He tapped his chest once. “This grace in me? It’s not just hers. It’s everything I still have left.”

Jody exhaled. “Then we make damn sure the world holds long enough to use it.”

Dean smirked. “Damn right.”

The lantern nearest them flickered once—like Iron Oak itself had heard.

The hallway was warm and quiet, sconces flickering with amber magic. The light didn’t cast shadows so much as suggest them—like the house respected your privacy but reserved the right to judge. The air smelled faintly of bergamot and old paper, elegant and disorienting for two women who’d spent more nights in bloodstained motels than clean sheets.

Donna paused mid-step, glancing back. “This place has more vibes than a witch’s attic on solstice.”

Jody trailed a hand along the carved molding. “And every one of those vibes is judging my car-sleeping habit.”

Aurora moved ahead, serene, her steps almost unburdened by gravity. “The house prepared these rooms days ago. It… arranges itself.”

“Not ominous at all,” Donna muttered.

Aurora opened the door with a flick of her fingers. “Donna—this is yours.”

Donna stepped inside—and gasped. Velvet curtains. A massive four-poster bed. A fireplace rune pulsing gently. An armoire with a robe in her exact size.

“Okay, wow. This is not what I expected from an apocalypse hideout.”

“You deserve rest,” Aurora said simply.

Donna blinked too fast. “Alright, you’re gonna make me cry and I refuse to do that in silk.”

The next door opened on Jody’s room: deep greens, oiled oak, shelves of leather-bound books, a tall window overlooking the loch. A storm-wolf painting hung over the bed.

Jody let out a breath. “Feels like the kind of room I’d never admit I wanted.”

Aurora’s tone softened. “It’s alright to want something gentle.”

Jody didn’t answer. She kept looking at the wolves.

Then Donna’s voice piped up from the hall. “So… what’s with the double doors at the end? Throne room? Dungeon orgy?”

Aurora didn’t miss a beat. “Markus and Henry’s quarters.”

The doors opened on cue.

Markus stepped out first—barefoot, hair loose around his shoulders, shirtless, and freshly smug. A glass of red wine dangled from his hand like an accessory.

“Ladies,” he purred. “I trust the accommodations are decadent enough to provoke guilt?”

Donna’s mouth fell open. “Oh my God.”

Henry followed—robed, composed, book in hand. “Markus. Stop looming.”

“I’m greeting,” Markus countered.

“You’re shirtless.”

Markus glanced down, then up again without shame. “Tragic oversight.”

Henry sighed, turning to the women. “My apologies. He was raised by wolves.”

“I am a wolf,” Markus said, sipping. “She made me that way.”

Aurora’s expression flickered just enough to translate as: I will smite you barefoot.

Henry gave a graceful nod. “Sleep well. And ignore anything you hear from our end of the hall.” He pulled Markus back inside with practiced ease. The doors shut firmly.

Silence.

Donna stared. “I’m gonna need… five minutes. Maybe a glass of water.”

Jody side-eyed her. “You okay?”

“No,” Donna said brightly. “But I respect myself enough to admit when a man in silk pants has short-circuited my moral compass.”

She looked between her room and the double doors. “Why is it always the hot ones with metaphysical baggage?”

Jody disappeared into her room, closing the door with finality. “Because the emotionally available ones die early, Donna. You know this.”

The sconces flickered once—like the house agreed.

Aurora had barely made it through dinner without combusting. She sat next to Sam at the long oak table, every bite of roasted meat and every sip of wine thick with the knowledge of what waited upstairs. He was half-distracted, talking with Donna and Cas like nothing was happening, like he didn’t know what he was doing to her. But his knee brushed hers under the table, just once, just enough to make her breath catch. 

By the time the plates were cleared and she had shown Jody and Donna to their rooms, her skin felt feverish, her grace restless, thrumming in her veins like a song that refused to quiet. She wanted him—needed him—and every second of polite conversation only made her hunger sharper. When she finally excused herself, she was trembling with the effort of restraint.

Her skin prickled. Her grace—a live wire inside her—was coiled tight as a bowstring by the time Sam entered the bedroom. 

She lay back against the pillows in nothing but a thin silk slip that clung low on her thighs. Her eyes tracked him from the moment he stepped inside. He was barefoot, shirtless, golden in the firelight. And God help her—smirking.

“I can feel you thinking,” she said, voice thick with heat.

Sam leaned in the doorway, broad shoulders braced, head tilted. His eyes burned darker than the golden light from the wall lamps.

“That’s dangerous,” he drawled. “You know what I think about.”

Aurora turned her head towards him, long hair spilling across the pillow like molten shadow. “Apparently not.”

He was beside the bed before she realized, heavy with hunger. He knelt slowly, dragging his fingers along the inside of her ankle, then up her calf. A feather’s pressure. Torturous. He didn’t touch where she needed him to.  

She tried to close the distance, but he shifted away with a warning look that snapped through her veins.

“Don’t move,” he murmured, voice gone rough.

She froze. Her heart hammered.

His hand kept climbing—up her thigh, stopping just shy of silk. Then pulling back. Aurora bit her lip hard enough to taste blood. Her grace sparked, begging.

Sam climbed over her like a slow storm spilling its weight, one arm braced above her head, the other dragging down her ribs, then her waist, stopping at the hem again. His mouth hovered a breath from hers.

“You’re glowing,” he whispered, voice almost cruel. “You always glow when you want it too much.”

“Then give it to me,” she hissed.

His lips ghosted her ear. “Beg.”

She arched, furious. 

He kissed down her throat, slow and deliberate, still refusing. Her fingers fisted the sheets. She tried to drag him down, but he caught her wrists and pinned them against the mattress like shackles made of heat.

“Sam—” Her voice broke, low and rough. She bucked, trying to twist free, but he held her down like nothing.

The bond flared like it was kindling catching fire.

Aurora gasped. “You’re driving me insane.”

His smirk cut sharp. “Good.”

He traced the slope of her breast with his mouth, tongue flicking beside the peak making her hips buck.

His smirk deepened, grinding against her just enough to make her whimper, then pulled back a fraction, denying her again. His restraint was cruel, intoxicating.

She whimpered, writhing under him completely undone. Her hands twisted in his grip, grace sparking against his skin. “You’re killing me.”

“Say it.” His voice was a growl now, thick with hunger.

Aurora’s eyes blazed, her body trembling. Finally, she broke. “I want you. Now. Please.”

He stilled for a heartbeat.

Then his mouth claimed her, with a brutal hunger. He freed her wrists only so he could spread her wide beneath him, slotting his hips between hers with crushing inevitability. She gasped into his mouth as his hand pressed hard against her, exactly where she’d been begging for him to touch, his fingers rubbing her clit with punishing precision.

Aurora shattered.

But he didn’t stop. 

Sam enjoyed watching her pinned under him, her head thrown back, hips bucking wildly under him, lips swollen, voice hoarse. She was power incarnate. But right now, she was desperate and his alone to please. 

Something wild tore loose inside him.

“You wanted to lose control,” he growled, dragging her leg up around his waist. His teeth grazed her jaw. “You wanted me to let go. I’m going to give it to you.”

Aurora’s grace was screaming, waves of gold crashing against his own until the walls vibrated. He buried himself inside her with a guttural sound, raw and violent, like he was breaking her open just to fit him again.

Aurora became lost in his relentless driving, arms locking tightly around him. Her coherence completely abandoned as she began sobbing his name over and over into his neck.

Stars detonated behind Sam’s eyes as her nails raked glowing streaks down his back. His grip on her hips was brutal, anchoring her as if letting go would unmake the world. And when she clenched around him, wailing something in a dead language, Sam completely lost it. Sparks of grace lit between her fingers, branding him, marking him, claiming him.

Her grace poured into him like wildfire, answering the steady, hungry surge of his blood. He felt it trying to settle in his bones, his pulse, his name. His body reacted without thought — gripping her harder, pulling her in until their foreheads touched and his breath was ragged against her skin.

Outside the ancient windows, the sky erupted with auroras blazing crimson and gold streaked in white-hot fire.

The auroras were still there the next day.

Gold laced with crimson, drifting across the noon sky like stained glass bleeding into daylight. Not natural. Not scientific. Beautiful, yes—but only the way a wildfire is beautiful. If you stood far enough back. If you didn’t think about what it meant.

The garden was heavy with bloom and static. A rose in the hedge unfurled too fast—petals cracking like eggshells, blooming and withering in a single heartbeat.

Iron Oak didn’t grow. It remembered.

Jody stalked the gravel path like she was sweeping the perimeter. Donna trailed behind, eyes skyward. Another ripple—amber shot with violet—cracked overhead. The earth lurched.

“That’s the third one today,” Donna muttered. “And don’t roll your eyes. You felt that.”

“I didn’t say a word,” Jody snapped. Then softer: “But yeah. In my teeth.”

Donna kicked a pebble. “I’ve got a chart. Colored markers and everything.”

“Of course you do.”

Ahead, Aurora stood barefoot on a stone landing. Backlit by gold bleeding through the canopy, curls lifted in a phantom wind. Her outline flickered at the edges, like the air itself was unsure how to hold her.

Jody’s tone sharpened. “Alright. Enough. We need to talk about the sky.”

Aurora didn’t turn.

Donna tried next. “Specifically, why it keeps… crying light. Over you two.”

Nothing.

“You’re gonna explain this,” Jody pressed. “Before another leyline snaps or some farmer starts a religion.”

Finally, Aurora turned. Too calm. “Are you sure you want to know?”

Donna deadpanned, “We watched a goat levitate this morning.”

“And yesterday the pond boiled,” Jody added. “No heat. Just righteous aquatic fury.”

Before Aurora could answer, Sam’s voice cut in from the archway.

“I’ve got it.”

He walked toward them like the air bent to make space—shirt sleeves rolled, hair wind-tossed, hands in his pockets like he’d just casually dropped a meteor and needed coffee.

He gave Jody a nod. Donna had a tired smile. Then stood shoulder to shoulder with Aurora, exactly where he belonged.

“You’re going to hate this,” Aurora warned.

“I already do,” Sam muttered.

“The auroras respond to grace,” she said gently. “Sam’s. Mine. Sometimes both.”

“Respond how?” Jody asked.

“Like a weather system. A tuning fork. The color, the pressure you feel—it’s the bond.”

Donna squinted. “So basically a magic blood-pressure spike every time you two hold hands?”

Sam cleared his throat. “Not… exactly.”

“Then what?”

Aurora hesitated. Sam sighed. “The sky shifts when we’re close.”

“Emotionally?” Donna asked.

Aurora nodded.

“Physically?” Jody pushed.

Sam muttered, ears pink, “Sometimes.”

Donna’s grin was feral. “Define close.”

Aurora cut in. “Yes.”

“Oh my God,” Donna whispered. “That thunderclap last week—you two were just—”

“Can we not,” Sam said.

Jody pinched her nose. “How long has this been happening?”

“Longer than we knew,” Aurora admitted. “The Archive tracked anomalies almost a year ago. But it’s escalating.”

“The auroras in Kansas? Europe? South Africa?”

Sam nodded grimly. “Us.”

“And you let the world think it was magnetic poles and solar flares?” Jody snapped.

“We weren’t ready,” Aurora said.

“We rewrote the stars by accident,” Sam added.

Donna whistled low. “Some accident.”

“You’re saying this place—this estate—just lets it happen?” Jody asked.

Aurora’s gold gaze didn’t waver. “It tries to contain it. Mostly.”

“Mostly,” Jody echoed. “Sweet Jesus.”

“Don’t call him,” Castiel said, stepping out of the hedge like a ghost.

Donna yelped. “Holy hell, man.”

“Not holy,” Cas replied. “Just tired.”

Jody glared. “You knew too?”

“I find it slightly excessive,” Cas said flatly.

“Also—the aurora has shifted three degrees north. Expect minor gravity distortion.”

“What does that mean?” Jody asked.

“Your earrings may try to float.”

Donna clapped her hands. “I love this house.”

“This isn’t the house,” Cas corrected, walking away. “It’s them.”

And as if to prove it, the sky whispered open—gold and crimson spilling across daylight like a wound.

Chapter Text

The chamber hummed with quiet power, its stones remembering every oath and betrayal ever spoken inside. In the center, the portal stone flared awake as soon as Aurora touched the staff. The runes burned gold across her palms, steady as her voice.

“South Dakota,” she said. “Fixed and anchored.”

The air buckled, a shimmer opening like a fault in the world.

Donna winced. “Still not used to that.”

Dean smirked. “What, Sioux Falls doesn’t come with interdimensional upgrades?”

“Only in the dreams where I forget pants,” she muttered.

Aurora didn’t dignify that with more than a flat look. “Same barn you came through before. The wards will compress—you’ll feel it.”

“Great,” Donna said. “Love a good existential squeeze.”

Jody was already stepping forward, her voice clipped. “Move, before I think too hard about it.”

Dean glanced at Sam. His brother stood silent at Aurora’s side, jaw locked, eyes unreadable. Gravity and tension in one body.

Behind them, Markus and Henry lingered.

“You two staying?” Dean asked.

Henry inclined his head. “This part is yours.”

Markus grinned lazily. “Just don’t die at the hands of someone who can’t spell Enochian. I’d never recover from the embarrassment.”

Sam’s mouth twitched. Just barely. Then he turned back to the stone.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

The sigil flared—gold and crimson bleeding across the chamber like a second moon splitting open. Aurora stepped into the light first. Cas followed, silent as judgment. Dean rolled his shoulders once, then vanished.

Sam went last. The magic folded around him—not hostile, not gentle, but claiming. Like the beat of a heart he hadn’t known he’d been carrying all his life.

And then the chamber was empty.

Outside, the South Dakota summer night hit them like a wet slap. Cicadas screamed. The heat pressed in mean and heavy, thick with dust and warded salt.

Jody exhaled. “Still standing. Still breathing. That’s a good sign.”

Dean clapped Donna on the back. “See? You didn’t combust.”

“I had a fifty-fifty feeling about it,” she muttered.

The barn was ready—sigils chalked sharp into beams, salt lines unbroken, circles etched with military precision. But the moment Aurora crossed the threshold, the wards faltered. The air shivered once—testing her—then settled into a faint, impossible warmth. The light itself slanted toward gold, as if the place had remembered her name.

Dean took it in with one glance. “Weirdest homecoming I’ve ever had.”

“Coffee first,” Jody said, already moving toward the farmhouse. “Then fried things. Then hunters.”

“Priorities,” Donna agreed.

Aurora lingered. Her fingers skimmed the edge of the wardline. Chalk hissed faintly, like it didn’t know whether to burn her or bow.

Sam watched her.

The land did too.

And for a heartbeat, even the cicadas went silent.

Abandoned Feed Store — Outskirts of Sioux Falls

Twenty or so hunters waited.

Not lined up. Not respectful. More like the world’s worst PTA meeting—if PTA members carried knives and smelled like old whiskey. They stood like wolves: scarred, suspicious, half-ready to tear out throats just to prove they still could. They’d come because Jody asked, but their eyes said otherwise. They came ready to kill gods.

The doors creaked.

Sam entered first. Taller than memory, broad-shouldered, his presence humming with something you didn’t name out loud. Grace braided with blood. Prophecy hammered into bone. His eyes flickered gold and crimson in the half-light. Not safe. Not human.

Dean followed. Boots loud, hands free. His presence wasn’t showy—it was dangerous the way a locked gun is dangerous. Not rage. Not madness. Just the patience of a man who’d lived too long with both.

Aurora tried to dim herself but failed. Her light pulsed steadily, bleeding through her skin like it refused to be caged. She wore boots, her curls neatly braided, jeans and a dark shirt—as if that would help. The glow didn’t listen. The barn caught it like stained glass, trembling.

Cas shut the door behind them. His gaze swept across the hunters like frostbite.

The charged air cinched. A hand brushed a blade. Another curled over a charm.

Jody broke in sharp. “You agreed to hear them out.”

Becca Kim barked a laugh, dry and mean. “We agreed to hear you out. Not walk into a sermon.”

Jake spat on the floor. “What the hell happened to you, Sam?”

Dean’s voice was flat as a gravestone. “He ascended. Like a Winchester does.”

Ugly chuckles. No one relaxed.

Ivan, face carved with scars, sneered. “You’re not human anymore. She rewrote you.”

Aurora’s tone was clean steel. “He chose me.”

“Bullshit,” Mitch spat. “I’ve seen this before. Angel vessels. Demon meat suits. Dress it up however you want—it’s still possession.”

Cas moved. Not far. Just enough that they remember what he was. “This isn’t possession,” he said. “This is becoming.”

Becca’s fingers twitched against her thigh. “What is this, Jody? You showing us we’re already obsolete? That your boys glow and now we’re supposed to kneel?”

Sam stepped forward. His voice didn’t rise. It carried.

“You’re here because the old rules are gone.”

The roof groaned under it. Becca blinked hard. Jake shifted back a step.

Rina Harper pointed straight at Aurora. “She broke the sky.”

Aurora tilted her head, light catching sharp along her cheek. “Not alone.”

Rina’s face twisted. “Don’t play coy. You lit the stars on fire with a Winchester inside you.”

Dean moved before he thought. Cas shoved a hand across his chest.

“Not now.”

Rina snarled, “You think we’re grateful? Demons making treaties, vamps unionizing, the moon bleeding over Kansas—this is your circus.”

Aurora’s voice dropped to ice. “Then leave.”

Ivan’s hand curled into a fist. “You think you can order us? You’re three seconds from learning hunters don’t kneel.”

Sam’s gaze locked on him, calm as a noose. “Then walk. But the world won’t spare you when it bends. Don’t expect mercy.”

Jake’s hand hovered at his knife. He didn’t draw. Not yet.

Becca sneered. “So what? We sign up for your starlit cult or choke on the fallout of your next cosmic quickie?”

Dean muttered, “Kinda miss the days when a salt line solved our problems.”

“Enough,” Jody snapped. Her voice cut the barn like iron. “They’re not asking you to worship. They’re giving you a chance not to get flattened when the sky caves in. You’re already in a war. Pretending otherwise just gets you dead.”

The silence that followed wasn’t peace. It was grief. Rage. Fear of a world that was already gone.

Mitch spat again. “We’ll think about it. But I won’t bow to her.”

Aurora’s eyes burned gold. Her voice stayed even. “You were never meant to.”

“And if we say no?” Becca pressed.

Sam didn’t blink.

“Then we bury you. And the world won’t even notice.”

No thunder. No dramatics. Just verdict.

One by one they filed out—Rina trembling, Becca muttering curses, Mitch glaring holes in the dirt. Ivan paused in the doorway, eyes hard. “Hope you’re worth it.”

Only Jake lingered. He looked from Dean to Aurora, long enough to see the faint glow burning under her ribs.

“I don’t trust her,” he said. “But I trust you. That better still mean something.”

Dean clapped his shoulder once, firm. “You have no idea.”

The door slammed behind him like judgment.

The room exhaled, hollow. Aurora’s glow dimmed, not gone.

Sam brushed her hand—an anchor, not a leash.

Cas’s voice was low. “They won’t all bend.”

Dean’s stare stayed fixed on the door. “They don’t have to. Just enough not to stab us in the back.”

Aurora’s light faded to a hum. She looked at Jody.

“Thank you.”

Jody sagged, bone-weary. “Don’t thank me. Just keep this world standing long enough to matter.”

She looked at the brothers—saw gods in their bones, but still her boys.

“God help us if this doesn’t work.”

The File on Lady Ashwood

The conference room looked like it had been decorated by a funeral director with a government stipend—gray walls, fluorescent hum, chairs designed for bad posture and early retirement. At the far end, Director Latham sat with his tie knotted too tight, expression flat as a tombstone.

An analyst—twenty-something, pale, sweating through a shirt that cost less than Latham’s cufflinks—fumbled with the remote. The first slide blinked up on the screen: a grainy still of Sam Winchester in the French Quarter, bourbon in hand, taller than the crowd. Beside him, a woman half his size in a silk dress.

“She doesn’t appear in any system,” the analyst began. “No DMV, no passports, no birth records. Facial recognition just gives us a shrug.”

Latham leaned back, expression unchanged. “People vanish from records all the time. What makes her different?”

The next slide showed a motel registry from Shamrock, Texas. Sam Winchester, signature bold. Empty line under ‘guest two.’

“She never signs her name,” the analyst said. “But clerks remember her. Consistently. Small, beautiful, long curly dark hair, gold eyes. Some said she was always elegantly dressed, even in motels off Route 66.”

Latham arched his brow. “Elegant? In Shamrock.”

A nervous laugh emitted from the analyst but died quickly. “Yes, sir.”

The next slide showed blurry karaoke footage from Adrian, Texas. The camera couldn’t quite settle on Aurora, her skin threw back too much light, making it appear like the lens was flinching.

“Tourists uploaded this to TikTok before it got pulled. Note the overexposure. Every other face reads normal. Hers doesn’t.”

The room went quiet, except for the hum of the computer fan. Latham tapped his pen against his folder once. “And Winchester?”

“Healthier than ever. No tremors. No visions logged in hunter chatter. Witnesses described him as… balanced and younger looking.” The analyst swallowed. “That coincides with when she appeared.”

The next slide appeared. A hunter’s field report from El Reno, Oklahoma. A child’s Facebook post archived before deletion: “lady witch looked at our dog and it ran off like lightning.”

Latham’s mouth twitched—almost a smile. “Children don’t usually describe witches in silk.”

The analyst shuffled his notes, desperate to move on. “Shamrock, Texas. Local gossip claims she healed a baby’s heart murmur overnight. Parents swore it. No hospital record.”

The analyst forwarded to the next slide. It showed power grid spikes in the French Quarter, the same night Sam and Aurora were clocked near Canal Street.

“And this,” the analyst said, voice steadier now. “Energy signatures on par with recorded fae disturbances. But sharper. Cleaner. Whatever she is—she’s controlled.”

At that, Latham leaned forward, finally interested. “Controlled,” he repeated, tasting the word like it offended him.

“Yes, sir. She wasn’t hiding. Just… throttling herself. Enough to pass. Enough not to trigger panic. But the trail is consistent. Wherever Winchester went, she was there. And every time—something impossible happened.”

The analyst clicked to the final slide: a map of Route 66, pins scattered like breadcrumbs from New Orleans westward.

Latham steepled his fingers. For the first time, his voice had weight. “She’s not a tourist. She’s not a girlfriend. She’s an event. A variable.”

Silence stretched long.

Finally, Latham reached over, shut the projector off. The screen went black.

“Write it up,” he said flatly. “Name her Ashwood. That’s what the old Men of Letters records used. Ashwood survived centuries. Winchester didn’t find her in New Orleans. She found him.”

The analyst hesitated. “Sir… what do we classify her as?”

Latham stood, smoothing his suit jacket. “Not human. Not an angel. Not a demon. Something worse.”

He paused at the door, dry as smoke.

“Something that books motels under somebody else’s name.”

And then he left the room, leaving the analyst staring at the dark screen, already wondering how much of his pension would be left once this file reached the wrong hands.

The place stank of rust, mildew, and old blood—like a slaughterhouse that never stopped taking.

Six hunters waited.

Not kids. Not green. Ex-military, old Men of Letters loyalists wearing hunter leather like a badge. The kind that had lived too long, killed too many, and now believed they were the only ones left standing between order and ruin. And tonight, Sam Winchester was the ruin.

They’d prepared like zealots.

Iron welded over every door. Devil’s traps branded into the concrete. Enochian scarred into the rafters. A chain wrapped the summoning circle, layered with wards, disruptors, mirrored runes.

The leader, gaunt and hollow-eyed, paced with his rifle low. “Tonight we take a god-killer off the board.”

The woman in the bomber jacket slid a mag of sigil-carved brass home with a snap. “And his glowing girlfriend?”

“Bait,” he said flatly. “Long enough to bleed him dry.”

The youngest smirked. “Word is she’s beautiful. Might keep her.”

The laugh that followed was short, mean, and dead in the air.

The temperature plummeted.

No creak of hinges. No boot on concrete.

One second the circle was empty.

The next, Sam Winchester stood inside it.

They froze.

He was taller than the stories. Shoulders squared like the air itself had braced them. His chest rose steady, his presence humming in a way that crawled under the skin. Grace and blood lived in him now, wound so tight into his bones he didn’t just stand there—he loomed.

“Christ,” someone whispered, too low to mean it as a prayer.

His eyes flicked in the half-light. Not just hazel. Not just human. For one terrible second, they burned gold and crimson—like molten metal seen through smoke.

Becca swore under her breath. Jake spat, but his hand twitched on his blade.

Sam didn’t glow. He didn’t rage. He just waited. Patient and terrifying.

“I don’t belong in your circle,” he said. Quiet. But the words rolled through the barn like stone dragging under the earth.

The leader swallowed. “Ward’s good enough for angels. Demons. Gods. Whatever the hell you are—”

The chain snapped. Not loud. Not sloppy. Precise. Three lengths broke at once, curling up like molten wire.

The wards guttered.

Sam stepped forward. He didn’t hurry. He didn’t need to. “I’m not on your list.”

That broke them. Guns blazed.

The bullets froze midair—hung like raindrops, spun once, then dissolved into shimmer.

The woman lunged with a knife. Sam caught her wrist with two fingers. Bones creaked. Not broken—just reminded they could be. She screamed and dropped the blade.

The youngest yanked a rune-bomb alive with grace-ripping fire. Sam caught it in his palm. The glow blinked out like a candle drowned in smoke.

“You called her bait,” Sam said, his voice thickening, molten. “You talked about keeping her.”

The leader came at him with a crucifix dagger, swinging hard. Sam slid sideways, plucked it out of his grip, and shoved the hilt back into his hand. Empty. Worthless.

Then he leaned in close, eyes burning. “She loves me. That’s the only reason you’re still breathing.”

The rafters groaned. Sigils seared black. Iron peeled from the windows in strips, curling like leaves in fire. Rifles twisted in their owners’ hands.

Breathing turned labor. Like the air had been turned against them.

The barn doors creaked open—just old wood on hinges.

No one moved until Sam allowed it.

They broke. Stumbled out in twos and threes, faces gray. One muttering prayers under his breath, another sobbing, another too shell-shocked to hold onto his weapon.

Not defeated. Ruined.

Sam didn’t follow. Didn’t gloat. He stayed in the ruins of their circle until the sound of their boots vanished into the dark.

Only then did he breathe.

And the ground stopped humming.

Chapter Text

“You went,” she said softly. Not an accusation. Not even a surprise.

She was waiting on the window seat, moonlight pooled over her like silk.

Sam shut the door hard enough to rattle the frame. “They thought they could kill me. Thought they could use you to do it.”

Aurora’s mouth curved without warmth. “That isn’t new.”

He froze. “What do you mean?”

Her gaze met his, gold and unflinching. “I have been hunted longer than ‘hunter’ meant what it does now. Angels who saw me as blasphemy. Demons who thought I was a prize. Men who wanted the story of my head. Do you think this was the first time someone used me as bait?”

He crossed to her, voice rough. “They spoke of you like you were prey.”

She touched his jaw. “It’s easier for them to believe I can be caught. It lets them pretend they aren’t the prey.”

His fury didn’t cool—it sharpened. “They don’t get to talk about you. Not ever.”

“I know,” she said softly. “You stopped them.”

But his jaw stayed tight. “You’ve lived like this for centuries.”

“Yes.” Her voice thinned. “And I was alone for most of them.”

That broke something in him. He covered her hand with his, palm burning hot. “Not anymore. Not while I’m alive.”

She studied him, the fire in his words turned inward now.

“You’ve walked into every room,” he said hoarsely, “knowing someone might be waiting to kill you. And you carried that. Every day. Alone. And I thought I knew what lonely was.”

Aurora’s lashes lowered, but she didn’t deny it.

“No wonder you didn’t let anyone close. No wonder you only touched when you knew you could burn them if they took too much.” His throat worked. “You’ve been surrounded by predators so long, you had to be one.”

Her voice was barely a whisper. “And yet I let you in.”

It landed like a blow. He sat beside her, knees brushing, their hands laced tight.

“You’ll never be alone again,” he said. Not a promise. An oath.

Aurora’s smile was faint, fragile. “I know.”

She drew breath, steadying. “Do you want to know why it took so long?”

“Yes.”

“Because wanting and taking are not the same. I’ve been followed. Cornered. Touched without permission—by men, kings, archangels. Pawing hands. Fingers in my hair. Smiles that meant I should pretend I wasn’t burning inside.” 

Her voice sharpened. “I endured. I made it cost them if they pushed too far. But I never gave them what they thought they’d earned just by wanting it.”

Sam’s jaw ticked, but he said nothing.

“Now, with you, there’s no fear. No calculation. Just wanting. And that is rarer than you know.”

He bent his forehead to hers. “You’ll never feel that way again. Not with me. Not with anyone while I’m breathing.”

Her smile turned dangerous. “I know. And I welcome the way you guard me. Even when it’s primal.”

“Primal doesn’t even cover it.”

He pulled her into his lap, hands anchoring at her back and neck. “Every woman I touched ended up dead. Taken from me like it was the price for wanting anything. Until you. You’re the only thing in the universe I can’t lose.”

Her hand covered his, steady. “You won’t.”

His grip tightened. “You’re mine. Not because I took you—because you gave yourself to me. And I will burn the ground out from under anyone who forgets that.”

Her eyes smoldered as her pulse raced. “I welcome it. All of it.”

Later, when the fire burned low, Sam sat back with a glass in hand. “You lived for millennia without needing anyone. Then Henry. What changed?”

Aurora’s gaze steadied. “Before him, I didn’t know what I would do for love. And once I did… I made him forever.”

“And Markus?”

“I knew the cost. I let myself risk it again. I made him forever too.”

She looked back at Sam, certain. “And you were never meant to die—not after I touched you. You know that.”

Sam nodded, voice sure. “Yeah. I know.”

Aurora’s expression softened. “Do you regret it?”

“Not for a second.”

“Then neither do I. That’s the difference, Sam. I never wanted to make a man forever—until you.”

The stars were wrong.

Too sharp. Too close. Each one cut into the sky like scalpels through black tissue, surgical incisions exposing something raw underneath. Not exactly the kind of night you wanted for a picnic.

Aurora stood barefoot in her midnight robe, hair unbound, her eyes mirrors of that wounded sky. She looked less like a woman than a verdict. The kind of beauty you didn’t admire—you survived.

Sam stood at her right. Taller than the stones, steadier than the earth. The ruin of a man reforged into something the stars themselves bowed to, a storm kept on a leash no one wanted to test.

Henry anchored her left, spine like a cathedral pillar, silence carrying centuries of vows that hadn’t broken yet.

Markus lurked on the perimeter, coat hissing with a wind no one else felt, his expression a knife sharpened on regret. Old love bled through him like poison, but he stayed. He always stayed.

And Dean—arms crossed, jaw locked, leather zipped up like armor over old scars. Still the most dangerous immortal in the courtyard, if you were stupid enough to forget what Aurora and Sam had become.

The scroll lay stretched across the altar, iron pins biting into stone, stains dried deep into its hide. Not ink. Something older. Something that remembered screaming.

Aurora opened her mouth, and the world leaned closer.

It wasn’t singing. It wasn’t prayer. It was vibration—low, grinding, marrow-deep. The kind of sound you didn’t hear so much as survive. Older than Enochian. Older than thrones. A language with teeth.

Sam’s voice joined hers, rougher, molten. Then Henry, steady as ice cracking in a glacier. Markus came last, dragged into it like a curse he’d tried not to speak.

The trees bent inward, branches clawing at air. Wards carved into bark flared awake, furious. Iron Oak’s walls groaned and spat light, runes blazing like scars that had never healed.

Then the altar split with light. Not clean. Not holy.

Fire and shadow tore upward together, spiraling into the night like a flare fired from Hell’s arsenal. It ripped open the sky. A beacon. A war drum. A middle finger to every throne that ever thought it owned them.

It burned for eight long, impossible seconds. And then it was gone.

The silence afterward rang like the inside of a bell.

Dean exhaled first. “Well. That wasn’t ominous at all.”

Markus tilted his head, voice like glass. “You wanted attention.”

“I wanted a council,” Dean snapped. “Not the supernatural Bat-Signal.”

Henry’s tone cut flat. “They’ll come. First scavengers. Then cowards. Then those who think you’re bluffing.”

Sam’s voice was a blade drawn slowly. “Let them.”

Aurora’s fingers twitched once, subtle, and the wind bent east. Her eyes still burned with gold.

Dean muttered, “They’ll bring knives wrapped in handshakes.”

Markus smiled sharply. “Then we cut deeper.”

Henry turned on him, steady as stone. “Spoken like a man who never learned patience.”

The ground beneath them pulsed once, faint but undeniable. Iron Oak laughed in its bones.

Finally, Aurora spoke. Low. Threaded with something that was not grace, not rage—just truth.

“They’re already moving. Fear travels faster than their feet.”

Dean looked skyward again, where the stars still hung wrong. “So. Now we wait?”

Sam shook his head. His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried like judgment.

“No. Now we prepare.”

And somewhere in the treeline—

not a howl, not an animal—

but the sound of the forest itself shifting, bracing like it knew war was coming.

The next morning, Iron Oak shimmered like it was holding its breath.

And then—without knock or courtesy—

a crackle of violet split the air.

Rowena MacLeod materialized in the foyer, red lacquered suitcase in one hand, the other perched on her hip like she was deciding whether to hex the house or seduce it.

“Well,” she purred, eyes bright as fresh blood, “at least a few of you survived my last visit.”

Dean, halfway through a mug of coffee, made a noise like a carburetor dying. “Oh, hell no.”

Cas stiffened beside him like someone had just read his browser history aloud.

Sam blinked. “Rowena?”

“Darling.” She beamed, sweeping forward like a queen arriving at court. “Still glowing like a holy relic dipped in whiskey and bad decisions.”

Dean muttered, “Last time she called you that, she tried to hump the bannister.”

“I was drunk on cosmic convergence,” Rowena replied primly. “Perfectly valid diagnosis. I’ve published on it—peer-reviewed.”

“You licked my neck,” Cas said flatly.

Rowena didn’t blink. “I was investigating your aura. You reeked of divine melancholy and wet pine. Frankly, entrapment.”

Dean choked. Sam didn’t laugh—but his mouth betrayed him with a twitch.

Rowena’s gaze slid back to him, hungry and amused. “You, however… still offensively handsome.” Her smile sharpened. “And humming with power like a cathedral full of tuning forks.”

Sam shifted. “Rowena—”

“Relax, mo nighean donn. I’m not mounting you in the hallway.” A pause. “Unless invited.”

The air shifted.

Aurora entered.

Shadows stilled. Heat drained.

Rowena’s smile stayed—but gained fangs. “Oh, look. The universe’s favorite atomic weapon.”

Aurora’s voice was cool as frost. “Less perfume this time.”

Rowena’s lashes flicked. “You’re wearing more power. Who are you trying to impress?”

Aurora didn’t bother answering. She brushed her fingers against Sam’s as she passed, and the air warmed, heavy and electric.

Rowena exhaled like she’d been struck in the ribs. “Bloody hell. Still drunk off you two. Honestly offensive.”

Dean raised his brows. “Maybe sit down before you try straddling somebody’s soul again.”

“Tempting,” she murmured. “But no. I’ve come to behave.”

“Sure you have,” Cas said.

Dean snorted. “You came ‘cause you’re curious.”

Rowena’s gaze cut to him, sharp. “I came because the world’s cracking open like a soft-boiled egg—and I’d rather be holding the spoon.”

Then her attention swung back to Sam, her voice dropping low. “And because I want to see what happens when the boy who always obeyed… starts writing commandments.”

Silence stretched.

Sam didn’t answer. Not yet.

The parlor thrummed like a heart about to throw itself into war.

Dean leaned against the bar cart, scotch in hand like it was a weapon that worked better neat. Cas stood at the window, arms folded, eyes scanning fog like it was a battlefield. Sam sat on the table’s edge, stillness stretched so taut it felt like a storm was coiled beneath his skin. Aurora stood behind him, watching the door like she could incinerate it with a thought.

Rowena swirled wine in her glass, voice purring like a knife dragged across silk. “Unresolved trauma and fresh power in one room. Positively intoxicating.”

The bell rang—not mechanical. A pulse.

Markus entered, stride clipped. “Company. Not local.”

The doors opened.

Selwyn Briarwood stepped in like a ghost that had raided an Armani rack—long black hair falling silk-smooth around a face too symmetrical to trust, pale skin almost luminous under the sconces. Glamour clung to him like perfume laced with poison, eyes dark and hollow but rimmed in silver, as if the Hollow Court had branded him even in exile. Beautiful. Handsome. Dangerous in both directions.

Sabine LeClerc followed, and the room bent differently. Brown-skinned and elegant, her iron-grey braid lay like a blade against her shoulder, her cuffs edged in crimson silk that glowed faintly with wards of her own weaving. She didn’t radiate charm—she commanded presence. The quiet weight of a woman who never had to raise her voice to make the wards twitch, or to remind everyone that she held half the covens in her palm.

Rowena whistled low. “Well. Isn’t this a reunion worth the hangover.”

Sabine’s voice sliced the air clean. “We got your signal.”

Dean arched his brow. “And RSVP’d in person?”

“I don’t miss revolutions.”

Selwyn’s gaze slid over the room like he was counting graves. It landed on Aurora and didn’t move. He bowed, precise as a blade.

Dean’s hand ghosted over the knife at his belt.

Selwyn’s voice was smooth. “I wondered if you’d be here.”

Dean’s eyes went hard. “You’re Hollow.”

“Not anymore.”

Cas’s tone was ice. “You served Oberon.”

Selwyn didn’t flinch. He looked straight at Dean. “You survived.”

Dean’s mouth twisted. “Yeah. Thanks for the help.”

Selwyn’s jaw flexed. “I didn’t help them.”

“But you didn’t stop it either.”

Cas stepped forward, grace flickering under his skin. “We know what you are.”

“And I know what I failed to do.”

Dean surged a step closer. “You watched.” His voice cracked like gravel. “You let it happen.”

Selwyn didn’t blink. “I was bound. I screamed. I failed.” His tone dropped lower, sharp as broken glass. “That’s not absolution. It's a confession.”

Aurora moved forward, her glow tightening the air like a garrote. “You begged when I burned the Court.”

Selwyn lowered his head. “And you gave mercy.”

Dean barked a bitter laugh. “Why?”

Selwyn’s reply was soft, too soft. “Because I saw what they did to you. And I refused to become one of them.”

Dean’s smile was pure venom. “Convenient.”

Selwyn’s voice cracked on a whisper. “I won't forget the screams. Especially not yours.”

Dean went still.

Aurora cut the silence, her voice steel wrapped in velvet. “Enough. He didn’t touch you. He didn’t stop them. That doesn’t make him clean. But it makes him useful.”

Dean’s lip curled. “You trust him?”

Aurora’s eyes didn’t leave Selwyn. “I don’t trust redemption. But I know how to use guilt.”

Selwyn bowed his head lower. “Then use me.”

Cas’s voice rumbled, cold as thunder. “Cross a line, and I end you.”

Selwyn’s reply was quiet, bleeding truth. “I remember the sound Dean made when he came back. I’ll never forget what I didn’t do.”

Dean’s jaw ticked, but he stayed.

Aurora’s voice cut final. “Enough. He stands—for now. Don’t confuse that with absolution.”

Rowena clinked her glass against nothing. “This is why I drink at reunions.”

The air shifted. More footsteps. Power marched in: covens draped in bone-stitched silk, a druid from Berlin whose steps made the wards growl, siblings who swore dead cities still whispered their names.

Sabine slid a bronze disc onto the table. Sigils flared across its surface, headlines of unrest written in blood and light. “The rogue angels. The demons. The last scraps of Heaven. They’re already moving. I won't waste my time with chaos.” Her eyes found Aurora’s. “But I’ll dance with revolution.”

Rowena’s smile cut sharp. “Darling, if you brought couture to a bonfire, I hope it’s flame-proof.”

“Tailored in Hell,” Sabine said coolly. “I’ll manage.”

The table filled. The air thickened like stormwater.

Aurora rose. No blaze, no sigils. Just gravity. “This is the Council. No name. No scripture. Just choice.”

Sam stepped forward, his voice low, heavy as iron. “The old rules are ash. If you want to survive, stop waiting for someone else to write the next chapter.”

Dean set the Black Ledger down with a thud that rattled glasses. “You’re in it now. Not for what you were. For what you do next.”

Silence locked the room.

Rowena lifted her glass. “Well,” she drawled, “let’s bloody begin.”

Chapter Text

The war room buzzed like a cage of half-starved wolves. No robes. No crowns. Just scarred fists, boots scuffed by salt and blood, and survivors pretending they weren’t calculating which throat to slit first.

Gregor Weiss, an Austrian warlock, slouched in like grease given bones. Stinking of smoke and rot, cigarette dangling, grin oily enough to stain the stone. He flicked ash onto the runes carved into the floor.

“Council?” he spat. “Looks more like a freak show. And there she is—the glow.” His chin jerked toward Aurora. “Got both Winchesters knotted around her thighs. That’s not prophecy. That’s leverage. A celestial gangbang with good lighting.”

The words hit like knives.

Dean’s jaw locked, molars grinding. Rowena’s mutter slipped sharp Gaelic curses into the air. Cas didn’t move, but the shadows under his coat bent like they knew violence.

Gregor smirked, sensing the ripple, and leaned in harder. “She’s rot in silk. The end of balance dressed up like salvation. And that thing Sam’s become?” His eyes flicked up at him, hungry for the strike. “Corruption with a jawline. Honestly, I expected more. Maybe she likes being used. Don’t we all?”

He never finished.

Sam was there without a step or a sound. Just there. Like gravity folded the room wrong. His shadow split across the stone in shapes that didn’t belong.

Crimson-ringed eyes burned. His voice rolled low, molten.

“Say one more thing.”

Gregor’s smile cracked wider—ugly, gleaming.

“Go on then. Prove me right. Show us what she made you. Or do you need her permission first?”

Sam didn’t speak.

Faster than Gregor could blink, Sam had him by the collar and he was lifted clean off the floor as if he weighed nothing. The warlock’s boots scraped against the stone as he choked on his own breath, his cigarette hitting the ground and dying with a hiss.

Sam’s voice was low and guttural, rippling with power that made the walls vibrate.

“I’ve ended gods for less.”

He hauled Gregor in close, eyes burning gold at the edges.

“You think I’ll hesitate with a gutter warlock who smells like body spray and blood-magic porn?”

The air went dense.

Old wards lit up like they were afraid. Boards groaned. Somewhere in the rafters, a crack splintered straight through a support beam.

Gregor’s grin twitched, faltered—then dropped entirely.

Sam didn’t let go.

 Aurora was suddenly there. No flare or sermon. Just there. Her glow snapping hot under her skin, bleeding like lightning under glass. She was small and still. But completely unavoidable.

Sam froze and the pressure snapped back. His fist unclenched. Gregor crashed to the floor, chair splintering, breath ragged.

Aurora crouched, not over him, but near and close enough to blister the air. She didn’t threaten but her words landed like a verdict. 

“You mistake me,” she said, voice calm but sharp, “for someone who seduces power. I don’t. I end it.”

Gregor wheezed. He tried to laugh and failed.

Aurora’s eyes glowed hotter. “I chose Sam because he’s the only one who ever told me no. He never tried to leash me. Or worship me. Or fuck me into a cage. He saw me—all of me—and stayed.”

The glow pulsed once, hard. Enough to sting.

“If I wanted to burn this world, I wouldn’t have waited. I found the only man who stopped me.”

She stood. The air shifted with her, and every light flickered.

“And now you’ve seen what happens when you threaten him.”

Dean shoved off the wall, grin sharp and humorless. “If anyone else thinks this is about prophecy, or sex, or divine thighs—stand up. I’ll let my brother knock your teeth out too.”

No one moved.

Rowena’s laugh was a knife’s edge as she raised her glass. “Any other volunteers for creative suicide? Or can we get back to the bloody agenda?”

A witch traced a trembling sigil across her chest. A hunter holstered his blade. The fae hybrid by the hearth muttered, “Clear enough.”

The warlock’s blood hadn’t even finished steaming on the stone when Dean stepped forward.

“Alright,” he said flatly, voice like gravel dragged over steel. “Everybody shut the hell up.”

He didn’t shout. Didn’t need to. His boots did the talking, echoing across the chamber like verdicts.

“You’ve all got your little theories.” He ticked them off with two fingers. “‘Aurora’s in bed with the Winchesters.’ ‘Sam’s glowing like a reactor.’ ‘Dean’s not human anymore.’”

He let the silence stretch, jaw working. 

“Are you scared? Good. You should be.”

A ripple ran through the room—witches, fae, revenants, things too old to have names. Predators shifting in their skins, but not meeting his eyes.

Dean leaned in, voice lower, meaner. “I’ve killed gods. Broken angel blades with my bare hands. No wings. No prophecy. Nobody told me I was chosen. Just me. Mean, pissed-off, regular-ass Dean Winchester.”

He nodded toward Sam. “That’s my brother. He didn’t just change overnight. He stopped hiding.”

Then his gaze cut to Aurora. The glow in her skin answered him without trying.

“And her? She didn’t break the world. She’s the reason it hasn’t fallen apart. While the rest of you were out making pacts with Heaven or cutting deals with Hell, she was the one keeping the damn sky in place.”

He shifted his weight, eyes flat and merciless.

“You call her a monster for burning the Hollow Court? Newsflash—you weren’t there. You didn’t hear them laugh while they had me chained. You didn’t hear what they did.”

His voice rasped, hard and ugly.

“She did it for me. And I’ll never apologize for that.”

The silence was carved clean. No one breathed too loud.

Dean jabbed a finger at the floorboards, sharp as a stake. “This is the line. You stand with us. Or you get buried with the ones who thought comfort was worth selling the world for.”

He didn’t wait for applause. Just turned back toward Cas. “Your turn, angel.”

Cas stepped forward, trench coat brushing stone. His voice didn’t rise above the hum of the fire. It didn’t have to.

“I served Heaven for millennia.” His tone was flat, brutal. “I erased cities because they disobeyed. I killed entire bloodlines because a prophecy said I should. I was a good soldier.”

Someone shifted uneasily, the scrape of steel against leather.

Cas’s eyes swept the room. “You think Heaven cares about right or wrong? It doesn’t. It only cares about obedience. Control. And when you stop being useful—” his voice sharpened like a blade sliding home— “you’re erased.”

A witch muttered under her breath. A fae hybrid flinched. Someone lowered their gaze.

“You think the Winchesters are dangerous?” Cas asked. “Wait until Heaven decides you’re the threat. Wait until they look down and see you as a line of red ink to be cut from their story.”

The words sank like stones into water.

Cas’s eyes flicked to Dean. To Sam. To Aurora.

“You don’t have to love them,” he said simply. “But if you want to live free—if you want to keep breathing your own damn air—you stand with them. Or you’ll wish you had.”

He stepped back into the silence, trench coat whispering.

The room didn’t clap. Didn’t speak. Just shifted—slow, grudging. Like prey realizing they’d mistaken the hunters for gods.

The hall didn’t just thrum. It seethed.

Grace dripped from the rafters like oil. Glamour stung the air. Blood-rites itched beneath the floorboards. It was predator energy, restless and feral, a room of knives pretending to toast.

This wasn’t a council.

It was a fever dream with wine glasses.

Sam stood at the center like a cathedral made flesh—taller than shadow, silence heavier than hymns. Crimson-ringed eyes swept once and the whispers doubled, frenzied. No one wanted to test the rumor that he’d reduced a demon to ash by breathing its true name.

“They call him Severance,” hissed a witch, nails gouging her cup. “One word and the archon screamed until it wasn’t.”

“They say he smiled while it died,” a ghoul croaked.

“No,” another voice shivered. “She smiled.”

Aurora sat still, gold eyes like molten verdicts, velvet shadow clinging to her skin. The hush around her was worse than fire—like she could unmake the room just by standing.

“She’s the Source,” a banshee breathed. “The fire they can’t quench.”

“She chose him,” a dryad hissed back. “That’s what terrifies Heaven.”

“No,” a revenant rasped. “He chose her. Over everything. Over himself. And she let him.”

“That isn’t love,” muttered a fae with cracked lips. “That’s apocalypse rutting in daylight.”

“They say the sky moaned when they touched,” a warlock whispered, half-hungry, half-terrified. “Stars went out like candles.”

“They say when he kisses her,” another voice broke in, trembling, “the earth shakes to listen.”

“They say—” a voice from the back, high and too bright—“when they fuck, whole galaxies burn new.”

Laughter followed—sharp, frantic, manic—like glass shattering in a prayer circle.

Then a thick, unstable silence filtered in again.

Because everyone knew the whispers weren’t just gossip.

They were liturgy.

The hearth spat sparks like it wanted to argue. Dean leaned against it anyway, arms crossed, leather creaking, scotch dangling from his fist. No aura. No grace. Just conviction—and it burned hotter than any spell in the room.

“That’s the older one,” a shifter muttered. “Didn’t he die?”

“He did,” another whispered back. “She brought him back.”

“They say he can’t be smited.”

“I heard he snapped an angel blade bare-handed.”

“He speaks for them now.”

Dean’s mouth curved in a humorless smile. “Hell of a résumé. Shame it doesn’t pay.”

Eyes cut to Castiel—still as glass, trench coat folding around grace coiled tight.

“The angel,” breathed a witch. “He chose them.”

Dean muttered sideways, “We’re the goddamn zoo exhibit.”

Cas murmured without looking “At least no one’s thrown peanuts yet.”

Rowena’s laugh cut sharp through the murmur, wine sloshing like blood in her glass. “They’re not the gods you prayed for,” she said, sweet as poison. “But they’re the ones who didn’t choke when the sky collapsed.”

A young warlock shook his head, pale. “They look like they could tear reality apart.”

Rowena’s smile sliced. “They already did, darling. You’re still breathing because they put it back together.”

The whispers built into static—fear curdling, doubt sharpening. Dean knew the rhythm. He’d heard it in bars before a brawl, in bunkers before a mutiny, in every room where people wanted someone else to throw the first punch. He waited for the pitch to crest—then cut through it, voice low but absolute.

“Alright. Enough.”

The hall stilled like a throat closing.

“You came here scared. Or pissed. Or both. Fine. Own it. But don’t confuse what’s happening. We’re not crowning kings. We’re not building a cult.” His jaw flexed. “We’re drawing a line. No more thrones tossing dice while the rest of us bleed for the bet.”

Some leaned forward. Some looked away. No one breathed easy.

Cas shifted closer—silent, steady, radiating the kind of frostbite you couldn’t shake off. Sam stood like an earthquake no one wanted to acknowledge out loud. Aurora watched, molten eyes catching the room like a match dropped in oil.

“This ain’t charity,” Dean went on. “You stand here, you fight. Not next month. Not after you’ve had time to weigh your odds. Now.”

A ripple went through the hall. Ugly. Angry. Afraid.

From the shadows, a sylph’s voice slid out, cold as wet stone. “And if we don’t?”

Sam answered. Not loud. Just final.

“Then leave.”

The word landed like a blade in the floor.

“No curse. No chains. But when Heaven clears the board and Hell comes harvesting, don’t show up begging for shelter.”

Aurora stepped forward. Her grace pulsed once—light shifting in the room like it remembered fire. Her voice was quiet, but it burned.

“Choose clarity over comfort. Truth over survival. But if you walk out, you walk out alone.”

The silence dragged. Then a half-dozen peeled away—some stiff with defiance, some slouched with regret. None looked back.

Dean’s voice followed them out, bitter as smoke. “They’ll be back. They always come back when the world starts bleeding.”

Far more stayed.

Markus pushed off a column, voice smooth as ice. “For those with the spine to remain—rooms are ready. This house was built to hold bloodlines. It’ll hold you too.”

Rowena raised her glass high, grin barbed. “Breakfast at eight. Arguments resume with caffeine, sarcasm, and the occasional hex. Try not to murder each other before then.”

Uneasy laughter rippled—shaky, human, but real.

As factions drifted toward the manor’s wings—still side-eyeing, still palming blades—Sam leaned down to murmur near Aurora’s ear.

“Did we just start a government?”

Aurora arched her brow. “A better one.”

Dean clapped Sam’s shoulder, grim. “Nah. Not a government. We just lit the fuse.”

The heavy doors sealed shut. The storm outside leaned closer.

And high in the rafters, hidden iron and salt etched itself alight—the Archive listening, carving the night into record.

Tomorrow, the reckoning would begin.

Above Iron Oak, the auroras hadn’t stopped.

Gold veined with crimson curled across the sky like somebody had taken a bottle to the firmament and left it bleeding. The stars blinked through behind them—patient, unimpressed, waiting to see who snapped first.

The forest held its breath. Even the trees tilted in, nosy as parish gossips.

Aurora led him down a narrow path, lanterns swinging, moss swallowing their steps. Behind them, the manor disappeared into ivy and politics. Ahead, in the glade, the cottage waited.

Stone walls. Ivy drunk on age. Firelight muttering in the windows. Not a fortress. Not a throne. Just a place to crash when gods clocked out of war.

Sam hadn’t said a word since the council broke. Not anger. Just gravity. Being feared had been easy. Being believed in? Heavier.

At the door, Aurora glanced back. “It’s just us here,” she said softly.

It landed like a verdict.

Inside it was cedar smoke, books stacked like barricades, a rug older than most kingdoms. A place that remembered.

Sam sat, boots off, rubbing his face like he was trying to scrub the night out of his skull. “This is good.”

Aurora leaned in the doorway, arms folded. “You’ve been bracing all day.”

“I thought if they listened, they’d get it,” he muttered. “What we’re building. What we are. But most of them just looked at me like I was the trigger on a bomb they can’t defuse.”

“You are,” she said evenly. “But not the one they should fear.”

He looked up. Her eyes glowed gold, steady.

“I don’t want to talk about them anymore.”

“Fine.” She crossed, brushed his wrist to anchor him.

They stood in the center of the cottage, auroras bleeding through the windows like graffiti across heaven.

Sam exhaled. “Just us.”

And then he reached for her.

Hand at her waist. Hand behind her neck. Not desperate. Just necessary. The world narrowed.

“They’re scared of me,” he said.

“Yes.”

“You could lie.”

“I won’t.”

His laugh came out sharp. “Because honesty is the new foreplay.”

“Because you deserve it. Even when it hurts.”

He lifted his gaze—eyes ringed gold, rimmed red. “So what am I? A god that hasn’t snapped yet?”

“No,” she said, sharp as glass. “You’re the man who tried to stop the war even when it broke you in half.”

He huffed something sour. “And now they think I’ll start it.”

“Let them. They never knew you.”

His fists curled. Heat crawled under his skin. “Maybe I don’t know me anymore either.”

“Don’t,” she said. “Not in front of me. I see you.”

Her eyes carried grief. Not for herself. For him.

“I’d die for you,” she said. “But more importantly —I live for you. I didn’t give you my grace because I needed a sword. I gave it because you were the only one who never treated me like one.”

Sam swallowed hard. “Now I’m the one they fear.”

“And that kills me.”

He stood—tall, firelit. “You don’t break.”

“I do,” she whispered. “Only for you.”

They leaned in, foreheads pressed, silence binding them tighter than prophecy ever could.

Sam woke up starving.

Not for food. Not for rest. For her.

Aurora hadn’t even finished stretching—bare skin glowing faintly in the half-light, hair wild across the pillow—before he was on her.

No tenderness. No hesitation. His weight crashed her into the mattress, hands pinning her wrists above her head like he’d dreamed about it too long and couldn’t wait another second. His mouth dragged across her throat, her shoulder, her collarbone—teeth catching, marking her like he meant to brand her in flesh and memory.

“You’ve been looking at me like you wanted to ruin me since last night,” he growled against her skin. His hips ground down, brutal and hungry. “But I’m the one who gets to break you.”

Aurora gasped, arching under him. “Sam—”

“No.” His voice was low, raw. “You started this. Now you take all of me.”

He kissed her like a drowning man—tongue, teeth, desperation, no reverence. Worship could come later. This was need.

When he thrust into her, it wasn’t gentle but it wasn’t cruel either. It was a claim—an oath driven straight into her body. A punishment for how much she undid him.

And she gave it right back.

Her legs locked around him, pulling him deeper, wanting it harder. Grace cracked under her skin like wildfire and he dragged it into himself, hungry for every drop. He moved like wrath made flesh, like a man who’d stopped pretending restraint meant survival.

The cottage groaned around them. Wards sparked. A lantern blew out with a sharp pop.

“You feel that?” he rasped in her ear, his rhythm rattling the bedframe. “That’s me—not holding back.”

She couldn’t answer. Her body did—arching, trembling, burning against him. Her grace bloomed, and Sam devoured it like water down a dying throat. Pulled it into the hellblood and made it new, made it his.

“You’re burning,” she gasped, nails dragging fire down his back.

“I know,” he snarled. “And you love it.”

God help her—she did. Needed it. Needed him. The fury, the tenderness buried inside it, the once broken man who chose her every time, no matter the cost.

Her heels pressed into his spine. He drove into her harder and harder, until the world outside couldn’t keep still—

The sky cracked open.

Daylight split with an aurora, gold and crimson bleeding across the clouds. Power rippled out from the cottage in a perfect ring. Grass bowed. Trees moaned. Wards along the perimeter flared, then bent.

And still Sam didn’t stop.

He was shaking now, wrecked and relentless, thrusts breaking into shuddered groans. His forehead pressed to hers, voice ragged.

“Say it. Say you’re mine.”

Aurora glowed like molten glass, fire in her throat. “I’ve always been yours.”

That shattered him.

He stilled for one heartbeat—then came apart inside her, darkness folding into light, until silence fell so pure it felt like prayer.

He stayed inside her, trembling, chest heaving, holding on like she was the last tether he had left. “I need you,” he rasped. “But not to fix me.”

Her fingers slid into his hair. “No?”

His eyes glowed faint gold and red, something inhuman pulsing behind his gaze. “I need you to match me. So I never have to hold back again.”

The words coiled down her spine like an invocation.

And then she snapped.

Not her grace, but her control.

One moment he was above her, undone and reverent. The next, he was flat on his back, staring up at her like a man seeing God descend.

Aurora straddled him in a single, furious movement. Knees tight to his ribs. Hair wild. Eyes burning gold. Her beauty wasn’t mortal—it was the kind that cracked the sky.

Her hand fisted in his hair. She yanked his mouth to hers with a kiss that was nothing but teeth and ruin.

Sam groaned into it, stunned, dazed, already hers.

“You think you’re the only one who can break something?” she hissed against his lips.

His hands clamped to her hips, instinctive and adoring, already moving beneath her. “No,” he rasped, voice breaking. “But now you don’t have to hide it.”

She didn’t answer. She slammed her body down onto him in one brutal motion.

Sam choked on a curse, hands gripping her thighs, but she was already moving—riding him like fire given form. Not tender. Not forgiving. A rhythm meant to claim him back, to show him he could take everything she was and still beg for more.

The bed shuddered. The windows trembled in their frames. The air rippled like a heat-haze.

Sam’s jaw locked, muscles straining, his rhythm matching hers. “Harder.”

She bent low, lips brushing his ear. “You’ll break.”

“Then break me.”

She slammed down again. He flipped them mid-thrust, burying himself to the hilt. Her cry tore out of her throat half in ecstasy, half in defiance.

“You arrogant bastard,” she gasped.

He kissed her hard. “You love that too.”

They moved like wildfire, consumed and consuming. The bond snapped white-hot, grace pouring into darkness, darkness clawing back into grace, until nothing in the world could separate them.

Books on the shelf ignited. Runes seared white into the ceiling. The cottage walls shook.

Aurora screamed his name—not from pain, but from truth, from being seen and wanted so fiercely even her grace couldn’t contain it.

“I don’t want balance,” Sam growled against her throat. “I want to burn with you.”

“You are,” she gasped. “You already are.”

And then their bond detonated.

A wave of force burst from the cottage—windows rattled, lamps flared out, the door slammed shut like the house itself couldn’t bear witness. Light burned through the beams. The chandeliers in Iron Oak shook. Wards across the manor flared white, searing every sigil into sudden brightness.

In the great hall, Rowena froze mid-sip. Markus broke off mid-argument. Dean leaned back in his chair, jaw tightening, pretending not to care as the whole estate vibrated like a struck bell.

Magic bowed. The air thudded with metaphysical aftershock. And then it was still.

Inside the cottage, they stayed tangled, foreheads pressed together, sweat and grace cooling on skin, panting like they’d just fought the world and won.

Because they had.

2:02 PM CST-NASA DEEP FIELD STATION, HOUSTON 

Dr. K. Lin hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. Most of the control room hadn’t. Coffee sat cold on consoles, half-drained mugs gathering rings on technical printouts. The Vela sector feed dominated the screens: black space, scattered pinpricks of light—and one anomaly dead center.

“It’s not a pulsar,” murmured Gutiérrez, twisting the ring off her finger like it might help her think. “No neutron signature, no x-ray emission at the expected wavelengths.”

Lin leaned closer, eyes burning. The anomaly pulsed again. Not randomly. Structured. A rhythm that wasn’t just astrophysics.

“Overlay spectrograph.” His voice was flat. Tired. But something in it made the tech obey without hesitation.

The waveform crawled across the display. Not static. Not noise. A curve repeating with terrifying precision.

And then the audio render caught it—converted the data into sound.

A voice. Thin, stretched by lightyears, but unmistakable. Singing.

Every chair in the room went still.

“It’s a new star,” Lin said finally, the words scraping his throat. “It wasn’t there last week. It shouldn’t be there at all.”

Onscreen, the light flared, steady and alive. A star born not in silence, but in song.

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.

Because everyone knew stars weren’t supposed to sound like that.

Castiel appeared in the doorway a moment later, calm but crackling faintly with power, like even he hadn’t expected that.

Dean stared at him. “You felt that?”

“I saw it,” Cas replied. “A new star ignited above Iron Oak. For exactly 3.6 seconds.” He paused. “That doesn’t happen without consequence.”

Silence followed. Thick. Uneasy.

Then—a chuckle from the far side of the room. Half-suppressed cackling from a witch near the hearth. A djinn snorted into his overturned goblet.

One hunter muttered, “I thought that was a myth.” Another answered, “Apparently not.”

The laughter broke like a dam—nervous, giddy, unhinged. Not joy. Recognition. That whatever Sam and Aurora had become… It was too big to name.

Sabine exhaled, sharp. “The accords must be rewritten. Immediately. The old laws don’t cover gods in love. Without new boundaries, the rest of us burn with them.”

Markus rubbed at his jaw, bone-dry. “What do we write? No sex within ten miles of ley lines?”

Selwyn, still pale, lifted a shaking glass. “To the Severance and the Source,” he said softly. “May they never run out of stamina.”

Another wave of laughter. This time less fear. More surrender. Because what else could they do? They weren’t in charge anymore. Not really.

Rowena drained her brandy and conjured another with a flick. Her smile glinted like a knife.

“Well,” she purred, “if this is just their morning… I pity the fool who calls a war before teatime.”

And above it all—behind stone and golden wards—Sam and Aurora stayed wrapped in each other.

Unbothered and unapologetic. 

The Council chamber still vibrated—low, bone-deep, like the earth hadn’t decided whether to settle or blow its knees out. Wards twitched in the stone, bleeding threads of gold and crimson as they tried to recalibrate around whatever had just rocked the manor to its foundations. Grace lingered in the walls like perfume. And underneath it—something heavier and rougher, which was clearly all Sam.

Whispers slithered through the chamber. Nervous. Reverent. A few stray chuckles that collapsed into coughs halfway out of the throat.

Then the doors opened.

Sam walked in first. Calm as judgment day. Hair still damp, water sliding dark at his collar, black henley stretched across a frame that looked carved for war. The shirt looked less like clothing than fate stitched in cotton, a reminder that inevitability had height, muscle, and boots heavy enough to mark the stone.

Aurora followed.

She didn’t just glow, she shimmered with a sunburst pulse under her skin, curls loose and haloed in wild light, boots clicking against stone like punctuation. She looked like she’d rewritten the constellations and dared anyone to lodge a complaint.

Rowena fanned herself with a warded napkin. “Oh, for the love of sin. You can still taste it in the mortar.”

Dean didn’t look up from his mug. “Do not make me picture it.”

Markus leaned toward Henry. “Is it… hotter in here?”

Henry, deadpan as a gravestone, “It’s August in Hell, my love. Just cope.”

Somewhere across the chamber, a talisman slipped from a fae’s trembling hand. A fire-suppression ward sputtered, hissed, and audibly gave up.

Sam nodded at Dean as he passed. “Sorry we’re late.”

Dean stared into his coffee. “You’re not late. You rearranged time.”

Aurora said nothing. She just sat at the head of the table like the chair had been waiting centuries for her. The sconces flared. The wards whimpered.

Cas broke the silence, voice flat as a verdict. “You asked for proof that the Severance and the Source weren’t myth.”

Rowena raised her decanter like a toast. “Proof delivered. And now the ley lines need therapy.”

From the back, a vampire lord muttered, “That wasn’t natural.”

A witch with raccoon eyeliner whispered, “No. That was divine. And I’m offended.”

Aurora arched a brow at the stack of charters. “Well? Are we beginning, or are we still clutching our pearls?”

The silence cracked—first a cough, then nervous laughter rolling across the room like dominoes.

Sam slipped his hands into his pockets. “I made coffee.”

And just like that, the meeting lurched forward again—still shaking, still stunned, still pretending they hadn’t just witnessed the Winchester-Source honeymoon special blow a hole through Iron Oak’s wards.

Chapter Text

No one applauded when the final vote echoed off the stone—just mutters, clinking goblets, and one loud belch from the vampire diplomat who’d misunderstood “no blood on the table” as a dietary restriction.

Dean Winchester was officially voted Head of Defense.

He took it like he took whiskey—flat expression, slow nod, daring anyone to laugh. Cas stood at his shoulder, quiet as a blade.

“Really?” someone muttered. “The guy who shot God?”

“Technically his brother.”

“Same damn gene pool.”

Dean cleared his throat. “Look, I didn’t come here for a title. I came here to keep this place from burning down again. But since you gave me a badge—let me be clear: you try to light a match in here, I’ll make you eat it.”

A revenant stood. “Define ‘light a match.’”

Rowena, swirling her wine: “If you need clarification, pet, you need muzzling.”

Then the doors opened as Sam and Aurora walked back in—calm as ever, carrying the faint smell of toasted bread.

Rowena raised a brow. “And what were we doing while the Council argued over eternity?”

Aurora answered dryly,“Lunch.”

Sam added, “We made sandwiches.”

The chamber buzzed like they’d announced Armageddon.

Markus took the floor with the Black Ledger, his grin sharp. “Enough theater. These are the laws. You break them—you answer to all of us.”

The list went out.

Law One: No aggression in sanctuary bounds.

Law Two: No binding magic without consent.

Law Three: No retaliation during council.

Law Four: No tampering with convergence events.

That one landed like a blade. Dozens of eyes flicked toward Sam and Aurora, then away like they’d stared too long at an eclipse.

And then Henry’s voice dropped.

Law Five: “Any children born of convergence are sacred. Untouchable.”

The room exploded.

A fork hit the floor. A goblet shattered. A witch burst out laughing until she hiccupped sparks. A warlock gasped “divine heirs” and fainted. The vampire diplomat dropped his napkin, whispering, “Not again.”

“They’re pregnant?” a druid blurted. His voice cracked like a gunshot.

Instant chaos.

A witch shrieked, “The ley lines will crack!”

A fae hybrid clutched his chest. “Do we bow? Do we run?”

A revenant began weeping, loudly, into his own sleeve.

Someone else muttered, “Well, that explains the sky orgasms.”

Sam and Aurora stood exactly where they’d been, plates still warm on the table. Sam looked at Aurora. Aurora looked at Sam.

Aurora’s gold eyes glinted. “We made lunch.”

Sam’s voice was dry as ash. “Not a prophecy or babies. Lunch.”

Didn’t matter. The chamber had already gone unhinged—spells flaring by accident, witches scribbling protective clauses with ink that caught fire, a warlock shouting about “cosmic diapers.”

Sabine slammed her goblet down. “Enough!”

The noise rolled on.

Aurora leaned just enough toward Sam to be heard. “Do you know what happens when a celestial fractures during convergence?”

Sam raised his brow, his voice carrying over the din like judgment. “You want to find out?”

Silence snapped the room in half.

No one did.

Dean broke the silence.

“All right. Rules are set. If you’re still here, you’re in. So let’s talk duties.”

He pushed off the stone wall like a man about to start a bar fight—only this time, he looked more like someone organizing a rebellion with clipboards and grudges. Which, technically, he was.

“We’re not gonna sit around playing tea parties while Heaven reloads and Hell reorganizes,” he said, voice sharp. “This place”—he waved toward the great hall, the antler chandeliers and blood-polished floors—“ain’t a sanctuary. It’s a frontline with better upholstery.”

A few dry laughs—one too loud, one more like a cough.

Dean didn’t wait. He nodded toward Cas, who stepped forward like time had already arranged itself to make room for him.

“The supernatural world is fracturing,” Cas said, voice low and quiet—but somehow louder than anyone else had been all night. “Hunters are being manipulated. Creatures are disappearing. Angelic factions are using human proxies. If we don’t establish communication and coordinated response, we will not survive what’s coming.”

Dean jerked his thumb at his own chest. “Which is why I’m taking the lead on the hunter network. If you’ve got contacts, skills, or just a really solid death wish—come find me. We’ll put boots on the ground and eyes in the dark.”

Cas added, “I’ll coordinate intelligence. Angels, witches, rogue entities—if it breathes magic and thinks it’s clever, I want to know about it. If you have visions, hear voices, or dream in Enochian—tell me. Preferably before it eats your neighbor.”

That earned a ripple of uneasy laughter.

Rowena rose with theatrical timing, dressed like sin and statecraft in a crimson gown that shimmered like a spell about to go wrong.

“I’ll manage the covens,” she said sweetly. “Keep the witch alliances civil, and the infernal politics contained. Sabine and I have already begun mapping out cooperative thresholds. If you’ve got a spell-bound corpse in your closet, speak now or risk me finding it later.”

Sabine, at her right, nodded once. She was already flipping through her clipboard like it had teeth. Her silver braids were tied back with blood-red silk, her gaze pure execution.

“If your issue is romantic,” Rowena added dryly, “keep it to yourself or write a tragic poem. We’re not your coven counselors.”

A ripple of sharp laughter cut the tension, then died fast.

Markus stepped forward, jacket crisp, cufflinks gleaming, grin sharp as a knife in candlelight. He could’ve been selling insurance or seduction—didn’t matter, people would buy.

“We’ll handle logistics,” Markus said smoothly. “Resources. Contingencies. Secrets. If Iron Oak needs it, we’ll find it. If it shouldn’t exist, we’ll make it disappear.”

Henry, beside him, adjusted his cuff with aristocratic precision. His voice came calm, clipped, and lethal in its efficiency. “Speak to us directly. We do charge in favors. And yes, we track late payments. Extensively.”

Markus added, almost cheerfully, “Our ledger is older than most of your bloodlines. Consider it the original collections agency. Trust me—you’d rather stay current.”

The laughter this time was nervous. Because no one doubted it.

Sam hadn’t moved. But when he stood, the room went still again. Not because he did anything flashy. He just was.

“I’ll oversee internal disputes,” he said. “If you’ve got a problem with another faction, bring it to me before it spills blood. We settle it here. Fairly. But if you lie, manipulate, or sabotage something that endangers this Council…”

A pause. The kind of pause that felt like the last second before a bomb chose not to detonate.

“You’ll answer to me.”

A witch across the room flinched. Someone else dropped a pen.

Then came Aurora’s voice. She hadn’t stood. She didn’t need to. She simply spoke.

“I’ll manage metaphysical balance. Cross-realm communication. Sacred space enforcement. And if you try to exploit Iron Oak or the power that anchors it—”

Her tone didn’t rise. It cut.

“I will know.”

And then, quieter. But sharper than steel:

“And I don’t forget.”

The silence that followed wasn’t nervous. It was absolute.

From there, the room burst into organization. Names were taken. Hands were raised. The fae offered environmental control. The shifters volunteered for surveillance and patrol. Someone suggested banshees for early warning systems and was politely ignored. A druid tried to claim he could enchant the plumbing—Rowena promised to hex him personally if he touched the pipes.

By the time the crowd began to thin, what had been a room full of fragmented survivors now looked… like an army learning to march.

The Council wasn’t just an idea anymore.

It was structured. It had teeth. A line in the sand that bled if you crossed it.

Dean stretched, cracking his neck, and muttered, “Well. We just painted a bullseye on our backs.”

Aurora didn’t look up.

“Then let them aim,” she said.

The barn smelled like gun oil, blood, and Molson sweat. Hunter perfume. A folding table sagged under mismatched chairs, ward maps, and half-warm beer. Dean had seen hunter hideouts with more grace and less attitude.

He leaned on the doorway, arms crossed. “Alright,” he said, dry as bone. “Play nice. I brought a guest.”

Boots clicked behind him. Markus Winchester entered like the century hadn’t caught up yet. His coat swept the floor, his dark hair tied back with precision, his eyes carrying the weight of old wars and older debts.

“Evening,” Markus said, voice smooth, quiet, and edged. “Let’s get this over with.”

One hunter with a broad scar down his cheek, and too much swagger snorted. “What is this? Vampire cosplay? Civil War reenactor?”

Dean’s grin was half menace. “Markus Winchester. Yes, our Winchesters. Don’t ask questions unless you want answers that’ll ruin your beer.”

Markus gave a shallow nod. “Not undead. Not costumed. Just difficult to kill.”

Another, a younger man with a cocky stance, spat to the side. “Winchesters don’t live forever.”

Markus’s eyes flickered gold.

“I don’t live,” he said. “I persist.”

Dean clapped him on the back. “He’s here to train you. Old blood. Sharper teeth. Think of it like boot camp, but meaner.”

The hunters laughed, short and ugly. One woman leaned forward, arms crossed. “He doesn’t look like he’s ever gutted a wendigo.”

Markus’s jaw twitched. “My first wendigo was gutted with a dull knife and frostbitten hands. You wouldn’t have survived the weather.”

That silenced them.

He stepped onto the mats, coat stripped off, sleeves rolled. Picked up a wooden staff like it was a relic. “Which of you wants to learn something?”

The scarred man lunged. Markus sidestepped, cracked his knee with the blunt end, and let him drop.

“Too wide. Too slow.”

The cocky one came next. Markus swept his legs and drove the staff into his ribs. The boy wheezed. Markus gave lecture this time.

The woman tried next, faster, sharper. Markus measured her. He let her push him, let her think she was close. Then he snapped forward, elbow under her chin, wrist locked, knee pressing her shoulder to the mat.

“Better,” he said. “But not enough.”

He stepped back. She blinked up at him, dazed.

His hair had slipped loose—dark and glossy, falling around his face like some disgraced Adonis turned immortal assassin. Blue eyes sharp as cracked ice with a jaw carved by a vengeful god. He looked like the kind of man who would break your heart, steal your secrets, and still be invited back for brunch.

He didn’t smirk. But his face carried the permanent suggestion that he could—and probably should.

That’s when another hunter soundlessly moved in. Silver spear raised. But he wasn't sparring.

He was hunting.

Dean swore. Cas shifted.

Markus spun mid-motion, heel driving into the man’s sternum. The hunter flew backward, hit the ground, coughing blood. The spear clattered away.

Markus advanced, slow, every step deliberate.

“You test me with silver? Here?” His voice was flat. Not angry. Worse. “Pick a sharper tool next time.”

He scanned the room, gaze cold, ancient.

“I trained with gods. I carved my name into stone older than some languages. I don’t need your trust. Only your silence.”

The air went tight. No one moved. No one dared.

“If you’re here to test Aurora, or Sam, or the children they’ll bring into this world—declare yourselves. Now. I’ll make examples.”

Silence. One man shifted in his chair. No one else breathed.

Dean cleared his throat. “Yeah, what he said. Maybe save the stabbing for monsters.”

Finally, someone muttered, “So what the hell are we supposed to do?”

Markus turned, voice still sharp from the fight haze.

“You watch. You learn. You survive.” He shrugged back into his coat, dust falling from the fabric. Paused in the doorway.

“And if you’re lucky,” he added, voice like glass breaking, “you might even live long enough to be useful.”

As he passed, Dean smirked. “Feel better?”

Markus exhaled. “One of them tried to stab me. That’s usually your job.”

Dean grinned. “Don’t tempt me, ancestor.”

Cas’s eyes narrowed. “They’ll follow you now. Not from respect. From fear.”

Markus glanced back, golden eyes gleaming. “Good. Fear sharpens faster than trust.”

He paused a beat.

“And the sharp ones live longer.”

Inside, the hunters cleaned the blood off the mats in silence, careful not to meet each other’s eyes.

The sun had dipped low, painting the sky in blood-orange streaks. The barn smelled of sweat, oil, and ghosts.

Markus stood alone on the sparring mat, sleeves rolled, hair damp. Breathing steady. Still as carved stone. But it wasn’t calm, it was exhaustion. The kind that comes after too many centuries of war, too many nights with ghosts who never leave.

He picked up a staff, turned it absently in one hand. Then he heard boots on hay and a breath caught in the dark.

Markus didn’t turn. “You’ve got one chance to change your mind.”

He was met with silence.

Then a raw yell full of stupid fury. The hunter charged, blade gleaming, cold iron, warded for gods and monsters. It cut deep into Markus’s shoulder.

For one heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then Markus looked down. Not at the blade. At the hand holding it.

“You touched me,” he said, almost confused.

And then something broke.

The staff clattered to the floor. His hand closed around the man’s throat as he lifted him like nothing, slamming him against the wall hard enough to splinter wood.

“Do you know what I am?” Markus whispered, eyes gone molten gold. “Do you know what she burned into me?”

The hunter gagged, clawing at his wrist. Markus didn’t loosen.

“I wasn’t made,” Markus hissed. “I was forged from grace and bone. The flame of a woman who loved me enough to rewrite my body until it refused to rot.”

His skin glowed—gold at first, then shading darker, hotter. Like fire under glass.

“I almost died in Crimea. In the Highlands. In trenches where angels whispered surrender.” He slammed the man again; the wall cracked. “But she dragged me back. Again. And again.”

The hunter rasped, “S-stop—”

But Markus wasn’t there anymore. Only the thing mercy had left behind.

“You think she made me because I was kind?” His teeth bared. His eyes burned. “She made me to end wars.”

He hurled the man across the barn. Ribs cracked when he hit the beam. He crawled, broken, as Markus stalked forward, fire licking his knuckles.

“You want immortality? It’s not glory. It’s remembering every scream you couldn’t stop. Every face you failed to save. Centuries of rot in your hands. It’s this.”

The man whimpered. “Please—”

Markus blinked. For a moment, the fire dimmed.

Then the barn door banged open.

Dean froze mid-step, eyes on Markus, on the glowing hand, on the half-dead hunter sprawled like roadkill.

“Markus,” Dean said, sharp. “Stand down.”

Markus didn’t move.

Dean stepped closer. “You’ll kill him.”

Markus’s voice was flat. “He wanted a monster. I thought I’d oblige.”

Dean’s tone cut. “He’s not worth it.”

Markus’s chest heaved. The light flared again, heat scorching the air.

Dean tried once more—this time quieter, meaner. “Hey. You really want her to see you like this?”

That landed.

Markus’s eyes flicked to him. For the first time, he looked wrecked. The fire guttered out. His hand fell.

The silence was thick as smoke.

Markus turned away, bracing himself on the wall, shoulders shaking though no sound came out.

Dean looked down at the crumpled hunter. “You’re lucky. If it were me, I’d have let him finish it.” He crouched low, voice a growl. “You touch him again, I won’t stop him. I’ll help.”

When he rose, Markus was still at the wall, fire gone but fury lingering.

“It doesn’t go away,” Markus rasped. “Not in a year. Not in three centuries. She saved my body. But, not my mind.”

Dean nodded slowly. “Yeah. I get that.”

Markus turned, eyes still glowing faintly. “I’m not like Sam. Or you. She made me from the worst part of loving her.”

Dean didn’t flinch. “Then let me remind you of the best part.”

Markus blinked.

“She still loves you,” Dean said, steady. “You scare the hell out of us sometimes—but you’re still family.”

Markus swallowed, then nodded once. No words.

The hunter crawled out, dragging himself into the night.

And Markus Winchester stood there, lit by dying lamplight, carrying both his immortality and the ruin it cost him—still burning, still furious, not whole, but not alone.

There was no beginning in the Blind Sanctum.

No end, either.

Only a hush between pulses, silence packed tight between the seams of space.

Twelve angels stood in a crescent, wings folded tight. They hadn’t come for reverence. They came like defendants begging a jury. Something had gone wrong. Not in Heaven. Not in Hell. Somewhere deeper.

And then the Watchers came.

Not as bodies. Phenomena pretending at shape.

The first pulsed like a collapsed star threaded in gold, orbiting itself like a predator that never stopped circling.

The second rippled endlessly, unraveling and reweaving in patterns that resembled prophecy only to shred it again.

The last unfurled as a wheel of mouths and eyes, every tooth and iris moving in a tongue not meant to be spoken.

They settled. Watching. Waiting.

“They remain together,” the wheel said, mouths curling like bruises spreading. “The Pattern frays.”

A seraph stepped forward. “She is Source. He is Severance. They were allowed existence—but apart. They were never written to converge.”

The loom convulsed, threads jerking tight. “Convergence was not designed. Their bond is infection. It alters the Archive. It bends Death. It teaches choice.”

“And now prophecy,” whispered another angel, voice raw. “Not ours. Not Heaven’s. Older. When she touched his soul, it ignited.”

The Watchers stilled.

The star’s voice rolled out, slow and collapsing. “Speak it.”

The seraph swallowed. “He is Severance. She is Source. Together, they are the Rewriting.”

The Sanctum buckled. The loom tore and rewove itself in spasms of fury. The wheel hissed, every mouth gnashing.

“Unacceptable. There was no such prophecy in the code. This is deviation. Contagion.”

“They are not corrupted,” the star countered. “They are choosing.”

The loom shrieked. “Love was not factored in. Attachment rewrites law. It is a breach.”

The youngest angel whispered, trembling. “You don’t understand. It isn’t only prophecy anymore. Their union sparks creation. Conception.”

Silence. Crushing.

The star’s pulse dimmed. “Life born of Severance and Source… unmeasured. Unowned. Outside the Pattern.”

The loom’s threads split into sparks. “If they breed, they birth constants not made by God or Dark. Beings without leash.”

The wheel’s mouths opened in unison, voice soft and lethal. “Children of choice. Variables without anchor. This cannot stand.”

The seraph dared: “They were not made to destroy. They were made to balance.”

“Balance breaks,” hissed the loom. “Birth rewrites.”

The Sanctum shook. Somewhere else, stars blinked out.

“You intervene,” the wheel said. “You sever the bond. Tear flesh from grace. End conception before it roots.”

“You rewrite them,” the loom shrieked. “Flesh. Memory. Love itself. Until they are separate. Until they forget.”

The star’s hunger turned cold. “Because if they remain, they become not prophecy—”

A pause. Long. Heavy.

“—but law.”

And the Sanctum dimmed. Not into peace.

Into motion.

The Watchers had decided.

If the Severance and the Source would not be unbound—

they would be unraveled.

Iron Oak creaked in its ancient bones. The wards shimmered. Reality… winced.

Sam lifted his head from the book, eyes narrowing at the air that suddenly felt too dense to breathe. Across the grounds, Aurora stopped mid-step, her pulse thrumming with the same recognition. Something vast was pressing through the veil—watching, assessing, exhaling down the spine of the world.

In the orchard, a tree split down its center with a sound like bone snapping, though no wind stirred and no axe had touched it.

They didn’t call to one another. They didn’t need to.

The silence between them spoke louder than any prayer.

If they were ever torn apart—

The universe would not survive the separation.

It would not blaze or shatter.

It would forget. Forget how to bind atoms to atoms, soul to flesh, memory to time.

And then, slowly, terribly, it would begin to unmake.

Chapter Text

The last of the Council’s new members had barely filtered into the corridors when the wards shuddered.

Not flared. Not shattered.

Shuddered. Like something ancient had scraped its nails across the bones of Iron Oak, just to see who screamed.

Dean straightened from the hearth, hand drifting toward the blade on the table. Cas tilted his head, unreadable. Sabine cut off mid-sentence, eyes narrowing toward the window.

Then the front door opened.

The figure who entered wore dark, precise clothing that was too sharp for mortal hands and too exact for fashion. His hair looked like ash soaked in blood. His eyes were not eyes at all, but cracked stars bleeding through tar.

“Hello,” he said, voice like velvet left in frost. “I heard a Council was forming.”

Dean didn’t blink. “You weren’t invited.”

“An oversight.” The stranger stepped further in. “I’m not here to join. I’m here to… remind.”

Cas’s tone was pleasant, but his grace bristled like lightning. “Then I suggest you speak before someone removes your tongue.”

“I’m not a man,” the stranger replied smoothly. “And I don’t bargain.”

His gaze swept the room like a blacklight over old blood. It lingered on Sam. Too long. Then on Aurora longer still with cruel recognition. 

“You’ve attracted the kind of attention that devours,” he said. “Councils burn. Alliances rot. Balance is a children’s prayer. And you—” His voice sharpened, aimed at Aurora. “You’ve burned before, daughter of fire. You’ll burn again.”

The runes screamed. The wards buckled. Magic snapped like bones under pressure.

Sam moved.

One moment he was beside her, the next in front of the stranger with his eyes blazing, and his fury coiled in silence. His presence bent the air until every creature in the room felt smaller.

“This is your only warning,” Sam said low and final. “You don’t talk about her. Not here. Not ever.”

The stranger’s smile flickered. “Ah. The Severance speaks.”

Sam’s voice dropped darker. “You broke into my home to sneer at balance and threaten what’s mine. You think I flinch? I don’t flinch.”

The heat rolled off him, quiet but unbearable, until charms cracked and glass trembled in the sconces. Aurora didn’t move, but her grace slid into his bones, fusing with his anger, calming it.

“You can leave,” Sam said, “or you can find out what happens when I judge something not worth saving.”

The stranger studied him. And for the first time, he stopped smiling.

“You’ve changed,” he murmured.

Sam’s reply was stripped bare, “I finally stopped letting anyone else define me.”

A crushing silence followed. 

Then the figure inclined his head once. “Very well. Consider this… a courtesy.”

He turned for the door then paused.

“The Watchers won’t be as kind,” he said. “We still believe in corrections.”

And then he was gone.

The air collapsed. The wards sagged. The chamber exhaled like a lung punctured and sealed again.

No one moved. Until Henry muttered, “Felt like being lectured by an obituary.”

Markus picked up his wine. “I’ll wager he wasn’t the worst guest we’ll see this week.”

Sabine, sharp-eyed, turned to Aurora. “Next time you start a celestial war, darling, at least send invitations.”

Aurora didn’t laugh. She brushed her fingers against Sam’s wrist instead. It was warm and grounding.

And Sam? Sam didn’t sit down.

He stayed standing.

Just in case.

Dean stood arms crossed, jaw locked so hard it looked like he might crack a molar. He radiated the kind of fury usually reserved for monsters dumb enough to touch his brother.

“The hell was that?” His voice cut low. “Who was that and what did he mean by ‘the ones who watch’?”

Sam hadn’t moved. Still facing the space the envoy had slipped through, as if staring hard enough might drag it back. Aurora brushed his arm once more to anchor him, then turned to Dean.

“That,” she said, voice cool as glass, “wasn’t Heaven. Or Hell. Or any Court you’ve named.”

Dean’s brow furrowed darker. “Then what?”

Aurora’s eyes flicked gold. “Older.”

Cas tilted his head, frown deepening. “Older than angels?”

Aurora nodded. “Before Thrones. Before the Song. Before judgment meant anything. They don’t choose sides. They observe. And when power gathers where it shouldn’t, they test it.”

Dean snorted. “By strolling in like a cosmic tax auditor?”

Aurora’s mouth curved into a steely smile. “They don’t warn. They measure.”

At that, Sam finally turned. His face was calm, but magma simmered behind the ice. “They don’t understand what we are. They weren’t made to.”

“They don’t want to,” Aurora added. Her gaze softened slightly. “To them, I was an experiment that ran too far. You’re the deviation they can’t file.”

Dean barked a humorless laugh. “So you two fall in love and suddenly we broke the universe’s spreadsheet.”

Aurora tilted her head. “Balance is their truth.”

The silence buzzed like live wire.

Cas murmured, “If the Watchers have noticed, more will follow. They won’t come curious again.”

Aurora’s tone sharpened. “No. They’ll come hostile. Tonight was a probe. He wanted to see how far Sam would go.”

Dean arched a brow. “And?”

Aurora’s smile flashed like a blade. “He passed.”

The room rippled—wards twitching, warlocks muttering charms too loud. A witch smacked her neighbor just to shut him up.

And then Rowena swept in like a stage cue—red curls gleaming, corset sharp, heels sharper.

“Well,” she purred. “That was charming. I’ve met sobbing archangels and snide demons, but cryptic eldritch bureaucrats? Positively insufferable.”

Dean muttered, “You heard it?”

“Darling, everyone heard it. Half the courtyard’s hexed themselves into hives. And you—” her nail flicked toward Sam—“were incandescent. Had necromancers fanning themselves. One witch swore off men entirely. Bravo.”

Sam blinked. Aurora almost laughed. Almost.

Rowena’s grin faltered. “But that thing wasn’t aligned. It felt… feral. Like extinction in formalwear.”

Dean’s voice sharpened. “What does it want?”

Rowena’s gaze cut to Sam and Aurora. “To make sure you don’t rewrite the stars without permission.”

Her poise cracked, just for a second. “You scared it. And that scares me.”

Aurora’s reply was simple. “Then it should be afraid.”

Cas added, quiet as a prayer: “It looked at your hand, Sam. Not you.”

Sam glanced down. His knuckles were faintly glowing and curled tightly.

“They see patterns,” Cas said. “Not people. Not love. Just fractures in the design.”

Dean muttered, “Great. So you two broke the manual.”

Cas’s gaze didn’t waver. “He feared her. But he didn’t understand you.”

Sam’s voice dropped to gravel. “Why?”

Cas’s answer was soft. “Because you were made to end things. And you keep choosing to begin again.”

The room held its breath.

Markus finally broke it, deadpan, “Well. That explains the cracked ceiling.”

Henry added dryly, “And the screaming forest.”

Aurora never looked away from Sam. “They weren’t ready for what we are.”

Dean asked, “And next time?”

Sam’s reply came low, steady, final enough to shake the floorboards.

“Next time,” he said, “they won’t leave.”

The door clicked shut, too soft for the storm thrumming under Sam’s skin.

He stood in the center of the cottage, shoulders squared, chest heaving, grace leaking like smoke from a cracked furnace. His fists opened, closed, opened again. The air quivered with him.

Aurora didn’t ask if he was alright. She already knew he wasn’t.

She crossed slowly, barefoot, her glow faint but steady. Sam braced both hands on the mantle until the marble cracked under the force. His voice was gravel.

“I couldn’t stop him. Didn’t even try. He looked at me like I was… defective. Like I was just another failed experiment.”

Aurora’s tone was cool, precise. “He wasn’t here for me. You felt that?”

Sam turned, sharp and dangerous, his eyes searing gold. “He was judging me. Deciding if I was your strength—or just your weakness.”

“He’s wrong,” she said.

Sam stalked toward her, jaw tight. “You sure? Because I feel like I’ve been walking around with a warning label burned into my back.”

“You’re not a warning,” she said evenly. “You’re the reckoning.”

Something broke loose in him at that. He surged forward, closing the space between them. “You think that’s why he left? Because he’s afraid?”

Aurora didn’t blink. “I know it. But, I’m not afraid of you. I need you,” she whispered. 

That was enough to make the dam break inside of him.

His hands locked on her jaw and waist, mouth devouring hers with bruising force. She answered instantly, climbing him like flame seizing wood, legs wrapping around his hips. He carried her without falter, slamming her into the wall, kissing her throat like he meant to leave marks written in fire. His grace flared hot enough to rattle the windows.

Aurora audibly gasped. Sam was teetering with too much ferocity and too close to breaking. His grip too tight, his power too sharp.

Aurora’s hand caught the back of his neck, threading and firm, not restraining but claiming. Her golden glow flared, folding around his rage like silk around steel.

Her whisper landed like a command, steady and low. “Stay with me, Sam.”

The words hooked deep. His breath caught, teeth pulling back from her skin. He pressed his forehead to hers, sweat and glow mingling, chest heaving like he’d just dragged himself back from the edge.

“I almost—” he rasped.

Her gaze burned gold into his. “You didn’t. You won’t. Not with me.”

Something shifted. His kiss came again—still rough, still hungry, but changed. Feralness sharpening into devotion. Brutality into worship. He lifted her from the wall, carried her to the bed and laid her down like something he wanted to both ruin and keep.

“You’re not afraid of burning,” she whispered, nails dragging fire down his back.

“I’ve already burned,” he snarled against her mouth. “But you—you’re the only one who asked me to.”

Her laugh was low, dark and dangerous. “Then take it.”

Her clothes came off in his hands, fabric surrendering with little resistance, every inch of newly bared skin seeming to flare brighter just for him. She was radiant, almost blinding, but he couldn’t stop touching her, couldn’t stop grounding himself in that impossible beauty and in the reality of his hands on her. His hands roamed everywhere — gripping, claiming, memorizing every curve like he was mapping territory he’d never surrender.

Their kisses were almost violent, molten and fierce. Grace snapped like whips, gold spilling through cracks in the world. The wards screamed, the windows shook as auroras bled crimson across the sky.

“You’re not leaving this bed until I’ve burned myself into you,” he said, low and unshakeable, the promise vibrating through the bond until she shivered.

The moment his body aligned with hers, their power tangled, light and shadow crashing together until the air itself felt heavy. 

He pushed into her slowly — not to be gentle, but to make her feel every inch of him, his eyes locked on hers like he wanted her to see exactly who she belonged to. He moved with a rhythm that was primal and unrelenting, every thrust driving his claim deeper until it lived in the marrow of her vessel and the core of her grace. His hands were everywhere — in her hair, gripping her hip hard enough to bruise, sliding up her ribs until his hand was cradling her cheek. 

“You’re mine,” he said, the words almost a growl, his forehead pressing to hers so she couldn’t look away. “All of you. No one touches this. No one gets you but me.”

The possessiveness in his voice sent a sharp, unexpected thrill through her. She arched into him, nails raking down his back and leaving molten trails. “Yours,” she whispered — and meant it more than she’d meant anything in her existence.

Sam had her pinned, not with force but with the inevitability of gravity; every time she moved against him, he came harder, hungrier, until there was nothing left but the scrape of teeth, the bruising grip of fingers, the raw, breathless sound of her calling his name like it was the only word left in the world.

Aurora’s glow seared his skin, but he didn’t back away—he pressed in, deeper, his body begging for more even as her grace scalded him. She wanted him to break, but he refused, because he wanted her ruined first.

“Sam—” Her voice cracked, half a plea, half a curse.

“No,” he growled, catching her chin, eyes burning red-gold as he locked her in place. “You don’t get to stop. Not with me. Not ever.”

Her laugh was ragged, shaking, too close to a sob. “Do you know what you’re asking for?”

“Everything,” he said, and then gave it back to her with every thrust, every bite, every ravenous kiss that left her lips swollen and wet. His hunger wasn’t careful anymore. It was destructive, all-consuming, but she met it with equal violence, nails raking down his back hard enough to draw blood that steamed against her heat.

The mattress burned at the edges. The air thickened until it felt like they were drowning in each other. Neither noticed. Neither cared.

When she broke, it wasn’t gentle. It was an earth shattering scream and a shimmer of light that clawed up the walls and into his veins. Sam followed, biting down on her shoulder like he wanted to leave himself carved into her forever.

The aurora above split wide, crimson and gold spilling like fire veins across the stars.

Aurora realized, with something like awe, that his possessiveness wasn’t rooted in control or fear. It was born from the way he had centered her in his own existence, as if without her, there was no point in moving forward. She wasn’t just his balance, but his reason.

Sam’s hand slid up her spine, slow but sure, fingers splaying against the back of her neck. His voice was low, raw, like he’d been holding it in for too long. “You don’t get it, do you? You’re it for me. Not because you can end the world or create it — because you’re you. And I’m not letting go.”

Her breath caught. No one had ever said anything like that to her. No one had ever looked at her as if all of her — the terrible and the beautiful — was worth wanting.

And the Watchers, watching from their sanctum, felt the shift.

Love had dragged Severance to the edge of feral ruin and held him there.

They began to panic.

The wheel of mouths shivered, its voices spilling over each other in fractured tongues. “They are not stopping. They are accelerating.”

The unraveling one writhed, threads snapping loose from its own body. “Choice upon choice upon choice. It is not a pattern. It is wildfire.”

The black star pulsed, cracks of white bleeding through its surface. “He matches her. He was not supposed to match her.”

“They are convergence unbound,” the wheel rasped. “Not prophecy. Not permission. A bond choosing itself.”

The unraveling one screamed, a sound like fabric ripping across the cosmos. “This was not written!”

The black star dimmed. “Then it is being written now.”

Silence fell in the Sanctum. Not in reverence or awe. But in fear.

Because for the first time since they had been, the Watchers did not recognize the design.

The manor had gone quiet, but not with peace. With the aftermath.

Dean sat hunched in the old observatory, staring out at a sky that didn’t care. Boots kicked off, jaw clenched so hard it hurt. He wanted silence. Just silence.

Cas found him anyway. Sat down beside him without ceremony, like he’d always belonged there.

“You didn’t stay for the vote,” Cas said.

“I saw enough.” Dean’s voice was gravel. “The way they looked at Sam and Aurora—like they weren’t people anymore. Like my brother’s some kind of holy nuke on legs.”

“He’s still your brother,” Cas said. “But he’s more than that now.”

Dean huffed. “You always make it sound poetic and terrifying at the same time.”

They sat in the wind-swept dark. Dean’s voice dropped. “Everyone else got upgraded. I’m just a guy with scars and a bad liver, still pretending the world runs on gasoline.”

“You’re not obsolete,” Cas said simply.

Dean glanced sideways. “You always say that.”

“Because it’s true.”

Something cracked in Dean’s chest at the way he said it. Flat, certain, like scripture.

Cas leaned forward slightly. “You stood in that hall tonight while they measured you. You didn’t blink. You didn’t bow. You bled in plain sight. That’s why they’ll follow you.”

Dean’s throat tightened. “Yeah? Felt more like I wanted to hit half of them.”

Cas’s mouth curved faintly. “That’s how I knew you were still you.”

Silence stretched. Not heavy. Just full.

Finally, Dean muttered, “They’re building something new out there. I don’t know where the hell I fit in it.”

Cas turned to him, gaze steady. “You fit with me.”

Dean froze. The words slid under his ribs like a blade, sharp and undeniable.

Cas’s hand rose slowly,  reverently. And when it touched the back of Dean’s neck, the air snapped. Not just electricity. Grace. Hot, wild, and ancient. It surged between them like a circuit closing, like they’d both been half-dead and only now remembered how to breathe. Dean shuddered, eyes blown wide, jaw tight, stormlight flickering under his skin as Cas’s grace threaded into him without hesitation or fear. It wasn’t soft. It was need, coiled and breaking loose, divine and feral and utterly theirs.

Dean didn’t mean to move. One second, Cas’s hand was on his neck, grace curling through him like wildfire in dry grass—and the next, he was kissing him like a storm unleashed. 

All his restraint snapped like a brittle bone under pressure. Intense need roared up from somewhere deep. Older than fear, older than shame—and it took everything. Thought. Language. Control. Gone.

Dean growled, low and guttural, and surged forward, shoving Cas back with all the desperation of someone who’d waited too long to admit he’d been dying for this. He didn’t care who saw. Didn’t care what came next.

He just needed.

The bedroom door slammed behind them like the house itself had made a choice.

Then Dean shoved him against the wall, kissed him hard enough to bruise. Grace surged under his hands — hot, wild, intoxicating. The taste of it hit his tongue like fire and thunder and the memory of being wanted.

Cas didn’t yield. He shoved back harder. And Dean staggered, knees catching the bedframe until he was the one pinned.

Cas leaned in, one hand fisted in Dean’s shirt, the other braced beside his head. Eyes glowing. Mouth parted. Voice low enough to split the air.

“You feel it.”

Dean’s breath hitched. “Don’t.”

Cas kissed him again.

Teeth. Heat. Grace.

Dean bucked up against him, half resisting, half starving for more. But Cas held him there, unshakable, like he had all the time in the world and no intention of letting Dean run.

And God, it would’ve been easier if this was just sex. Just adrenaline and a good hard fuck to bleed the panic out of his bones.

But it wasn’t.

This was wanting. Filthy and sacred.  A pull older than Heaven that pressed skin to skin like they were being fused.

Clothes came off fast,  sometimes torn, sometimes frantic. Dean’s hands skated over Cas’s shoulders, chest, back. Not just touching, memorizing. Every part of him felt like a vow.

The room stank of ozone and sweat. Wood creaked under them. Dean gripped Cas like a man bracing for impact, but Cas was already inside the wreckage, holding him through it.

“You’re not hollow,” Cas breathed, forehead against Dean’s, voice fierce and trembling.

Dean’s mouth crashed into his. “Don’t say that.”

“You’re not,” Cas said again. “You never were.”

Dean’s whole body shook,  not from fear, not from shame, but because something was breaking inside him, and Cas was the only one he wanted to see it.

He rolled them, straddled Cas, teeth catching his lower lip as he kissed him deep and slow this time.  Slower than anything he’d let himself have before. It was messy and desperate and perfect. His grace sparked, flared and snapped at Cas’s, which curled around it like it belonged there.

Their bodies found rhythm before their minds caught up.

Not power. Not dominance.

Just connection. Raw and unbearable and real.

Dean breathed against Cas’s throat. “I don’t know what this makes me.”

Cas cupped the back of his neck. “Mine.”

Dean shuddered. Not from fear.

From recognition.

Because this, this heat, this ache, this feral need to be seen and known and claimed, this is what he’d watched happen between Sam and Aurora.

And now he understood.

Convergence wasn’t a gift. It was a detonation.

A cosmic truth buried so deep you had to be broken open to find it.

Dean kissed Cas like it was the only thing that mattered. Like it was the last thing he’d ever do — and let the grace burn through him.

Because whatever came next?

He wasn’t afraid anymore.

Chapter Text

Director Latham stopped pretending it was about national security the night he propped the portrait up beside his bedside lamp.

Officially, the Ashwood file lived in a secure vault under three doors and two faiths — Men of Letters redactions, Vatican microfilm, and a government log signed in a hand that still smelled faintly of a different war. Unofficially, the portrait had a place of honor on his nightstand, the painted eyes catching lamplight like a live thing. He would wake at stupid hours and stare until dawn. Each morning he called it research. Each night it became worship.

“Custos Ignis,” he muttered, fingers tracing the gilt. Sometimes he imagined her warmth bleeding through varnish. He never touched. He took notes instead, pretending that still counted as science.

The first stage was paperwork. Motel receipts, grid spikes, eyewitness slips. He mapped their movements until the line looked like anatomy, like veins feeding toward a heart. But the files brought something else, too: him. Sam Winchester, annotated in every institutional hand that had ever tried to pin him down. FBI, psychiatric evals, redacted DoD reports. All of it painted the same picture — fractured, unstable, perpetually one foot in tragedy.

Latham wrote in the margins anyway: liability. contamination. unstable variable.

What bothered him wasn’t the record of ruin. It was the after. After Aurora. The photographs, the sightings, the notes from agents who didn’t know what they were looking at. Winchester looked different. Stood differently. Like a man who’d found equilibrium where there should’ve been collapse.

That difference filled Latham with a kind of bile.

She had touched him, and he had changed. A broken man recast as something… chosen.

It wasn’t right.

In his mind, Aurora was a resource. A phenomenon. A relic to be studied, controlled, preserved. That she had spent any of it on a man like Sam Winchester made Latham’s stomach knot with something that felt too close to jealousy. He told himself it was a strategy. That Sam was the weak seam in the anomaly. That he was nothing but a leash to be cut.

But the bile didn’t read like strategy when it bled into memos: Ashwood compromised by subject Winchester. Remove variables to access the Source. Severance required.

At the Theta lab, the language shifted. His team learned to speak in terms of “leverage,” “containment,” “harvesting.” But Latham always found a way to spit Sam’s name like an afterthought. “Remove him from the equation,” he’d say flatly. “He’s clutter. She’s the asset.”

In private, with the portrait lit on his nightstand, the contempt sharpened. He would stare into painted eyes and murmur, “You’re wasted on him.”

That was the part his staff noticed. Not the obsession itself. They were too numb to obsession. But the venom in his tone when Winchester’s name came up. A scientist’s notes don’t usually read like the letters of a jilted lover.

In one corridor, an analyst whispered to another:

“He’s not just after her.”

“No?”

“He hates him.”

By the time Latham set the portrait on the boardroom table, speaking half like a professor and half like a priest, the hatred had already bled into the doctrine. Aurora was framed as a resource, an anomaly, a divine threat. Winchester was framed as contamination.

When the board finally stamped AUTHORIZED, Latham knew he’d won twice. Permission to hunt what he wanted—and tacit approval to erase what he despised.

That night, he stroked the frame, whispered “soon,” and let himself imagine the portrait without Sam tainting his plans.

—————————————————————

DAT Internal Memorandum

CLASSIFIED – OMEGA BLACK CLEARANCE

SUBJECT: Exploitation Protocol – Winchester Convergence

Objective:

Secure actionable intelligence regarding the mechanism of convergence and Source-grace manifestation. Direct extraction from Aurora or either Winchester deemed high-risk / non-viable. Secondary option: capture and interrogation of a lesser Council affiliate.

Target Pool:

• Selwyn Briarwood (fae defector): unstable loyalty profile; high-value due to prior proximity to Hollow Court and demonstrated sensory attunement.
  
  
• Markus Winchester (immortal derivative): subject demonstrates long-term exposure to Source energy. Testing survivability thresholds of immortals is of strategic interest.
  
  
• Sabine Leclerc (coven head): resistant but mortal; advanced ritual knowledge could yield procedural insight under duress.
  
  

Preferred Candidate: Selwyn Briarwood.

Rationale: lowest political protection, highest sensory attunement. Will break faster than Winchesters, yields valuable “comparative” perspective.

Methodology:

1. Extraction team will deploy under veil (no insignia, no standard ops markers).
   
   
2. Immobilize target using compound restraints (Eden-metal, enochian filigree, sigil suppressant gas).
   
   
3. Transfer to Black Site Theta.
   
   
4. Interrogation via Tier 3 Procedural — includes metaphysical vivisection, forced convergence simulations, neural remapping.
   
   
5. Collate data to reverse-engineer Source signature.
   
   

Projected Outcome:

First generation grace-blooded assets within 36 months. Deployment readiness within 5 years.

Directive Addendum:

Aurora and Winchesters to be monitored at all times. Should they respond to extraction attempt, contingency plan “Sunken Cost” authorizes termination of subject post-data retrieval.

— Director Latham, DAT Oversight Division

When Latham finished reading, the others didn’t speak right away. The overhead lights buzzed, and the smell of stale coffee and ink filled the silence.

Finally, one of the men at the table said, “Briarwood is fae. That makes him unpredictable.”

Latham’s jaw tightened. “Unpredictable" means exploitable. He won’t last three days in Theta.”

A woman in a sharply starched blouse tapped her pen against the table. “And if the Winchesters come for him?”

Latham’s smile was thin, cruel. “Then we’ll learn exactly how far convergence will go to protect its circle.”

The others exchanged uneasy glances, but no one challenged him.

The plan was approved.

The air still throbbed with aftershocks. Not fear—yet. But close. Like Iron Oak itself was holding its breath, waiting to see who flinched first.

Scorched parchment lingered in the air. Wards flickered like overworked nerves. Grimoires hovered in the rafters, muttering at each other in dialects dead before humanity got teeth.

At the stone map table, the council had gathered. Not shouting but tight and watchful. Even the chandeliers had the good sense to dim, as if they didn’t want to be accused of casting shadows in this conversation.

Dean braced one hand on the cold slab, jaw locked hard enough to crack enamel. “They want to separate them,” he said flatly. “Which means they’re not just scared. They’re desperate.”

Castiel, arms folded, didn’t blink. “Sam is no longer mortal. Convergence rewrote him. His body holds divine law now—Aurora’s law.”

Rowena swirled her glass with fingers sharp enough to cut diamonds. “He’s not a man anymore—not the way mortals measure. He’s something made. By love, yes—but love doesn’t make safe things. It makes inevitable ones.”

Selwyn’s glamour flickered at the edges, Hollow green bleeding through. His voice was low, precise. “Divide the bond, divide the power. Half is always easier to kill than whole.”

Dean’s head snapped around. “They try to take Sam, they answer to me.”

Markus leaned off the bookcase, coat whispering like it knew secrets. “It’s not just Sam. Aurora’s unbound now. No leash. No ceiling. She’s what stars remember when they burn.”

“And Sam keeps her from burning the wrong things. Separate them, and it’s not heartbreak. It’s detonation.” Henry remarked, calm as gravestones 

Castiel nodded once. “If they’re torn apart, reality fractures. Not a metaphor. Physics.”

Sabine’s eyes were flint. “Then treat this as war. Not panic. Strategy.”

Rowena smiled, razor-thin. “We don’t build cages. We build wards that know their names.”

Dean cut her a glare. “We don’t ‘protect’ them like kids. They’re not what they were. If we’re gonna make it—we stand with them. Or we burn too.”

And then, as if to underline it, the table itself trembled. A low hum. Grace flickered blue and white where Dean’s hand pressed to the stone. Castiel’s hand came down on top of his without hesitation.

The chamber filled with light.

It wasn’t gentle. It was a detonation. White light tangled with deep blue surged up the walls and bled into the rafters until the entire council sat bathed in the collision of light and grace. The grimoires shrieked and dropped like stunned birds. Wards hiccuped, flaring and failing in the same breath.

Dean jerked, but he couldn’t let go. Cas’s grip only tightened, grounding him. And then the realization hit everyone at the table at once.

Convergence.

Rowena’s glass cracked in her hand. Sabine went still as carved marble. Selwyn’s glamour stuttered, the green bleeding out until his true face flickered like broken glass. Even Henry and Markus straightened off the wall, eyes narrowing with the sharp, wary recognition of men who’d seen history take shape more than once.

The silence was sharp enough to cut bone.

Aurora, quiet until now, finally tilted her head watching Dean like she’d been waiting for this exact spark. Her gaze flicked between Dean and Cas, something unreadable passing over her face. 

Dean, flushed and breathing hard, ripped his hand back like he’d touched a live wire. But the damage—or maybe the miracle—was done.

Rowena spoke first, voice sugar poured over arsenic. “Well,” she purred. “Looks like the Winchesters don’t do anything halfway.”

No one laughed.

Cas, calm as ever, broke the silence. “It changes nothing. Except that angels can’t smite me or him anymore. Blades won’t work. We are not theirs to touch.”

Dean’s glare dared anyone to argue. “You try splitting us now, you’ll find out how permanent that is.”

Sabine leaned forward, eyes sharp. “Then it’s not just one convergence we’re protecting anymore. It’s two.”

Henry’s voice was steady. “Which means Iron Oak isn’t just a sanctuary. It’s ground zero.”

The grimoires twitched nervously overhead, muttering like they knew the word was true.

Dean finally straightened, voice low but iron. “They’re drawing eyes older than names. The Watchers were just the opening act. We don’t get to sit this one out. We don’t get to be scared.”

His gaze swept the table—witches, fae, revenants, immortals. Some allies. Some enemies. All of them survivors.

“They’re not asking to be worshipped,” Dean said. “They’re asking for room to exist. So we give it. Or we lose everything.”

Cas’s hand lingered at the small of his back—steady, sure. Dean let the breath leave his lungs slow, but he didn’t look away from the council.

Rowena finally broke the tension with a brittle smile. “Then let’s build our fortress. Stone, spell, and blood. And for once—let’s make it stylish.”

The council didn’t laugh. But no one flinched either.

And Iron Oak kept holding its breath.

It began as a barely perceptible vibration, like a tuning fork buried in the marrow of the world.

Then the land exhaled wrong.

The wardlines knotted through soil, iron, and memory jerked taut like nerves. One by one, they pulled tighter. Then tighter still—until something snapped.

Across the Iron Oak estate, a dozen enchantments ruptured in sequence. They were being tested and pressed to the edge of breaking. Glass trembled in its frames. Trees bowed without wind. The sky rippled like a painting blistering under fire.

From the highest tower, the roof runes burst into furious light then guttered to silence, their edges scorched black.

A keening split the air. Too high for mortal ears, but every fae, witch, and ward-binder on the estate staggered under the pressure of it.

Sabine froze mid-incantation, knuckles whitening. “That wasn’t pressure,” she whispered. “That was intention.”

Rowena’s eyes flicked upward. “They’re feeling the wards like skin. Looking for where the flesh tears easiest.”

Dean was already at the war table, hand on his blade. “So what—you’re telling me they’re casing the place like burglars?”

Selwyn appeared in a shimmer, eyes black-green, voice strained. “No. They’re echoing. The Watchers don’t arrive. They insinuate. They peel the edges back until the soul inside starts leaking.”

Markus pressed both hands to the carved oak table, jaw taut. “They’re sniffing for the bond. The one that can’t be leashed.”

Castiel’s voice was low, grim. “The convergence. Sam and Aurora.”

The fire sputtered. A curl of smoke rose, hung, and then vanished like breath sucked in reverse. The wood above the hearth blackened—not burned, not written. Extracted.

A single word scarred itself into the grain:

SEVERANCE.

Dean’s face went cold. “You son of a bitch,” he muttered. “You want my brother? You’ll choke on him first.”

Castiel said, steady but thin, “They will not reach him.”

Rowena’s hand flexed once at her side, her voice sharp as a needle sliding home.

“They already have.”

Chapter Text

The fire still crackled. The last remnants of breakfast sat untouched on the table. A coffee mug balanced on the edge of the sink. Aurora’s boots lay half-kicked by the door, and Sam’s jacket still hung across the back of a chair.

Then—the world exhaled wrong.

Not loud. Not sudden. Just…wrong.

The light shifted like something passed between them and the sun. Warmth dulled. Shadows reversed. The air thickened like pressure before a storm, but celestial—off.

Aurora froze mid-step, the book in her hand sliding to the floor with a quiet thud.

Sam was already standing.

“Aurora?” His voice was steady, but low. Alert.

She didn’t answer right away. Her eyes had gone gold—like stars waking in her irises.

“I felt that,” she said softly.

“So did I.”

He crossed to the window, hand on the sill, gaze raking over the woods beyond. “Not here,” he muttered. “The wards held. But…”

“They brushed the edge,” she said, voice tighter now. “Not a strike. A… fingerprint.”

Sam’s jaw clenched. “They’re not testing the wards.”

Aurora turned toward him. “They’re testing us.”

For a beat, neither moved. The cottage around them was silent, almost reverent, as if it too had recognized something ancient in the shift.

And then Sam spoke, the weight in his voice unmistakable:

“Someone just said my name.”

Aurora blinked. “What?”

“Not out loud,” he said, tapping his temple. “Inside. They didn’t shout it—they summoned it. Like a bell struck from the other side of the veil.”

She was in front of him in an instant, her hands gripping his face, her energy already rising like heat from a forge.

“Can you still feel it?”

“Not anymore.” A pause. “But I don’t like what it felt like. Like… something ancient trying on my name like a coat.”

Her eyes glowed brighter.

“They’re getting closer,” she whispered. “And they want to see what happens when we’re pulled apart.”

“Then let them look,” Sam growled. “But if they try anything—”

“They’ll burn,” Aurora finished, voice like ash over embers. “Because they don’t understand what they’re poking.”

Sam nodded once, jaw tight, hands still warm from her touch. “We should go.”

“To the manor?”

“To the library,” he said. “If something this big just whispered through the wards, we need answers now.”

She kissed him once, quick and fierce, grabbed her boots and blinked them out of the cottage in a pulse of gold and red.

The grand doors blew open without touch. The library—ancient, wood-paneled, pulsing with charm-runes—reacted instantly.

Scrolls fluttered. Candles flared. The air bowed as if recognizing its masters.

In a burst of heat and gold, Sam and Aurora blinked in—grace trailing behind them like comet tails. They moved as one—her hand on his wrist, his breath already syncing to hers. United. Converged. Seemingly untouchable.

Dean looked up from the table, mouth half-open.

Cas stepped forward, already reading the tension in the air. “You felt it too.”

“We didn’t just feel it,” Sam said, voice low. “It knew me. It called me.”

Aurora scanned the room. “Where’s the scroll on ancient bindings?”

Henry turned from a shelf, frowning. “Fourth alcove, left side—what’s happening—?”

But it was too late. The lights snapped. Not out. Inward.

They imploded—sucked into themselves with a silent collapse of energy. Pages curled. The temperature dropped like gravity had been reversed. Even the fire dimmed to embers.

Aurora’s body jerked sideways.

“Sam—”

He lunged for her but something caught her mid-step, yanking her back with force not made for this realm.

“NO—” His voice thundered, one hand closing around her wrist. But she vanished in a ripple of light so sharp it sliced the runes from the walls.

Gone.

Silence. Horrifying, unnatural silence.

The room groaned like it had been punched through the skin of reality.

Sam didn’t move. Just stared at the place where she had stood, his eyes wide and burning.

Dean stepped forward. “Sam! What the hell just happened?”

Sam’s voice was low. Guttural. “They found a crack.”

“Who?” Cas asked sharply.

“The Watchers.” Sam’s jaw clenched. His voice was breaking, but something more ancient than pain flared behind it. “They separated us.”

“And you’re still here,” Markus said, staring in disbelief. “That shouldn’t be possible.”

Sam turned, slowly, like a god learning what grief felt like for the first time.

"I'm still here,” he whispered. “And that’s the problem.”

The windows cracked in their frames. The floor hummed underfoot.

Henry stepped back. “He’s destabilizing.”

The silence that followed wasn’t natural. It had depth. Weight. A vacuum pressing against the lungs of everyone in the room.

Dean’s voice was the first to break it.

“Sam?”

Sam stood rooted to the spot, staring at the air as if willing it to reverse.

Castiel moved cautiously toward him. “Sam. Talk to us. Where did they take her?”

Still no answer.

Then a soft crack, like ice shifting beneath feet. But this was coming from Sam.

A hairline fracture glimmered across the floor under his boots, pulsing with crimson heat.

“Sam,” Dean said more urgently, stepping forward. “You need to breathe. Right now.”

“I can feel her,” Sam finally said, voice ragged. “But she’s not here. They split us—folded her away like—like she was paper.”

His hands began to shake. Not from fear, but from an overload of power and grief.

Dean’s eyes flicked to Castiel, then Markus. “He’s breaking. What do we do?”

Castiel’s grace bristled. “We move him. Fast! If we don’t, this whole place will burn from the inside out.”

“Where?!” Dean barked.

“The Archive,” Castiel replied. “Only the Archive can hold him.”

But Sam wasn’t waiting.

A pulse of celestial energy radiated from his chest—

not his usual glow. This was deeper. Older.

Red as dying stars and gold as judgment.

Books began to curl in on themselves. Runes screamed. The stained-glass windows began cracking in unison.

Dean grabbed his brother by the front of his shirt. “Sam—look at me! Don’t do this! You have to hold on.”

Sam’s eyes were glowing now with rings of eclipsed light. His eyes snapped to Dean.

“They took her,” he said. “They ripped her out of me.”

“I know,” Dean ground out. “But you don’t get to go nuclear right now. You hear me? She’s not dead. She’s not gone. We’re gonna get her back.”

“I can’t feel her thoughts. Just echoes.” Sam’s voice broke. “She was inside me, Dean. And now it’s like—”

His hand trembled, curling into a fist against his own chest.

“Like I’m hollow.”

Another pulse.

The ground beneath them groaned, pressure building like a fault line about to snap.

Markus muttered, “He’s unraveling.”

Castiel moved closer. “Dean—step back!”

“Like hell I will!”

“I need to draw the Archive to us now, or we’ll lose him—”

A loud crack split the air behind Sam, then the world peeled.

Seven Watchers stepped through—clad in sorrow, time, silence, dust, hunger, names lost, and endings remembered.

“You were warned,” one said. “A whole cannot exist where halves were designed.”

Dean’s blade was out. “You touch him and I swear—”

“You have severed the balance,” the Watcher intoned. “We are here to remove the fulcrum.”

“You’re not taking him!” Dean roared.

Sam lifted his head, fire spilling through his veins, voice breaking with wrath and ruin. “I will not go quietly.”

“You were never meant to exist.”

And with surgical precision, they took him.

No noise. No flash.

Just absence—collapsing light folding him inward until nothing remained.

“NO—SAM!” Dean’s scream tore through the silence.

Cas lunged, eyes blazing, but the rift sealed like a wound before he could touch it.

Markus cursed. “Timeline’s cut. They erased the trail.”

The library howled—books bursting, ink bleeding, runes combusting.

Rowena whispered, pale: “They didn’t kill him. They’ll try to rewrite him.”

Dean’s voice was steel and ruin. “Then they better pray we don’t find the thread.”

The Null Wound was not a place.

It was unmaking disguised as structure—

a cauterized absence in the breath of creation,

a scar where love had dared to rewrite law.

Sam hit the obsidian floor hard, the impact wringing air from his lungs like punishment. His grace flared once—gold and red searing against black—then faltered.

No stars.

No Aurora.

Just the echo of what had been.

Light bled from him without purchase, dripping away like memory already forgotten. Even his grace recoiled. The Wound wanted him inert.

The Watchers ringed him in silence, phenomena arranged into a circle. They did not stand. They existed, like symptoms of a deeper disease.

Sam pushed against time itself, rising even as his knees bent too late, his fists closing seconds after his fury demanded it. The rules of cause and effect slipped sideways.

Still, he forced sound through his throat—her name—

but the Wound fractured it, scattering the syllables into static before they crossed the veil.

One Watcher flickered closer. Its voice oozed across him like a mildew creeping through stone.

“Deviation.”

Another unraveled as it spoke. “Unstable. Incomplete.”

Sam’s teeth bared, fury threading through him. “You’re wrong. I’m whole! Because of her.”

For a heartbeat, the Wound trembled around him, like the words themselves were an affront.

The Watchers folded tighter, blotting his sight, his breath, his pulse. The Wound leaned in, eager to erase.

And Sam felt it. Aurora. Still alive. Still lit. But not near.

Not necessarily distance, but a concept.  She had been placed in a realm of grammar he no longer spoke.

The void whispered again, soft as strangulation:

“You were warned.”

Pain bloomed—not of flesh, but of identity being filed away, archived into absence.

And still, he remembered.

He would always remember. Especially here.

The Watchers returned without warning.

Not a sound. Not a flare. Just arrival—like rot in the grain, like gravity at the spine. A fact too old to argue with.

They glided into the Council Chamber like auditors from an eldritch agency, cloaked in the certainty of their own authority.

The air snapped cold. Wards buckled. No one moved.

Rowena was the first to stand. Her power surged like dry grass catching fire. “You bastards. What did you do?”

The lead Watcher tilted its head. Its face resembled glass trying to remember being flesh.

“The Severance,” said one.

“Is placed,” said another.

“In the Null Wound,” they finished, voices folding together like bad harmonics.

Dean was across the table before anyone could stop him.

“You son of a—”

Castiel caught his arm.

Another Watcher drifted forward. Its body was less form than suggestion.

“The Source,” whispered two voices at once, “is contained in the Radiant Oubliette.”

Sabine hissed, eyes flashing silver. “That place shouldn’t exist. Even Heaven sealed it.”

“It unravels attachment,” Castiel said grimly. “Overwrites memory with obedience. A vault of weaponized light.”

“They are converged,” replied a Watcher, its tone flat as chalk. “We cannot destroy them. So we isolate them. Emotionally. Until the bond decays.”

Henry’s jaw tightened. “You’re afraid of them.”

The Watchers did not deny it.

“You fear love,” Rowena spat.

“We fear permanence,” said one.

“You assume love is kind,” whispered another.

“It is not,” chorused the rest. “It is contagion.”

“They weren’t meant to feel,” murmured one, its voice folding backwards.

“They were meant to function,” added another.

“Severance.”

“Source.”

“Balance without bond.”

Dean snarled. “Yeah, well—they broke your programming.”

“And now you don’t know where you fit,” Markus said, stepping forward, his voice sharp as broken glass. He smiled without warmth. “Poor little accountants of infinity. Watching the math change and realizing none of you matter.”

That struck. For a moment, even their silence warped.

The Watchers turned in eerie synchrony, their focus shifting toward the high windows, toward the sky.

“We must delay them,” said the lead one.

“Long enough,” whispered another.

“For what comes next,” concluded a third.

“For what?” Sabine growled.

The Watchers answered together, voices stacked, uneven:

“For the reckoning.”

And then they were gone.

No thunder. No smoke. Just absence.

And yet, for a heartbeat, the candles guttered as though they had never been lit in the first place.

The silence that followed clung to the chamber like mold.

Dean stood frozen. Then, slow and deliberate, he swept his arm across the map table—shattering it with a crash that echoed through the manor’s bones.

“Get everything we have,” he said, his voice steady, deadly. “Every book. Every blade. Every goddamn sigil we’ve ever buried.”

He looked at Castiel. His smile was thin, brittle, without joy.

“Because next time they show up?” He flexed his jaw.

“We’re not gonna talk.”

Dean’s fists hit the table.

Runes flared. Ink blistered out of the wood like the veins of a dying thing.

He was moving before thought caught up. Chairs clattered, a glass shattered. He paced like a storm trying to outrun itself, every breath jagged grief sharpened into rage.

Cas didn’t follow. He burned still, eyes two blue flames caged in bone.

“Dean,” he said. His voice sounded calm.“They put her in a cage of light. Made to overwrite memory. To dissolve her love like infection.”

Dean spun, raw and shaking. “And they took Sam.” His swallow caught like glass. “Ripped them apart again. Like this is some goddamn chess match.”

Markus stepped in, voice steady but his hands trembled around the edge of his coat. “They told us where. The Null Wound. The Radiant Oubliette.”

Henry’s tie hung loose, his voice jagged steel. “Then we don’t spiral. That’s the trap. Fear buys them time.”

Dean’s eyes glistened, teeth bared. “You got a plan?”

Markus met him head-on. “No. But I’ve yanked a soul out of Purgatory with nothing but salt. Bartered with djinn royalty. Resurrected a god with six bones and a joke. Survived Aurora’s wrath. Twice.”

Henry cut in, sharper, “We’ll get them back.”

Cas’s tone dropped into judgment. “Whatever it takes.”

Dean’s fists curled white. His grief calcified into shrapnel. “Then we hunt.”

Something underfoot pulsed. The wards stirred. The oldest grimoires unlatched one by one with groans like lungs filling after centuries. Ink bled across the map table—black veins sketching themselves into shape.

A single point glowed faintly, flickering. Like a heartbeat under ice.

Dean’s hand hovered over it, trembling with fury. “You come after my family,” he said, low and lethal, “you better kill us all in one shot. Because we don’t stop.”

Cas’s reply followed instantly, ritualistic, like a vow older than Heaven itself.

“And we don’t lose.”

The grief didn’t fade. It hardened into direction.

Henry clapped his hands once, crisp as a gunshot. “Markus and I summon the threshold-seekers. Too many eyes, no allegiances. They’ll smell the doors.”

Cas turned, trench coat whispering like drawn steel. “I’ll trace celestial residue. If Sam still breathes in this realm, I will feel it.”

Dean didn’t answer. He was already reaching for the Black Ledger.

Markus shrugged into his coat, a feral grin breaking through. “Then let’s burn the sky.”

And Iron Oak, ancient and restless, opened its eyes.

There was no floor.

No ceiling.

No door.

No shadow.

Only light. Searing, antiseptic, pulsing in rhythm with a cruelty too clean to be called divine. It wasn’t warmth. It wasn’t holy. It was judgment, stretched into architecture. A cage masquerading as purity.

Aurora hung suspended mid-air, shackled by nothing and everything at once. No hands bound her. No chains. Yet the weight pressed in on every joint, every breath, every shard of grace, pinning her more effectively than iron ever could.

Her body remained whole. Her spirit did not.

The flood of her grace—once oceanic, molten and alive, was scattered, caught and splintered by laws she could not rewrite. Not here. Not in this vault. It bled from her in fragments, like starlight through broken glass.

“Sam.” The name tore from her lips like blood from a wound. It fell into the radiant silence and dissolved. The light would not carry it.

She reached for him. For the tether. For the pulse that had lived in her chest since the day she let him claim her. Nothing. No echo. No thought. Not severed—ripped. Torn from the marrow of her being with the precision of a surgeon and the sadism of an executioner.

She curled forward, arms around herself—not to guard against an enemy, but to hold together what the oubliette was trying to unmake.

“You don’t understand what you’ve done,” she whispered.

But they did. That was the cruelty of it.

The Radiant Oubliette was never built to kill. It was built to dissolve. To bleach meaning from memory. To smother connection until even the strongest bond faded into sterile silence.

It wanted her to forget him. To forget them.

Her jaw locked. She would not scream. That was the trap: screams feeding despair, despair birthing erasure. The oubliette fed on surrender.

The light pressed harder, trying to make her believe she was alone. It tried to overwrite the shape of his voice, the rasp of her name in his throat, the weight of his hand cupping her cheek like she might vanish if he didn’t hold her there.

Her palm pressed flat over her heart. Skin seared under it—because his grace still lived there. Interlaced with hers. Reaching. Waiting. Not erased. Just buried under light too cruel to understand love.

“You’ll find me,” she whispered. Her voice cracked. “You always do.”

The oubliette brightened. More clinical. More merciless. It wanted despair. It wanted loss.

She gave it memory.

Not soft recollection, but weaponized memories. The heat of his body pinning her to the mattress, the quake of his voice when he finally stopped holding back, the way his rage burned not to destroy her, but to keep her. Every detail sharpened, polished into a blade.

She closed her eyes. Not to rest.

To fortify.

Because every memory she refused to release was a rebellion.

Every remembered kiss was a crack in the cage.

Every whisper of his name in her bones was a war the oubliette could not win.

The Radiant Oubliette wanted silence.

Aurora gave it defiance.

And even if it devoured gods, it would choke on love that had already rewritten stars.

Sam’s body hung wrong in the Wound—suspended, not by gravity, but by rejection. His glow guttered, pulsing red-gold like cracks in cooling metal. Each flicker dimmed faster than the last, until even his own skin seemed uncertain whether to hold him together.

He tried to move. The Wound refused. His knee bent seconds before his foot followed. His fingers closed after the air was gone. Even time betrayed him, mocking the act of standing.

Pain rolled through him in quiet waves. Not sharp. Not mortal. The kind that convinced the soul something essential had already been stolen.

Aurora.

The bond hadn’t snapped. It had been dissected, strand by strand, while still burning in his chest. One moment she was there, fierce and molten in his arms, and the next, emptied out of him as if creation itself had decided he wasn’t allowed to keep her.

He ground his teeth. His grace surged once, hot and panicked but the Wound strangled it, pinned it like a moth to glass. His blood answered anyway, that old black fire, twisting up his spine, demanding violence with nowhere to strike.

“She’s not dead.” The thought beat like a drum under his ribs. “She’s not dead. You’d know if she was dead.”

Static. Disjointed. But unyielding.

Then, like a spark arcing across a dead circuit, something flared. A pulse that wasn’t his. Raw grief. Hers.

The bond flickered alive for less than a breath, but it tore him open. Sam screamed. No sound left his throat, yet the Wound quaked, as though silence itself remembered what sound was. Fire bled from his palms, crawling up his arms, trying to consume him before the Wound could.

“AURORA!”

No echo. But something heard.

The fabric of absence shuddered. Not out of pity. Not out of law. Out of fear.

Because Sam Winchester did not belong here.

And worse, he refused to stay.

He forced one knee beneath him, spine trembling with red-gold fractures, eyes ringed in eclipse. He wasn’t a god. Not yet.

But he had been loved by one.

And that meant the rules no longer applied.

Chapter Text

It was divinity turned execution chamber.

Not darkness. Not flame. Just blinding, sterilized light, clinical and merciless. The kind that burned out bacteria and identity in equal measure. No sky. No floor. No walls she could claw at. No corners to brace against. Just the oppressive eternity of surgical gold that didn’t glow. It glared.

Aurora hung limp, aware, like a fly pinned through the thorax. No shackles. No chains. Just the oubliette’s specialty: annihilation with manners.

Her jeans felt like insults in this place. Her half-buttoned blouse, one boot untied. Filthy, mortal things. The oubliette hated that. It pulsed harder, trying to purge her like contamination.

But the worst wasn’t the pain.

It was the silence.

It didn’t muffle sound. It unmade it. When she whispered her name, it echoed back wrong, like it belonged to someone else. Her memories came back blurred at the edges—Sam’s laugh brittle, his face flickering like static. Her chest tightened. No. That wasn’t him leaving. That was this place unwriting him from her.

The light whispered at her like a lullaby: Forget. It’s easier. Let go of him. Let go of yourself. Why fight?

Her lips cracked. She bared her teeth against the suggestion and forced one word into the void, though the air itself tried to strangle it.

“Sam.”

The oubliette retaliated instantly, compressing her grace into jagged bands that wrapped her arms, her throat, her thoughts. Behave, it hissed, a command more than a sound.

Aurora convulsed, her body arching against nothing. Her grace sparked like a seizure, sputtering fire through the sterile gold. The oubliette pressed harder, trying to overwrite the impulse to fight.

But she had something it couldn’t sterilize.

She felt him crack across the bond. Sam, destabilizing, grief splitting him open like a wound. Panic, fury, collapse. His loss of her wasn’t abstract. It was lungs on fire. It was death again. It poured into her, raw and animal, flooding her spine.

Her scream ripped loose. The oubliette tried to eat it.

This time, it choked.

“Enough.”

Her fingers twitched. The oubliette tried to erase them from existence. She didn’t care.

“You picked the wrong monster,” Aurora rasped, golden light stuttering down her lip. “You think this’ll hold me?”

The light faltered. Just for a second. But she felt it.

“Erase me?” she spat. “I was erased once already. You think I’ll go quietly again?”

And then her memories became weapons.

Sam’s hands at her ribs, checking for wounds after clearing the fae nests. Sam’s voice rasping: “I don’t care what you are. I want you.” Sam’s eyes, the first time they held her like she was his.

Her body shook. Her right hand ignited. Pure, ugly power screamed through her skin, white and gold. Not divine. Not righteous. Personal.

The oubliette buckled. Cracks split its walls like fractures in brittle glass. Sparks bled. The structure itself screamed.

Aurora smiled. It was wild, exhausted and terrifying.

“I break things better when I’m loved.”

The oubliette convulsed, light lashing her like wire, shredding fabric, scoring skin. She let it. She welcomed it. And then she detonated.

The chamber tore open, gold collapsing into black, violet, molten red, emerald. The oubliette vomited out color, losing its shape, becoming the lie it always was.

Aurora dropped to the ground hard, boots cracking the stone beneath her. She staggered once, chest heaving, lip split, fire arcing off her skin like her body had been welded out of rage.

She didn’t walk, she stormed towards the screaming wound in space.

Her voice was shredded but steady.

“You don’t get to take him from me. You don’t get to touch what we built.”

The portal buckled as if it knew.

Then she vanished like a weapon that had finally remembered what it was for.

He tried to hold her face in his mind.

The freckles across her shoulders. The way her smile always broke first at the corner of her mouth.

For one horrifying instant, he couldn’t. The memory flickered. She blurred.

That was worse than death.

Sam’s jaw locked. His grace spasmed outward, red-gold and starving, a compass spinning wild in a black hole. The Watchers murmured across the void like static over a dead god’s frequency.

“He’s adapting.”

“No—he’s coalescing.”

“He should’ve collapsed into null.”

“Instead he’s… acquiring mass.”

Their dread tightened the air. Sam felt it crawling in his bones. He turned toward them, voice raw and cracked.

“Come closer. Let’s see what you’re so afraid of.”

His soul began mutating, folding in, clawing back out, ribs aching like they wanted teeth. Aurora’s name pulsed through him like a war drum. Not remembered. Embedded.

And then the Wound screamed.

The Watchers braced, chanting safeguards. But they were too late.

Aurora hit the scar like a celestial missile,  a cosmic rupture in the shape of a woman.

The Wound convulsed, its walls tearing sideways as if trying to spit her out before she even stepped through.

Boots aflame. Hair burning with starlight. Grace pouring off her like liquid judgment.

She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. Her presence howled.

The nearest Watcher lunged toward Aurora. She turned it inside out with a thought, soaked in wrath so pure it blistered.

Sam rose, filthy, shaking, burned raw. His eyes ignited like falling stars set on revenge. The Wound collapsed in on itself, trying desperately to contain what they were.

They didn’t need to run to one another to align.

They were twin singularities caught in orbit as their grace connected mid-air and ignited. White-hot, colorless waves shredded the Watchers’ illusions of control.

One raised a blade, but it was in vain. Sam caught its arm and ripped it apart. It was bloodless but gone nonetheless.

Another begged. Aurora unspooled it into light. Mercy denied.

A third struck at Sam’s chest. The blade shattered against his sternum. He didn’t flinch. He simply  unwrote it with a touch.

They weren’t just fighting, they were undoing.

By the time the Wound began to cave, nothing remained but ash and howling metaphysics.

Aurora staggered toward the edge of reality itself. Her hands trembled, cracked with light. She dug her nails into the false wall of the realm and tore. Reality screamed then gave way.

Sam stepped beside her, his body mending itself, eyes burning crimson-gold. He found her hand anyway.

“You came,” he rasped.

“I never left,” she said.

And together they stepped through the ruin.

The sky split open above the estate. Runes burned hot white. Wards shrieked. Candles guttered.

The library shuddered as the air fractured, raw and burning at the edges, like a wound in the world trying to stitch itself shut.

They hit the stone floor like a storm finally touching down.

Sam’s shirt was torn, his chest streaked with blood and ichor that didn’t look human. His eyes glowed, eclipsed in rings of crimson and gold.

Aurora’s skin was cracked with light, lips split, fingertips still smoking. Her blouse was torn at the collar, grace burns crawling her throat.

They didn’t look victorious.

They looked like survivors dragged back from the edge of annihilation still carrying a piece of it with them.

Time slammed back into place.

Dean stood frozen at the long table, breath caught, eyes wide.

Cas stepped forward, twitching like he wasn’t sure if he should kneel or run.

No one spoke.

Sam’s jaw was clenched like he hadn’t slept in days or maybe he had slept for a century and woken with a vendetta.

Aurora’s grace pulsed in ragged waves, her fingers still twitching from the unmaking.

They were tethered again. But, not whole nor calm. They were utterly feral.

Sam’s hand gripped hers like a weapon. Aurora’s eyes scanned the room, reading it and evaluating. Making sure no one else tried to take him.

A war had ended somewhere that no one else could see. And now they were back.

No one dared speak first, but the silence in the library had never been heavier.

Dean took a cautious step forward. Not out of fear—not quite—but reverence laced with something ancient. Like grief wrapped in iron.

“…Sam?”

It came out low. Grounded. A single syllable meant to anchor reality, meant to reach his brother, if his brother was still in there.

Sam turned slowly, eyes wild. Not aggressive. Just… coiled. His hand didn’t leave Aurora’s.

Dean’s breath caught. Sam looked taller somehow. Leaner. Sharper. His eyes, still ringed in molten gold and crimson, were burning without heat.

But it was Aurora that made him pause.

She wasn’t standing upright anymore. She leaned against Sam like gravity had tripled in her bones. Her breath hitched. She was not in pain exactly, but strained.  Her body flickered faintly, grace pulsing in jagged bursts beneath her skin. Like something held too long was suddenly spilling over.

Dean’s hand hovered instinctively near his weapon, but he didn’t draw. “What’s happening?”

“She’s unraveling,” Sam said, tight. “She didn’t destabilize before because they locked her in a Radiant Oubliette. It contained her. Sealed everything off.”

Aurora swayed, and Sam caught her. Her fingers twisted in the front of his shirt like a drowning woman refusing the tide. Her lips parted, but no words came.

Cas stepped forward instantly. “Her grace is dissonant. She’s cutting against the realm like a blade.”

“She can’t sync,” Sam said, his voice cracking. “Not without me.”

Dean frowned, jaw tense. “Then what the hell are you waiting for? Take her somewhere safe.”

Sam’s expression flickered—rage, grief, panic all barely restrained behind the set of his jaw. “There’s nowhere safer than here. We need to anchor her. Now.”

Cas was already moving—warding the space with fast, precise sigils. The runes flared, reacting to the residual convergence energy still clinging to them both.

Dean didn’t move. He just stared, with a haunted look. “It’s been a day here,” he said softly.

Sam’s voice broke. “It was like a month for us.”

Aurora trembled against him. Her skin glowed in pulses, like a star losing rhythm. Her voice was a whisper torn from the edge of collapse: “Sam—don’t let go—I can’t—I can’t—”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he said, fierce now, his arms locking around her. “I’ve got you. I always will.”

Something snapped—an echo of power bursting outward like a second heartbeat. The air punched inward, pressure ringing through skulls, vibrating bones like instruments forced to play a song they weren’t built to hear.

The lights flickered. The runes on the walls flared and then went dark.

Dean flinched. “Okay. That’s new.”

Cas nodded, quietly awed. “She’s binding to him again. That’s not grace. That’s resonance.”

Sam turned his face toward Aurora’s, forehead pressed to hers as he murmured something only she could hear. Whatever it was, it steadied her just enough for the moment.

Dean exhaled slowly, then shook his head. “You two are gonna crack the sky in half someday.”

Aurora’s voice came next, faint but clear. “Then let it crack.”

Sam’s arms didn’t loosen. “They thought they could split us. They didn’t understand.”

“No,” she whispered. “They understood too well.”

Dean glanced toward Cas. “We’re gonna need a plan. A real one. Because this? This feels like the goddamn Apocalypse all over again.”

Cas stepped up beside him, eyes still on Sam and Aurora. “No,” he said. “This time, it’s something worse.”

Dean swallowed hard.

Then he nodded, steadying himself.

“Welcome home.”

The path lit itself.

Lanterns didn’t just flare but snapped open like throats, spilling gold across moss that steamed under his boots. The stones warmed in recognition. Sam Winchester wasn’t walking like a man anymore. He was being carried forward like gravity had picked its heir.

He held Aurora tightly as if he was carrying her through the Underworld. Like if he let go, she’d be gone forever, and the world would follow. Her light was flickering wrong in his arms, sputtering like a dying star. Not symphonic. Not sovereign but broken.

His fingers twitched against her waist, not in fear, but in that bone-deep reflex that makes wolves chew through their own limbs to get free of a trap. The Watchers had touched her. They had caged her. And she was supposed to be untouchable. Because she was his.

“Mine. Only mine. No one else can take her.” Sam thought fiercely. 

The cottage appeared through the trees. The threshold groaned before his foot touched it, like the house itself knew who was coming home.

When he stepped inside, the fire didn’t light. It exploded. Shadows fled. The walls braced themselves.

Sam laid her on the bed as though she were glass, though he knew she could survive through disasters most couldn’t. Right now, she looked like she already had. Her body pulsed weakly, light stuttering like it was trying to remember it used to be a sun.

He brushed her hair back with shaking fingers.

“I’m here,” he whispered.

Her cracked lips trembled. “Don’t—let—go—”

“I’m not.” His voice was raw. Possessive. Because even if death itself pried at his hands, he wasn’t capable of letting go anymore.

He stood because his body couldn’t stay still. The air in the cottage froze around him, afraid to move. Even his shadow kept its distance.

He gripped the dresser—wood splintered like bone. He stared into the mirror above the fireplace. What looked back at him wasn’t just Sam Winchester. His eyes glowed like twin novas, red ringed with gold. His skin crawled with judgment. He was something the world hadn’t named yet, and maybe couldn’t.

The mirror cracked. So did something in his chest.

“They took you again.They locked you away like some experiment gone wrong. Like you don’t belong to me.”

His voice dropped to a growl that made the walls bow inward.

“They wanted to see what happens when you cut Source from Severance.”

A sharp, humorless laugh tore out of him. “I think we showed them.”

Heat bled through the stones underfoot. This wasn’t mourning. This wasn’t rage. It was rebalancing—a law rewriting itself in real time.

Aurora stirred, twitching, searching. Her fingers brushed empty air until he caught them.

“Still… here,” she whispered.

That almost undid him. Because even gutted, even flickering, she was still reaching for him. Still his.

He climbed into bed beside her like a blade sliding into its sheath. Not to rest, but to anchor. She trembled, and he wrapped himself around her like armor, his arms a shield no force in the universe could breach.

Their foreheads pressed together. Her light struggled to sync. His burned brighter, swallowing the rhythm until it matched. Binary stars in furious orbit, pulling the room into their gravity.

The Archive shuddered. Books screamed open. Wards ignited on their own. Not in defense. In alarm. The house remembered who built it. The Source was wounded. But the Severance was changing too, burning hotter, hungrier.

And the Archive, no stranger to gods, felt fear.

Because Sam wasn’t just holding Aurora.

He was starting to claim her completely.

The cottage hadn’t changed. Stone walls still breathed faint warmth, still smelled of cedar and candle wax and something older—ash from gods no one prayed to anymore. The half-finished pot of tea still sat on the counter, water gone cold.

But the air had shifted. Thin. Stretched taut, like skin pulled over bone.

Aurora sat on the bed’s edge, blouse loose at the collar, hair tangled from struggle. Her skin shimmered faintly with grace, but it was a guttering light like a hollow, candle on its last inch of wax. It didn’t reach her eyes. She looked fragile in a way only something immortal could: cracked, siphoned, and set upright again out of spite.

Sam knelt in front of her. His shirt was streaked with ash and ichor, his hands trembling from restraint. His jaw ticked with the effort of holding himself together. He looked like if he let go of her for a second, he’d rip the cottage apart beam by beam.

“They tore you out of me,” she whispered. Not loud. Not crying. Just hollow. “And I didn’t even get to feel it.”

His jaw flexed. “I did.”

Her eyes flicked up, gold and wet at the edges. “I know. That’s what kills me.”

She tried to stand. Her body betrayed her. Limbs heavy, grace sputtering. She clutched at his shoulders, fingers shaking. He caught her instantly, but carefully, like one wrong move might undo what was left of her.

“I should’ve burned them the second I woke,” she rasped, teeth clenched. “I should’ve torn that fucking oubliette apart with my name and screamed until the stars split.”

“You did,” Sam said. His voice was gravel. “You got out. You came back.”

“Only because of you.” Her forehead pressed into his chest. “I remembered everything. Every motel ceiling. Your hand on my back when I fell asleep. It hurt so much I thought I’d dissolve.”

Sam’s arms locked around her possessively to anchor her. He held her like he’d chosen this impossible bond and would kill anyone who tried to sever it.

“You’re here,” he said, words like stone under fire. “With me. No one is pulling us apart again.”

Her breath hitched. Grace flickered under her skin, weak, erratic. “I don’t know if I’m whole.”

“You don’t have to be.” He kissed her hair, rough. “That’s mine to carry.”

Silence stretched. Her breath steadied, but her grace still sputtered, distrustful of the world that had tried to erase her. Sam rested his chin on her crown, eyes fixed on the fire.

“In the Null Wound,” he muttered, voice unraveling, “there was no sound. No light. Just silence that wanted to unmake me. It crawled in like a virus. Stripped me of my soul, blood, memory. Layer by layer. I kept fighting, but it kept peeling.”

His laugh cracked bitterly. “Even the void didn’t want me. Filed me down like an error in the system.”

Her hand tightened on his thigh. She still didn’t lift her head.

“I forgot your name once,” Sam admitted. “For ten minutes. Or a hundred years. Time didn’t exist there. My mind was mirrors and none of them had reflections.”

Her head jerked up, eyes wide.

“I remembered your hands,” he said. His voice broke. “Not your face. Not your voice. Just your hands. The way you held me after the Hollow Court glamoured me. The way you touched where I cracked.”

Aurora’s fingers shook as they traced his jaw.

“I thought if I could feel that again,” he whispered, “I could crawl back. Even if I died there. Even if you were gone. Just to feel like me before I disappeared.”

A ragged sound tore from her throat. “Sam…”

“I hated being alone,” he said. His voice shook, dangerous. “But worse, I started to be okay with it. Like maybe they were right. Maybe I was just a weapon. Something to shelve after use.”

His eyes locked on hers, molten. “But when you were gone… I realized what I am to you.”

“What?” she breathed.

He cupped her cheek, thumb brushing a tear. “I’m your nexus.”

Her grace surged, light rolling under her skin like it recognized truth before she did. Her whole body trembled against him.

“And I’m yours,” she whispered, voice breaking. “Even when I’m not whole. Even when I’m breaking.”

“No,” Sam growled. His arms locked around her, dragging her in like the world would have to kill him to pry her loose. “Especially then.”

The fire snapped hard, sparks rushing the chimney. Grace pulsed between them, jagged and raw. Not pure. Not holy. Resonant.

Sam held her—feral, fierce. Not tender. Like this bond wasn’t love but law. Like he’d chosen her and would burn reality itself before letting anyone rewrite them again.

Outside, the forest still held its breath. Inside, shadows bent like they knew who ruled them.

The silence came first.

Not the kind you rest in. The kind that stalks. That waits. That watches you breathe.

Aurora stirred against Sam’s chest, her fingers still curled in his shirt like her body refused to believe in safety. Sam murmured something rough and simple—“I love you”—against her hair. That should’ve been enough. It wasn’t.

Beneath her ribs, the bond sparked. Not smooth, not whole. It jittered, raw, syncopated. Like it had grown teeth. Memory slipped out with it. Not gently, but violently.

The fire dimmed. The wards pulsed once, then twice. Then silence fell like a blade.

Across Iron Oak, sleep stopped being safe.

Dean collapsed mid-reach for his coffee, the word “sonofabitch” dying unfinished in his throat. Rowena slumped in her chair, ink spilling across a half-finished rune. Selwyn dropped a book that never hit the floor—it froze midair, then stuttered to nothing. Sabine pressed a hand against her chest as though something cold had whispered inside her bones.

And then the dream seized them.

They saw a cage pretending to be holy. Made of white fire and hollow crystal. Too bright to see, too quiet to scream in.

Aurora was smaller there, cracked, curled in the farthest corner. She didn’t cry. She didn’t call out. She whispered lullabies no one alive had ever heard. She made stars in her palm only to crush them, just to feel something die with her.

Rowena’s breath hitched before anyone else. Not elegant but ugly. Silent tears rolled as she tried to look away. No one could.

But the dream didn’t stay.

It snapped and wrenched forward.

Now it was Bobby’s bunker.

Sam lay wrecked on a narrow bed, soul barely stitched back after prophecy and hellfire. Aurora hovered over him, grace leaking through her skin like she couldn’t contain it anymore. Her hand trembled as it lowered.

The second she touched his face—

the prison cracked.

The white void shattered.

And everyone in Iron Oak fell headlong into the truth.

He is the Severance. She is the Source. Together, they are the Rewriting.

The words didn’t stop.

They looped. Branded.

Over and over until marrow stung and ribs ached like something had been carved into them from the inside.

Then came the vision—limitless, merciless.

A world burned down to cinders, rewritten in light.

A hand reaching through collapse, another taking it.

Then twins, wailing into being, their first breaths ripping the sky like wet paper. Their very existence a judgment.

The dream slammed shut again, rubber-band sharp, back to the bunker. Sam touched her hand. Their lights fused. The world trembled.

“You’re not a weapon,” he told her. Not like a lover but more like a vow.

“You’re the reason we’re still here.”

And she, eyes wild, whispered back:

“Without you, I’d be a dying star. I would’ve taken the world with me.”

The dream imploded.

Collapsed inward like a star swallowing its own scream.

Everyone woke at once.

The silence after was louder than thunder.

Witches dropped to their knees, shaking. A shifter stared at the floor like he expected it to open. A vampire sobbed without shame, hands pressed to his mouth.

Dean sat rigid, white-knuckled on the couch, his chest heaving like he’d just seen God bare and didn’t know where to look.

No one spoke.

Because they hadn’t just seen a prophecy.

They’d been branded by it.

And now they all knew. Sam and Aurora weren’t just untouchable.

Separating them wasn’t cruelty. It was euthanasia for creation itself.

Sam woke like the world had dropped out from under him.

“Aurora?”

She was right there, tucked against his chest, fingers curled in his shirt. But she was too still. Too silent. Her skin was warm but not glowing.

“Hey,” he whispered, already bargaining. “You’re home. It’s over. Just wake up.”

Nothing. No sigh. No hum. Her grace wasn’t dimmed. It was like it was gone. Sucked so deep into her core like it didn’t trust the world anymore.

Sam sat bolt upright, palm flat over her chest.

No light. No pulse. Just stillness scraping at his ribs.

“Don’t do this,” his voice cracked. “Don’t you fucking do this.”

He gathered her up, shaking hands digging into her shoulders. And the cottage reacted.

Floorboards shivered. Lanterns gutted. The fire spat sparks. A chair split in half. The air itself thickened, molten with rage and grace bleeding through every seam.

Twenty yards away, Dean Winchester’s chest lurched sideways like someone had ripped at his ribs. He didn’t finish lacing his boots. He just ran, across wet grass, through sparking wards, and into the cottage door hard enough to almost tear it off its hinges.

“Sam?”

Inside, the air boiled. Sam knelt on the floor, cradling Aurora like a corpse he refused to admit was gone. His light flickered red-gold in bursts, too sharp, too bright. His eyes weren’t human anymore.

“She’s not waking up,” Sam rasped. “She still thinks she’s in that place.”

Dean’s throat tightened against the heat. “Then bring her back.”

“I’m trying—”

“Don’t try,” Dean snapped. “Do it. You’ve split the sky twice this week. Stop holding back.”

Sam closed his eyes, both hands pressed over Aurora’s heart. And then he spoke.

The word wasn’t English. Wasn’t Enochian. It was older. A guttural sound torn from marrow, a verdict the world wasn’t meant to hear again. It didn’t echo. It rewrote silence to make room for itself.

The room howled.

The bedframe cracked. Flames erupted without fuel. The ceiling groaned like it was about to collapse.

Aurora jerked upright like she’d been drowning. Her lungs fought the air, ragged and broken. Her eyes flared wild, searching—“Sam?”

He caught her, arms like iron bands. “I’ve got you.”

Her voice shook. “I thought I was still there. I couldn’t feel you—I couldn’t—”

“I’m here. You’re safe.”

Outside, the sky split with a violent ripple of color. Runes screamed. Rowena dropped her glass on the porch, staring upward. Castiel muttered in Enochian, eyes wide, his grace bristling like it wanted to shield the whole estate.

Rowena’s voice cracked. “Oh, bloody hell. They’re not resting at all.”

Inside, Aurora clung to Sam’s shirt like the world might still drag her back.

Dean stood just beyond them, fists trembling white.

“You okay?” Sam asked without looking up.

Dean’s answer was flat. “No. I’m not. I’m done.”

He started pacing, his jaw locked, hands twitching like he needed something to break.

“They took her again,” he spat. “Like she was some relic to put behind glass. Like she hasn’t bled and burned for us a hundred times over. Like she isn’t the only reason any of us are still standing.”

Aurora tried to speak, but Dean cut her off. “Don’t you dare apologize. Don’t make this easier on me.”

He pointed at her—at the cracks in her glow, the blood at her lip. “You pulled me out of the Hollow Court. You burned Heaven and Hell both just to keep him breathing—” he jabbed a finger at Sam “—and still they came for you like you were nothing but leverage.”

Sam rose with her in his arms, his face a storm barely held together.

“You think I’ll let that slide?” Dean demanded. “Think I’ll sit in the Council chamber and play nice while they let this happen?”

Sam’s voice was low. “They don’t understand what we are.”

Dean laughed but it was harsh, humorless. “No, they do. That’s the problem. They’ve got castles and covens and bloodlines. You’ve got each other. No chains. No rules. Just fire.”

He turned, stalked halfway across the room, then spun back. His eyes were knives now.

“I’m going to find what they fear most,” he said, voice like steel dragged across stone. “And I’ll make them choke on it.”

Sam stared back—quiet, protective. “We’re with you.”

Dean’s eyes softened for a flicker, then hardened again. “Damn right you are.”

The silence after rang like iron struck on an anvil.

And then thunder cracked across the clear blue sky. Not a warning, nor a storm. Just agreement.

Chapter Text

The first alerts came in at 20:17 GMT.

Not images. Not coordinates. Just noise. A howl across every channel at once—seismographs, auroral meters, probability engines—all keening like they’d been struck by the same invisible hand. For twenty full seconds, the world forgot how to be consistent.

Then, silence. A silence so deep it registered as error code.

The log that went up the chain was clinical: UNCLASSIFIED GRACE EVENT — localized to northern England. But the attachments told a different story. Pilots who swore their altimeters spun like possessed things. An abbey where every candle went black mid-prayer. Wards in Cairo collapsing with the sound of tearing silk. A fisherman off the coast of Cornwall screaming that the sea had “blinked.”

And in the middle of it all: Iron Oak. A place on every map, yet unreadable. Instruments showed nothing—no heat, no sound, no measurable presence. A hole punched through reality where a manor should have been.

The DAT called it a restoration event. Not because they understood what was restored—only because absence had become presence again. Something had gone out of the world. Something had been pulled back.

No mechanism. No ritual. No cause they could name. Just the aftermath.

Latham’s report was neat, but the margin notes betrayed him: Control impossible without leverage. Event suggests external summoning. He underlined the last two words until the ink bled.

His staff whispered what he would not:
 This was no accident.
 This was will.

And that will was strong enough to erase the line between absence and return.

Outcome without evidence. Power without fingerprint. The kind of thing older than gods, older than laws, that doesn’t ask permission to exist.

No one said it aloud, but they all thought it: if something could be dragged back like that, then nothing—no prison, no grave, no exile—would ever hold again.

The folder landed with a smack that echoed off the steel walls.

“Your margins read like gospel,” his superior said. No soft edges. “You’re not a priest, Latham. You’re a bureaucrat with a clearance level. Start acting like it.”

Latham’s voice was calm, almost gentle. “Numbers are just another language for faith. The math doesn’t lie. She was pulled back. Not an anomaly. Not chance. Will.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And you’re filing that like it’s a love letter. Don’t think I don’t hear what your people are whispering. They say you speak of her like a lover, not a threat.”

His jaw ticked, but his eyes gleamed. “Because threat and desire are the same coin. She was the return. Proof that death, exile, prison—none of it holds. That should terrify you.”

“It does,” she snapped, voice hard as iron. “And it should terrify you. But instead, you sound like a man begging to be burned alive. That makes you worse than reckless. It makes you replaceable.”

For the first time, the air shifted—an open threat.

“You think this program can’t run without you? I can have you reassigned to a basement in Prague by morning. I can put a lock on this file and bury it six doors deep. You’ll never see her name again.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, humorless. “You can bury me. But you can’t bury inevitability.”

Her jaw tightened. “Careful. The board already thinks you’re too close. One more slip, and they’ll cut you out to save themselves.”

“And when they do?” Latham’s eyes gleamed, fanatic and unflinching. “When you throw me away to prove you’re not afraid, she’ll still be out there. You’ll still need me. Because I’m the only one who’s not pretending this is containable.”

The superior leaned in, voice low and lethal. “If you’re wrong, you’ll take us all down with you. If you’re right—” she paused, like she hated the words—“then you’ll be the first casualty she makes.”

Latham rested a hand on the folder as though it were scripture. His smile was thin, certain. “Then so be it.”

Days later, the war table looked like it had been looted by a drunk librarian—maps shredded, ink stains spreading like murder confessions, grimoires flapping overhead like pigeons on meth.

Dean stood at the head like the patron saint of bad ideas in flannel. One hand on the wood, the other clenched so hard the scar on his knuckle had gone pale. His jaw was a locked vault, his eyes the kind you cross the street to avoid.

Sam sat beside him, pretending calm with all the success of a man duct-taping a dam. His hand hovered near Aurora’s. She radiated enough distortion to warp the air; the room bent around her like heat shimmer off asphalt. But her gaze never left Dean. Not frightened—just curious. Watching to see if he’d break or finally set the place on fire.

Rowena muttered in Gaelic that sounded like an obituary for everyone present. Markus and Henry leaned in the archway, blades naked and gleaming, the aristocratic version of “try me.” Cas lingered at Dean’s shoulder like a live grenade disguised as a trench coat.

Dean’s voice was splinters dragged across steel.

“They took my brother. Ripped him out of time. Unmade his soul. Scattered him. And you let it happen.”

Silence. Even the grimoires had the decency to stop pretending they weren’t listening.

“They caged Aurora like a rabid dog for daring to breathe. And you—” he jabbed a hand at the council, eyes gone feral—“sat here playing make-believe with dusty tomes while they buried them alive.”

He snatched a blade from the table, not reverent but violent, like he was daring it to argue. The sigils flickered nervously, as though even runes knew not to sass Dean Winchester.

“Ancient. Cosmic. Whatever. They touched my family.” His grin was sharp enough to cut bone. “They made this personal.”

He leaned across the table, close enough to smell like cordite and coffee.

“And I don’t do personal politely.”

Nobody breathed. Even Cas, professional stoic, looked like he’d swallowed lightning.

Rowena finally whispered, “If you go after them, Dean, you may not come back.”

Dean’s eyes flared. “Then they’ll die with me.”

At that moment, the manor screamed.

Wards detonated white-hot, stones buckled, glass spider-webbed. The chandelier threw itself from the ceiling in a melodramatic suicide.

Aurora gasped, folding in, molten grace erupting around her. Sam grabbed her like a lifeline.

Cas’s blade appeared with a hiss. “They’re here.”

Dean’s lips curled, half-snarl, half-welcome. “Good.”

The ground convulsed like thunder with bones in it. The gate exploded.

Something stepped through the wreckage. Not angel, not demon. A Watcher: eight feet of stitched mouths and twitching eyes. Behind it, two seraphs bent backwards like broken dolls, their grace shrieking like boiling children.

Sabine shrieked.

Dean laughed. Low. Sharp. Joyous, in the way only someone courting catastrophe can be.

“Well,” he said, blade catching firelight, “saves me a road trip.”

Markus and Henry flanked him instantly, blades raised with all the grim enthusiasm of men escorting their executioner.

Aurora rose, veins blazing gold. Her voice sliced the air. “They want to erase us.”

Sam’s reply was iron and inevitability. “Then we erase them first.”

The first Watcher lunged.

Dean met it head-on, blade splitting through bone and grace like he was carving Thanksgiving dinner. Cas struck beside him, blade driving clean through a shrieking seraph.

The chamber detonated with light, ash, and chaos. Sam and Aurora pulsed as one, their bond bursting open like a star coughing up its core. The second wave disintegrated mid-stride.

Runes lit, then fizzled. Time twisted like wet laundry.

Rowena slammed her palms to the floor, screaming blood and hexes. Sabine joined, furious but focused.

Gregor attempted to bolt. Dean quickly backhanded him into a wall without looking—more pest control than combat.

“You wanted a war?” Dean roared, dripping blood, eyes lit green fire. “Here’s your war.”

Cas’s voice rang like iron dropped on stone. “We hold. Or we fall.”

Aurora’s golden eyes seethed. Her voice carved the air clean.

“No lines,” she said. “No mercy.”

The manor couldn’t hold it anymore.

Wards screamed like molten glass under strain, glass spider-webbed, and stone cracked like ribs breaking under too much pressure. The ceiling buckled—and then the house itself spit the battle into the open air.

They spilled onto the lawn beneath a sky torn raw. Clouds writhed into spirals of firelight. Thunder clapped without rain. The air was so charged it hummed in their teeth.

Dean hit the ground swinging. Three Watchers were ash before they touched grass, and he didn’t slow. Convergence had remade him—no longer hunter, no longer soldier. He was storm incarnate. Angel blades shattered against his skin like glass on iron. Grace fire seared his jacket and left no mark. His laugh—low, feral—made even the broken angels hesitate.

Cas fought at his side, every movement precise but burning with the same storm Dean carried now. When their shoulders brushed, the air ripped open—currents of braided light spiraling outward like a new law being written mid-battle.

Rowena staggered through the grass, palms split open, painting sigils in her own blood. Sabine raised a wall of spectral fire that licked the sky like a second aurora. Henry and Markus cut through rogue angels with antique steel, fighting like men who had never put their swords down.

But Sam and Aurora didn’t fight.

They unmade.

Aurora burned—gold fire made flesh—but tethered. Sam was the tether. He moved like iron wrapped around a sun, each step rewriting the field. His eyes glowed crimson threaded with gold. The air bent toward him as if gravity itself had learned his name.

A Watcher lunged. Sam didn’t lift a blade. He lifted a thought. Invisible force clamped around the angel, snapping its wings mid-beat. The creature writhed, choking on light that had nowhere to escape. Sam didn’t blink. The angel came apart in his grasp—not cut, not burned—unwritten.

More fell. Some by his hand, others by his will. The telekinesis once fueled by demon blood was perfected now. A glance snapped spines. A breath collapsed lungs. A flick of his wrist hurled seraphs into the dirt with enough force to crater the lawn.

And when patience frayed, he reached deeper. Into Severance. Into the raw ability to unravel the code of what stood before him. Angels screamed without sound as they unraveled into light and dust.

Aurora steadied him when he surged too hot. He steadied her when her fire threatened to consume everything. Together they weren’t combatants. They were verdict.

The breach vomited rogues in torrents. Seraphs fell like burning satellites, wings trailing smoke and ash. They didn’t come to fight. They came to erase.

But they were already too late.

Sam smiled. Not human. Not holy. The kind of smile that made even the dark remember what it fears. His hand twitched—and three Watchers dropped, throats crushed by a force they couldn’t see.

Another raised its blade. Sam ripped it from the angel’s grip with a thought, spun it midair, and drove it through the angel’s chest without taking a step. The blade clattered into the dirt, harmless once the body had disintegrated.

The ground itself answered him—sigils warped to his pulse, stone leaned like vines straining for light.

Selwyn dropped to one knee without meaning to. Sabine staggered back pale. Rowena only smiled, wicked and reverent. “Maybe this time we live.”

One last angel dove for Aurora.

Sam blurred. One blink he was gone; the next, the angel hung in midair, strangled by a grip it could never break.

“Don’t you fucking touch her.” His voice was a snarl, low and ragged.

The angel sputtered light. Sam leaned in, eyes molten. “You think I’m broken? You made me this.”

And then he unmade it. Not with steel. Not with ritual. Just intent.

The wards answered in song—low, eerie, submission carved into earth and bone.

Aurora touched his arm. “Sam.”

He breathed again—but only for her.

The rogues were ash. The Fold slammed shut.

Silence didn’t return. It listened.

Dean wiped blood from his temple, voice hollow. “That’s my brother?”

Aurora’s light curled toward Sam like smoke drawn home.

The rogues were ash. The Fold slammed shut.

Silence didn’t return. It listened.

Rowena lowered her blood-stained hands to the grass, her voice hushed but sure. “We’d all be corpses if not for him.”

Sabine stood straighter, fire guttering from her palms. She didn’t bow, but her words were sharp with reverence. “You kept us breathing, Winchester. Don’t think we’ll forget it.”

Selwyn, still on one knee, raised his head, fae fire guttering weak but alive. “I saw the Watchers falter. They feared you.” His lip curled into something like a grin. “That makes me grateful.”

Henry leaned on the stone wall, chest heaving. He looked at Sam with a soldier’s clarity, no hesitation. “You did what none of us could. That’s not dirt, son. That’s power.”

Sam blinked at them, crimson-gold still burning behind his lashes. He wasn’t used to this — not fear, not shame, but gratitude. For once, no one flinched.

Aurora touched his arm, quiet pride in her voice. “Now they know.”

And they did. For the first time, the Council saw Sam Winchester not as cursed, not as corrupted — but as the reason they were still alive.

The Watchers were gone.

Not bargained with. Not bound.

Unwritten.

Sam Winchester had severed them—not with rage, but with something worse: intention. Judgment honed into a blade only he could carry. No curses. No ashes. Just the echo of things that would never exist again.

The Council chamber thrummed like it had swallowed a lightning storm. The oak table, the mortar in the walls, even the stained-glass sigils pulsed with resonance. Magic didn’t know whether to kneel or bolt.

It was the aftermath of a miracle.

Or a massacre.

Sometimes those were synonyms.

No one spoke. Until Rowena did, raising her goblet with a smirk designed to cut.

“Well,” she purred. “I suppose that settles who’s in charge. Congratulations, darlings. You’re reporting to wrath in flannel.”

Nervous laughter sputtered.

Selwyn lounged like he’d never panicked, chewing a fig while eyeing the scorch mark where Watchers had stood. “You realize we just watched him make unmaking look like muscle memory?”

Henry, busy scratching now-useless wards off the ledger, didn’t glance up. “He’s not a god.”

“No,” Markus said. “He’s a Winchester. Which is worse.”

Sabine stirred at the window, her breath fogging the glass. “No rite. No sanction. He erased the need for them.”

From the shadows, a sorcerer muttered, “He burned their names out of time.”

“Then let’s not say them aloud,” Rowena said cheerfully.

The doors opened.

Sam and Aurora entered. Sam led—grace licking off his skin like heat from banked coals, his stride feral, tectonic. Aurora brushed his hand once, glow softer but sharp enough to cut marrow. She didn’t scan for reverence. She scanned for targets.

No one knelt.

Not because they wouldn’t—because they couldn’t. Predators don’t kneel to predators. They brace.

Sam stopped at the head of the table, not for power, but because it was closest to Dean. His jaw still glowed faintly, but when he caught Dean’s eyes, he grinned.

And just like that, Sam was Sam again.

“You good?” Dean asked, dry.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “They’re gone.”

“Dead?”

“Not even that. Undone.”

Dean whistled low. “And here I thought you’d settle for scaring them shitless.”

“Wasn’t enough. They never listened.”

Aurora’s voice was quiet, but it cracked the air. “He didn’t rage. He chose. That’s why it worked.”

Dean snorted. “You get that makes it scarier, right?”

Rowena practically vibrated. “Oh, I adore this version of you two. May it last forever.”

Castiel’s grace flickered faintly, his gaze locked on Sam. “You didn’t just sever them. You severed their right to be.”

Sam didn’t deny it. “They wrote laws in silence. I rewrote them louder.”

The chamber rippled.

Markus leaned back. “Guess that concludes today’s agenda.”

Sabine’s eyes cut to Aurora. “And you. You let him do it?”

Aurora lifted her chin. “I’m not his leash. I’m his equal. He didn’t need permission. He needed belief and he had it.”

The chandeliers still on the ceiling pulsed like a choir agreeing.

Selwyn muttered, “Gods save us from the ones in love.”

Dean deadpanned, “Bit late for that.”

“Shut up, Selwyn,” Markus growled.

Rowena raised her glass. “To the Winchesters. Still breaking things for the right reasons.”

This time, the laughter was real. But beneath it, the truth hummed in the bones of Iron Oak:

This was no longer a Council chamber. It was a fault line.

And the Winchesters had become the quake.

Light slanted through the western hall’s high windows, thick and amber, dust motes drifting like lazy sparks. The carved sigils still shimmered faint, but the air had settled—like even the wards were catching their breath.

Sam leaned against the wall, sleeves shoved up, overshirt gone. Scars traced his arms like molten wire, glowing faint in the quiet. He looked steady, but not safe. Never safe.

Dean appeared with two coffees, slid one into Sam’s hand without a word.

Sam didn’t thank him. Dean didn’t need it.

They drank in silence. Letting it stretch. Letting it breathe.

“You scared the shit out of everyone today,” Dean said finally. “Even Rowena. Ten seconds of silence. Guinness world record.”

Sam huffed, not quite a laugh. “Wasn’t the plan.”

“Yeah, well. Maybe stop pretending you’re not supposed to scare people.”

Sam studied the steam curling out of his mug. “I always thought if I gave in… I’d hurt the people I care about.”

Dean leaned back against the wall, shoulder to shoulder with him. “You did give in. And you protected them. Because it wasn’t Chuck’s choice. Or Heaven’s. Or fate. It was yours.”

Sam exhaled. Long. Heavy.“Yeah.”

“You okay?”

Sam paused, then nodded. “I think I finally am.”

Dean bumped his shoulder. “Took you long enough.”

Sam’s mouth tugged into a faint smile. “Had to watch you almost die seventeen times first.”

Dean snorted. “Says the guy with more resurrections than a soap opera villain.”

“Touché.”

The quiet returned, easier this time.

Dean’s voice softened, like he wasn’t asking but promising. “This world we’re building… you don’t have to do it alone.”

Sam met his eyes. “I know.”

Dean looked back out the window, jaw set. “Good. ’Cause I’m not going anywhere. Not until this place has a garage, a bar, and a pie oven.”

Sam laughed under his breath. “Noted.”

Dean raised his mug. “To the new world. And the chaos we’re about to unleash.”

Sam clinked his cup against his brother’s.

For the first time in a long time, they didn’t feel like survivors.

They felt like architects.

Not of Heaven. Not of Hell.

But of something that finally belonged to them.

Chapter Text

The air still tasted like burned magic and ozone. Like thunder had cracked its teeth on the manor walls and left bone dust behind.

Sam hadn’t moved.

The courtyard was scattered with the debris of war—sigil shards, ritual ash, a ruined blade of hollow time still twitching where it lay. A scrying mirror pulsed once, then died like a fish on stone. Selwyn—or what was left of him—was dragging new wards into the dirt with a fingertip that smoked.

Dean paced like a caged wolf. Cas’s coat was ripped at the shoulder. Rowena yelled at a witch for bleeding on her boots.

And Sam?

He couldn’t stop watching her.

Aurora stood at the center like she didn’t know she was the reason the sky hadn’t collapsed. Hair wind-snared, hands still lit with afterglow, no halo, no wings. Just presence. Exhaustion dressed in grace. Her skin flickered faintly, light threading her veins in uneven pulses. Every step she took left the air singed, like her body was burning fuel it didn’t have.

She moved through the survivors with quiet words, steady hands, a nod here, a touch there. But her touch trembled. And no one bowed. They wanted to—he could feel it, primal as marrow—but she wouldn’t allow it. She’d been knelt to once. She’d never stand for it again.

That undid him more than the battle.

Sam leaned against the cracked stone of the fountain, body still humming with power that hadn’t settled. Feral, alert. And under it, need. Not hunger, not lust. Something deeper. The kind of love that felt like a blade under the ribs.

He thought of what they saw in her—the whole sky. And realized that as much as the world oriented to him now—the Severance, the God-Killer—they turned toward her. Not because she demanded it. Because the universe wanted to.

And what did that make him?

He remembered the skins he’d worn—demon blood, vessel, freak. Years of flinching from his own reflection. And now he had unmade the Watchers, erased laws older than stars. But what shook him most wasn’t the power.

It was her. That she always chose him.

She began slowly walking towards him. Eyes gold, bruised with grace, like they were already in the middle of a conversation he hadn’t heard start. Her glow stuttered in her veins, like her body wasn’t sure it could keep her together. She didn’t smile. She saw him. And it seemed to break something open.

When she reached him, she didn’t speak but just leaned her forehead into his chest and let out a breath that sounded like it hurt.

Sam folded his arms around her. The rest of the world could wait.

Dean barked orders like a general on his fourth whiskey. Cas stitched a dimensional breach shut with his bare hands. Rowena laughed like the ruin had finally gone her way.

But this—this was the axis.

Sam buried his face in Aurora’s hair and let the truth rise through him like judgment:

This isn’t just love. This is origin.

And if the world wanted to test that again?

Let it.

He would burn it to the fucking ground.

Dean stood in the rubble of what used to be the east wall and took a long, slow breath through his nose.

He could still taste blood and sulfur in the air. His knuckles were raw. One of his boots had melted at the sole. And he’d thrown up earlier from whatever metaphysical feedback had nearly dislocated reality when Sam nuked the last angel with a fucking whisper.

Cas was recharging, or whatever the hell you called it when an angel stood statue-still and lit from the inside like a holy bomb on a dimmer switch.

Rowena had already declared the manor a Class Omega “grace-field site” and was sketching containment spells with what appeared to be lipstick and spit.

But Dean didn’t move. He was watching them.

Sam and Aurora stood at the center of the clearing, breathing the same air like they didn’t know how not to.

No words. Just pressure. Connection. The kind that didn’t require translation.

Aurora swayed once, barely, but enough. Her light stuttered at the edges of her skin, sparking out unevenly like a lantern running low on fuel. Sam’s hand tightened around hers instantly, jaw clenched, eyes hot like he’d kill the air itself if it tried to touch her.

Dean caught that. And for a second, something cold settled in his chest. Because if she cracked, if she went out for real, the world wouldn’t survive Sam’s answer to it.

But then she steadied. Stayed upright. Still fierce, even in exhaustion.

And Dean, he didn’t feel the old panic. The itch to drag Sam out before he burned alive.

Because the truth was standing right there.

She didn’t break him. She built him.

Piece by piece. Grace by grace. A celestial kintsugi, mending every shattered part of his little brother with molten gold and feral loyalty.

Dean let out a breath, rubbed a hand over his face. His fingers came away gritty.

“Jesus, Sammy,” he muttered. “You finally found someone who scares the universe more than you do.”

He didn’t mean it bitterly. He meant it like confession. Like relief.

Because for all the monsters they’d killed, all the gods they’d defied, this was the part he couldn’t have done for Sam. He couldn’t have made him feel wanted. Not like that. Not like someone who mattered beyond the blade, beyond the blood. Beyond the apocalypse tattooed into their bones.

Aurora didn’t just love Sam. She saw him and loved him because he was Sam.

And now, watching them, scarred, silent, glowing faintly like they’d just walked out of a new creation, Dean realized something he’d never said out loud: He wasn’t afraid of Sam losing control anymore.

He was afraid of what would happen to the world if someone tried to take Aurora again.

Dean squinted at the dark treeline and muttered, “God help the next bastard who tries.”

Cas glanced sideways, voice soft. “I don’t think God’s in charge anymore.”

Dean cracked a half-smile. “Good.”

The morning was soft and pale, mist curling low over the grounds. Sam found Aurora already awake, not with tea in hand but simply sitting in the window seat, watching the fog like she was reading something in it.

He hesitated in the doorway. “You’re up early.”

Her gaze slid to him, faintly amused. “I’ve been up all night.”

He crossed to her, settling into the chair across from the window. “Thinking?”

Aurora’s golden eyes met his, and for a moment she didn’t speak—like she was weighing whether this was something to say out loud. Finally, she did.

“When I was in the Archive,” she began, voice calm but deliberate, “I thought the worst part of Chuck’s control was the confinement. The waiting. But I was wrong. The worst part was the balance I never had. The constant press of power inside me with no way to ground it. Knowing that if I ever pushed too far, he’d lock me away again. I could never challenge him without risking losing everything I was.”

Sam listened, elbows braced on his knees, eyes fixed on her.

She turned back to the fog outside. “And then… the prophecy ignited. The moment I touched your soul, I knew it. Severance and Source. Rewriting. I had been waiting for it without knowing what I was waiting for. And he knew it, too.”

Her voice lowered, but didn’t soften. “He bound me and left me burning, knowing that if he killed you, or kept us apart long enough, I would combust. That I would take the world with me, not because I chose to, but because my power would tear loose from its own vessel. That was his cruelty. He wanted my end to be inevitable.”

Sam’s breath caught. His mug shifted in his hands, knuckles whitening. “Aurora…”

She finally looked at him again, and there was nothing guarded in her expression. “You stopped that from happening. You are the reason I am alive in more than just the physical sense. You gave me balance. Safety. Freedom. You took away the inevitability.”

He swallowed hard, caught between disbelief and something warmer that he couldn’t name. “You make it sound like I saved you.”

Her lips curved, but her gaze didn’t waver. “You did. Not by killing my enemies or breaking my chains—but by making me whole. I will never forget what it felt like to live every moment knowing that the wrong separation, the wrong blow, would turn me into a catastrophe. And I will never forget what it felt like the moment that fear went quiet because of you.”

Sam leaned back, letting the words sink in. The mist beyond the glass curled and parted as if listening. For a long moment they sat in that charged quiet, the weight of what wasn’t said pressing against the air.

Aurora finally added, with absolute certainty, “Not while I live, Sam. No one will ever take that from either of us.”

And this time, he didn’t try to thank her. He just nodded, because he knew she was speaking the truth.

Sam broke the silence, voice low. “What was it like? Carrying it. The prophecy. Before I knew you. Before I even could hold you.”

Aurora’s gaze drifted past him to the fog outside, as if she were watching for a shape that wasn’t there. “It was… constant,” she said at last. “A burn that never eased. Not pain exactly, but heat, pressure, like standing on the edge of a storm with no shelter. Every second I was aware that it was in me, and every second I was aware that you were out there somewhere. And I already loved you.”

Sam’s chest tightened.

She turned her eyes back to him, golden and steady. “Seeing you again was harder than I imagined. You looked right at me, and I was a stranger to you. I had to stand there and pretend it didn’t hurt. Pretend I hadn’t been waiting for what felt like lifetimes to see you breathe in the same room again.”

Her voice trembled on the last word. Her hands knotted in her lap like she didn’t trust them to stay steady.

Sam didn’t move. He didn't trust his voice just yet.

Aurora went on, softer now: “I couldn’t leave the Archive for long. Not because I wasn’t capable, but because I feared what would happen if my grace… misbehaved. I was holding too much, and there was no anchor. No balance. I could feel it fraying at the edges sometimes. One surge, one slip, and someone could be ash before I even knew I’d done it.”

Sam’s brow furrowed, his jaw locking. “You were afraid of yourself.”

Aurora nodded once. “And then you came to the Archive for the first time. When I walked past you, I brushed against your arm. Just that. And suddenly the noise in me… steadied. I could breathe without measuring each breath. I almost burst into tears in front of you because I knew—I knew—that the balance was real. That it was you.”

Sam’s hand closed into a fist against his knee, grace flickering red-gold at his knuckles. “And if I’d walked away…?”

Her expression didn’t flinch. “Reality would have eventually unraveled.”

For a heartbeat, Sam’s power flared—raw, feral—then stilled again when her eyes anchored his.

He leaned forward, his hands closing over hers. “I didn’t just feel it, Aurora. I couldn’t have walked away even if I’d wanted to.”

Her gaze softened, the wariness easing. “I know.”

The pull between them thickened the air, heavy and certain. Sam realized the bond hadn’t been destiny’s chain—it had been her, holding steady so neither of them would burn.

Sam’s thumb brushed over her knuckles as another question caught in his throat. “Why didn’t you ever share your power with Markus?”

Aurora held his gaze a long beat. When she spoke, it was quieter. “Because it was never like this.”

She leaned back slightly, but her eyes never left his. “With Markus, I could be open to a point. I could let him see flashes of my light, give him pieces of what I could do. But it was like pouring into a vessel that couldn’t hold more than a certain measure. Too much, and he would have fractured. I always had to control it—keep the gates closed, measure every breath of grace I let through. I was always… editing myself.”

Her voice faltered for the first time. Her hand trembled under his.

Sam tightened his hold.

Aurora drew in a breath and pressed on. “With you, it’s nothing like that. When you touch me, my body responds like it’s been waiting its entire existence to meet your shape. My grace doesn’t just steady—it moves toward you. Always. And when it meets you, there’s this feedback loop—your soul takes what I give, and gives back, and then I give more without meaning to. It’s effortless. Natural.”

Sam swallowed. “And you can feel the difference.”

Aurora nodded. “Every moment. I’ve never had to brace myself with you. Never had to hold back. My grace can’t contain itself when you’re near because it doesn’t want to. It wants to share with your soul, to weave into it, to exist in the same breath. And the more I give, the more balanced I become. It’s… the opposite of danger. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt truly safe inside myself.”

Her gaze burned steady into him now. “That’s why it was never Markus. Not Henry. Not anyone. Only you.”

Sam let the silence stretch, the truth settling into him like molten iron. “I think I know what you mean,” he said finally. “Because I’ve never felt like this with anyone either. It’s like you were built into me without me realizing it.”

Her lips curved faintly. “Not built in. Bound.”

The mist outside curled tighter against the glass, like it too had been listening.

Aurora’s thumb brushed over his in a slow, absent stroke. “You don’t just survive me, Sam. You make me whole.”

Sam leaned closer, his forehead brushing hers. “Then I guess I’m glad I was made for this.”

Her lips trembled faintly. But her eyes—her eyes were certain. “So am I.”

The dining hall still smelled of ash and scorched wards. Half the manor leaned like it had survived a siege—which it had. Breakfast had been dragged to the war table, but no one looked at their food.

Dean talked about rebuilding sigils. Rowena argued with Sabine about leylines and sugar ratios. Cas sat at the end, motionless, unreadable.

And Sam, he was trying not to snap the chair in half with his bare hands.

Aurora laughed at something Selwyn said. Soft, polite. The kind of laugh she used when she was pretending to tolerate someone while measuring their worth. Her curls were still damp from the Roman baths beneath the house, his shirt hung loose on her shoulders, and the linen wrap skirt clung like it knew secrets.

Sam’s pulse hammered in his ears. His vision narrowed until the room blurred, until there was only her—every movement, every flicker of light across her skin. It wasn’t jealousy. He’d known that before.

This was older. Hotter. Primal.

The wood beneath his grip cracked. His breath came short, ragged. And before he thought better of it, he stood.

No one noticed at first. Not until he crossed the space between them in a silence sharper than a blade.

Aurora turned just as he reached her.

She froze—not in fear, not in surprise. In recognition. Like she’d heard a language she hadn’t realized she knew.

He didn’t touch her at first. Just let her feel the heat of him, close enough to raise the hair on her arms. Then his palm pressed to the small of her back—light, steady, final.

Her grace pulsed under her skin, a subtle flare only he could feel. She stiffened—then melted, just enough to lean into his hand. Instinct. Electric.

No one at the table looked up. Dean kept talking. Rowena scribbled. But Aurora knew. She tilted her head, lips brushing the line of his throat.

“Sam?”

His voice was low, dangerous. “Selwyn’s still watching you.”

“I know.”

“I want to break something.”

“I know that too.”

He exhaled slow, jaw tight. “It’s not fair. You don’t even mean to do it.”

Aurora’s lashes brushed his jaw as she murmured back, “Do what?”

“Be wanted.”

That stopped her. Not because it was wrong. Because it was true.

And she didn’t hate it. Didn’t hate being the center of his storm. Not as Source. Not as prophecy. But as his.

Sam didn’t kiss her. He didn’t need to. His hand stayed at her spine, steady, claiming.

Sabine called her name. The moment broke like ash on wind.

Aurora turned, smiled, answered.

But Sam’s hand never moved. And she never asked him to.

Everyone saw.

No one dared speak.

The manor breathed with silence.

The kind that seeped into stone and beams, heavy as wet cloth. The kind that waited.

Aurora flickered barefoot down the hall. The walls stilled when she passed. Doors thought better of creaking. She hadn’t changed. She still wore Sam’s shirt, loose at the collar. No point pretending at ceremony.

She found him three corridors deep.

Sam was pacing, shoulders tight, fists curled. The wards behind him pulsed dim, uneasy. He hadn’t heard her—or was ignoring her.

“Sam,” she said, voice low.

He didn’t turn, just sharply exhaled.

“You know you scared half the Council today?”

“Good.”

She arched a brow. “Planning to wear a hole in the floor?”

Sam still didn’t speak. His jaw twitched. It was the kind of restraint that cracked stone.

Aurora stepped closer. “Talk to me.”

Finally, he turned. And her breath faltered.

Sam’s face showed no rage, nor jealousy. But, something rawer. Older.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” he said. His voice was gravel.

“Yes, you do.”

He came forward—slow, deliberate, like gravity had picked a side. “I’m not like you. I wasn’t made for this. Not prophecy. Not power. Not… whatever the hell I am now.”

“You think I was made for it?”

“You burn,” he rasped. “You blaze. And me? I smolder. I seethe. It’s not the same.”

“No,” she agreed. “It’s not. But that doesn’t make you less.”

He laughed once, rough. Bitter. “They look at you like salvation. They look at me like a fuse waiting to blow.”

Aurora stepped in, close enough to feel the heat rolling off his skin. Her voice dropped.

“You are a fuse.”

Her hand brushed the collar of his shirt, smoothing it flat. “But I’m the match.”

He stilled. The air crackled.

“You think I don’t feel it too?” she whispered.

His throat worked. “I don’t know what to do with it. This pull. This hunger. I want you so badly it hurts.”

She didn’t answer, just let her fingers trail across his chest. He caught her hand and held it, not tight, but certain.

“You feel it too,” he murmured.

“Yes.”

“And you’re not running?”

Her smile curved dark, hungry. “If I run, it’ll be into you.”

For a long beat, neither of them moved. The corridor listened, wards thrumming like a pulse.

Then Aurora leaned in, lips at his ear, heat in every word.

“Don’t make me chase you, Sam Winchester.”

And she was gone—vanished like a spark hunting for kindling.

Sam stood there, heart pounding.

And Iron Oak groaned in its beams.

Because it knew.

She was finally asleep.

Golden eyes dimmed to warm amber, lashes against freckled skin, lips parted just enough to make his chest ache. Her curls brushed his shoulder, the weight of her body tucked into his side like she’d always been there. Too soft. Too unguarded.

And Sam couldn’t stop staring.

Heat built low in his gut, spreading like fire under his skin. His pulse was ragged, uneven. Every breath dragged through his chest like he was starving. He wanted—needed—her so close it would fuse them, carve his name into her marrow.

His hand hovered over her arm, shaking with restraint. Not tender. Not hesitant. Restraint like a predator holding back from sinking its teeth in. He wanted to grip her, to press until the shape of him was branded into her bones. To claim. To keep.

She shifted in sleep, fingers tightening in his shirt. Just that small unconscious gesture and his blood surged hot, primal.

Mine.

The word tore through him like an instinct older than his blood. Not reverence. Not worship. A vow edged in violence. He could feel it in every muscle, the feral drive to protect, to mark, to anchor her so deep nothing in heaven or hell could pull her away.

His body betrayed him. Breath heavy, thighs taut, heat straining against cloth as if even his flesh understood the demand of the bond. Need crawled through him, ugly, desperate and absolute. He clenched his jaw hard enough to ache. If she woke now, if she looked at him with those eyes…

He’d lose whatever was left of restraint.

She glowed faintly in sleep, light stuttering through her skin like an ember refusing to die. His ember. His fire.

Sam’s hand pressed down at last—firm on her shoulder, thumb dragging slow against her collarbone. She sighed in sleep, leaning into it, into him, and the sound almost gutted him. His heart kicked like a hammer. His body burned.

“You scare the hell out of me,” he whispered, voice rough, nearly growling. His lips brushed her hair. “But I’ve never believed in anything the way I believe in you.”

She stirred, murmuring his name without waking. Her grace spilled into him, not gentle but scalding, like fire curling around iron. His whole body shuddered, every muscle taut, as if the bond itself wanted to drive him past the edge of being human.

He buried his face in her hair, chest rising hard, a low sound breaking loose from his throat. Not grief. Not fear. Hunger. Possession.

She’s mine.

And God help anyone who tried to take her.

Because if they did—Sam Winchester wouldn’t just fight.

He would consume.

The world didn’t end in silence. It ended in fire.

Sam stood in the middle of a field, rows of corn stretching black and brittle around him. The sky was wrong—stars streaking, tearing, collapsing into each other. The ground shuddered, ribs of earth cracking wide open to vomit light. He knew this wasn't real. 

Aurora was there, but not the Aurora he knows. Her skin fissured like molten stone, light spilling out in rivers, her hair a halo of flame. She was beautiful and terrible, burning herself apart.

“You wouldn’t have me,” she whispered, though her voice split the clouds. “So I have nothing to hold.”

Sam tried to reach her, but his hand burned away at the wrist, flesh evaporating into ash. He screamed, but no sound came. The cornfield around him burst into golden fire, feeding on her unraveling.

The sky tore open. Not like lightning, but like paper ripped by something enormous. Behind it—galaxies, screamed as they collapsed into themselves, a devouring void swallowed creation whole.

Dean’s body lay crumpled in the dirt at Sam’s feet, eyes wide and unblinking. Castiel kneeled beside him, wings shredded and skeletal, mouth open in a voiceless prayer. Their forms dissolved in the next breath, unmade like dust sucked into the storm.

Aurora fell to her knees, clawing at her own chest as the light inside her broke loose. Sam felt it—her hunger, her fury, her despair—tearing through the fabric of the world. Her body ruptured into a sunburst, and for a moment he saw her as a star exploding, tearing galaxies into ribbons.

The blast consumed everything. Her skin peeled away. Her bones shattered into fire. The last thing he saw were her eyes—two suns collapsing into void—and then there was nothing. Not even him.

Sam came out of it like drowning in reverse, air slamming into his chest, lungs clawing for something solid. His whole body jerked upright in bed, sweat slicking his skin as though the fire from the dream still clung to him. The room around him—the familiar ceiling, the low hum of the cottage wards was steady, unbroken.

But his hands shook like he’d carried the ashes of a dead world back with him.

Aurora was asleep beside him, breath soft, her glow dimmed in rest. She hadn’t seen what he had. She hadn’t burned in his arms, hadn’t exploded like a dying star in front of him. For one long, agonizing moment Sam couldn’t even bring himself to look at her—because in the dream he’d watched her die, and the memory was still screaming in his blood.

His throat worked, dry. He dragged both hands through his hair, pressing hard against his skull as if he could squeeze the vision out before it rooted deeper. But it stayed. The burning sky. Dean’s absence. The sound of the world tearing. His own helplessness.

The cottage creaked, like the house itself was aware of his unrest.

Sam finally looked down at her. Aurora stirred faintly, sensing him, though she didn’t wake. Her fingers curled unconsciously toward him in her sleep—like she knew he’d tried to pull away. That simple reach gutted him more than the dream itself.

“Not without you,” he whispered hoarsely. A vow. A plea. He wasn’t sure which.

And he knew, with terrible clarity, that whatever the dream was—nightmare, prophecy, warning—it had shown him one truth he couldn’t ignore: refusal wasn’t an option. If he ever pulled back, if he ever faltered in their bond, it wasn’t just love he’d lose. It was everything.

Sam lay back down slowly, sliding close enough for her warmth to bleed into him, like proof against the cold, black echo of the dream. His eyes stayed open long into the night, watching her breathe, silently promising that he would never let it end like that.

Chapter Text

It starts at dawn. No aurora this time, just a clear sky that suddenly hums with sound. Strings. Brass. The sweeping, nostalgic score of 13 jours en France spilling from nowhere and everywhere at once.

In Paris, traffic halts mid-boulevard. A taxi driver leans against his cab, tears in his eyes.

In Nairobi, a crowded market goes still, vendors smiling as the music floats overhead.

In São Paulo, buses stop and teenagers climb to the roofs, humming along though they’ve never heard the melody before.

In New York, construction workers on a scaffold set down their drills, one muttering, “Damn, that’s pretty.”

Everywhere, the same thing: a collective pause. No riots, no panic. Just stillness, then laughter, then people sitting down wherever they are — listening. For a full day, the world breathes in rhythm with the music.

The Pentagon briefing room was chaos. Screens blared with feeds: highways full of parked cars, airports where passengers sat cross-legged on the floor, parliaments frozen mid-argument.

Colonel Harris slammed his fist on the table. “What in God’s name is this?”

Dr. Krantz looked like he’d aged ten years overnight, clutching his headphones. “It’s… it’s the soundtrack to an obscure French documentary from the 1968 Winter Olympics. It’s playing from the sky. No broadcast source. No satellite. Just… everywhere.”

“People aren’t working!” Harris barked. “Markets are frozen, power plants unattended, shipping lanes at a standstill. This is a national security threat of the highest order!”

One of the younger analysts muttered, “Sir, the threat is everyone… taking the day off?”

“Yes!” Harris roared. “An entire day of global productivity erased! Do you know what that does to GDP?”

The intern, transfixed by a feed of schoolchildren in Cairo swaying hand-in-hand, whispered, “Looks like it does people good.”

“Strike that from the record,” Harris snapped.

That’s when Latham rose from his seat at the far end of the table, the only man smiling. His eyes glittered feverishly in the light of the projector.

“Don’t you see?” His voice carried across the chaos, low and reverent. “She’s showing us what she is. Not storms. Not crops. But beauty. She paints the world in feeling and makes us kneel without force. That—” he jabbed a finger at the frozen screens “—is godhood.”

Krantz blinked. “Sir, this is genesis again. They didn’t summon storms or crops this time — they summoned art. They’re weaponizing culture. If they can make the world stop for one melody, they can do it with anything.”

Harris groaned, rubbing his temples. “So we’re being held hostage by the French Olympics soundtrack?”

On the projector, a live feed from Mumbai showed commuters clapping along, laughing with strangers. The sound was joyous, contagious. The analysts stared at it like joy itself were contraband.

But Latham only leaned closer, eyes burning with awe. “The Source has spoken. And the world answered.”

Markus heard the music sometime after dawn. Soft, orchestral. Aching. Strange. Beautiful. Now it was everywhere.

Clouds hummed it. Radios tuned to it. Even the old grandfather clock in Iron Oak’s foyer ticked in sync.

The cottage smelled like honey, ozone, and sandalwood — the unmistakable fragrance of convergence, heady enough to make Markus grind his teeth.

He pushed the door open with the exasperation of a man already braced for disappointment.

“Would either of you care to explain why one of my favorite soundtracks is playing from the bloody sky?”

Sam looked up from the kitchen table, brow furrowed. Aurora was curled on the window seat, glow faint as dawnlight, shawl draped over her shoulders like spun smoke. She looked like morning personified. Neither answered.

“The music,” Markus snapped, stalking into the room. “13 Jours en France. It’s been pouring out of the heavens all morning. Broadcasting through every frequency, every channel. Planes grounded. Markets frozen.”

Aurora smiled, small and maddening. “People seem soothed.”

“They are wrecked,” Markus shot back. “Wrecked! Do you know what happens when a world stops to feel? People are holding hands in gridlock. Parliament dissolved mid-session. The prime minister of New Zealand proposed to her bodyguard on live television.”

Sam’s lips twitched.

Markus turned away, muttering, “I cannot believe you two managed to hijack my personal playlist. You soundtracked your metaphysical coupling with one of my favorites. Do you have any idea how emotionally complicated that is for me?”

Aurora’s glow deepened. “I only discovered it a few weeks ago. I’ve been… catching up. Films, concerts, archives. The world made so much art while I was gone. But this—” her gaze brushed Sam “—this piece made me feel what he makes me feel. Like the ache before joy. Like choosing something beautiful even though it will end.”

Markus dragged a hand down his face. “You’ve weaponized nostalgia. You didn’t just bend physics, you imprinted a memory onto reality. That song wasn’t written for you, and yet now it belongs to you. The whole damn world stopped because your heart hiccupped in E minor.”

Sam, wisely, said nothing.

Markus swore. “Next time you two decide to emotionally climax, give us a warning. Or at least pick something less French.”

Sam’s voice dropped, dark. “We didn’t do it on purpose.”

“You never do.” Markus’ tone was edged but tired. “And yet here we are. Crops blooming in the Gobi. Dolphins ballroom-dancing around a buoy. And now—this. Global orchestral melancholy because you got sentimental in bed.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Do you have a problem with that?”

Markus looked between them. Aurora, radiant and unbothered. Sam, taut and dangerous. He sighed. His expression softened.

“No,” he admitted. “I just… forgot what it was like to be undone by love.”

A silence hung, thick as incense.

Aurora spoke softly. “We don’t mean to spill over.”

Markus’ voice gentled. “I know. But you do. You always will. Neither of you was made to fit inside the world. So now the world keeps trying to stretch around you.”

He turned to leave, pausing in the doorway. “It is a beautiful piece,” he murmured.

God help us, he thought as he stepped into the glade, the last notes of Francis Lai fading into birdsong.

They were still in the orchestral phase. Soft strings. Tragic tenderness.

But it wouldn’t last.

He’d seen the look on Aurora’s face, the way her glow curved around Sam like a second skin. She was only getting started.

One day soon, she was going to discover the ‘90s.

Whitney. Toni Braxton. Luther. Jodeci.

And when she did, the whole world would stop again.

Not ethereal this time. Not weepy.

It would be sad.

And sexy.

The sky would rain roses. The moon would flirt.

And somewhere in Morocco, mystics would strip naked and carve sonnets into the sand without knowing why.

Markus sighed.

“We’re doomed the day she hears End of the Road.”

The sun hung too low for the hour, its light bruised at the edges like someone had dipped it in ink. The sky couldn’t decide between dusk and day, and it had been that way for a week. Long enough that even the birds had gone silent mid-song—like something bigger was listening.

Inside Iron Oak, silence was harder to come by.

“Alright,” Dean snapped, slapping a hand on the long war table hard enough to make Markus flinch, “somebody explain why the damn sun looks like it’s about to hand in its notice.”

“There’s going to be an eclipse,” Castiel said mildly.

“I know that,” Dean shot back. “I mean why now? Why here?”

Markus frowned down at a star chart. “No eclipse is charted in any known cycle. Not for years.”

“Exactly,” Dean muttered. “The universe doesn’t usually freelance.”

Aurora leaned against the window, golden eyes half-lidded, soaking in the fractured light like it was whispering only to her. Grace shimmered restless across her arms.

“It doesn’t feel bad,” she murmured.

Sam moved to her without hesitation. “What doesn’t?”

“The eclipse.” Her voice cut the room’s noise like glass. “It feels… familiar. Like the air before a storm breaks. Or the hum in your bones when something true is about to happen.”

Sam’s gaze pinned hers. “Do you think it’s connected to us?”

“I don’t think it’s connected,” she said with a smile too calm for comfort. “I think it is us. The world tuning itself to a frequency we’ve been sending without meaning to.”

The chamber bristled. Sabine’s knuckles went white against her folded arms. Selwyn muttered something sharp in Old Fae and shut up fast.

“So not divine wrath?” Henry ventured.

Aurora’s lips curved faintly. “No. More like a cosmic nudge.”

Dean dragged a hand down his face. “Perfect. Love when the universe gets moody.”

“It’s not dangerous,” Aurora said firmly. “I don’t feel fear. I feel… anchored. Like the sky finally knows where to look.”

That landed heavy. No one rushed to fill the silence.

Sam studied her, jaw tight. “You feel stronger.”

She didn’t deny it. “I am. Something’s waking with me.”

Rowena’s goblet clinked against the table. “Bloody comforting.”

Dean broke the tension. “We don’t wait. We watch. We plan. Because every time the sky twitches, something tries to kill us about it.”

“I’ll track celestial shifts,” Cas said, already flipping open his notebook.

“I’ll check the Archive,” Markus added. “Older texts. The kind that weren’t written for prophecy, but survival.”

The others began scattering, muttering over grimoires, arguing, warding and re-warding the air itself.

But Sam and Aurora stayed at the window. The wrong light bent across her face, painting her in bruised gold.

“You’re sure this isn’t dangerous?” Sam asked, voice low.

Aurora’s smile came slow, sharp. “Not for us.” Her fingers brushed his wrist, and the room crackled. “I think it’s them who should be afraid.”

The eclipse had been hanging for hours—unscheduled, unforecast, impossible. The sky outside had thickened into violet-black, not night, not day, but something stranger. Even the air tasted metallic, like the atmosphere itself was straining.

Inside, lanterns guttered as if they’d rather not burn. The war table was crowded, but silence pressed harder than bodies.

Selwyn, draped in some sweater that looked stolen from a dead poet, finally broke it. “Well. Is this the part where someone tells us not to panic?”

“We’ve been through worse,” Henry offered, though his voice was too thin to hold the weight.

“Have we?” Sabine countered. “Because I don’t recall the moon ever bleeding sideways.”

Murmurs rippled. Uneasy. Sharp.

Her gaze landed on Aurora—on Sam just behind her shoulder. The eclipse’s golden ring reflected faintly in Aurora’s eyes, turning her irises molten.

“You feel it,” Sabine said.

Aurora didn’t hesitate. “Yes. It’s not malevolent.”

“But it’s not natural,” Selwyn snapped. “This isn’t celestial mechanics. This is origin magic. Raw. Uncontrolled. Something’s waking.”

Sam’s jaw flexed. His voice came low, iron-edged. “We’re aware.”

The chamber hushed at once. Even the wards leaned in.

A witch near the end of the table whispered, “It isn’t just her glow anymore. It’s him. He carries it now.”

“No,” said another, fingers white on their charm. “He doesn’t carry it. He’s changing with it. Fermenting. Becoming something else.”

“Feral,” someone else muttered. “Like Severance was never meant to stay human.”

Rowena’s smile was knife-thin. “Well, that’s charming. A feral Winchester with a cosmic girlfriend. What could possibly go wrong?”

Sabine ignored her. Her eyes stayed on Sam. “If Aurora tempers him, what happens if she falters? What happens if he stops wanting to hold back?”

Sam’s gaze snapped toward her. Crimson rimmed his eyes faintly in the eclipse-light. He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

Aurora’s voice cut instead, calm but edged with fire. “You speak like he’s a bomb. He’s not. He’s balance. What you’re feeling is design unfolding. His design.”

“Design?” Selwyn scoffed. “Or hunger?”

Aurora’s lips curved—too serene for comfort. “Sometimes they’re the same.”

That landed like a stone in water. No one spoke.

Dean muttered from the rear, “So… Tuesday.”

Cas, flat as a blade: “It’s always Tuesday when the world begins to shift.”

Selwyn raised his goblet. “To not screwing this one up.”

They drank, but their eyes stayed on Sam.

And as the cups lowered, the wards hummed—low, metallic, like something vast shifting its weight.

Sam’s hand closed around Aurora’s, hard enough to draw her glance. His eyes glowed faint at the edges, feral and undeniable.

And no one asked what he felt.

They already knew.

The light wasn’t dim. It was wrong. Distorted. The sun bled molten gold around the moon, a pulsing halo like a lidless eye. Shadows writhed at impossible angles. The manor stilled, holding its breath.

Sam stood rigid on the cottage terrace, jaw locked, staring skyward as if the eclipse itself had called his name.

Behind him, Aurora’s breath hitched. She felt it too—the hum under her skin, the pressure in her marrow, like the world had just lurched sideways. She stepped toward him, barefoot, silent, pulled by something she couldn’t resist. 

He didn’t turn. His voice was gravel. “It’s inside me. The eclipse. I can feel it… watching.”

Aurora’s pulse thundered. “Yes. I feel it too. Ancient. Not hostile. Awake. Hungry.”

He turned at last, eyes dark, fathomless, veins flickering like embers beneath glass. His hand lifted toward her, helpless. “It’s you. It’s us. This isn’t about us—it is us.”

Her fingers twisted in his shirt. “More than resonance. We’re aligning. Tumblers in some vast lock. It’s turning us.”

Sam’s hands clamped onto her waist, iron-tight. “Feel that pull?” His murmur was smoke and threat. “Like I’ll combust if I don’t touch you.”

Aurora gasped, half-laughter, wild. “Like the universe is crushing us together. No permission asked.”

His hand swept up her spine, fisting in her hair. “You’re glowing.”

Her lips brushed his. “So are you.”

Their kiss detonated—too fierce, too bright. Magic cracked like thunder, heat and ozone searing the air. The manor’s wards screamed. The forest bent toward them like iron filings dragged to a magnet.

Each pulse of their bond hit in time with the eclipse, pounding through their ribs until breath itself dissolved. Not lust. Not want, but becoming.

They tore apart, gasping. Aurora’s pupils were voids, her skin pouring gold.

“What’s it doing to us?” she whispered, shaking.

Sam’s thumb dragged her jaw, rough, sparking static. “Nothing. It’s answering. We lit the match. The eclipse is just arriving.”

Another surge dropped from the sky, a subsonic roar that rattled Iron Oak to its bones. Aurora laughed, unhinged, incandescent.

“God, Sam… I feel like I am something vast.”

The cottage door slammed shut behind them like it had a will of its own.

The air thickened—charged, heavy—not just with magic but with them. Every step hummed through the walls, wards shivering, stone trembling beneath their feet.

Neither spoke. Language failed.

He spun her hard, not to hurt but because he needed her—needed her lips, her eyes, her fire. His hand tangled in her hair as he crushed his mouth to hers. The kiss was brutal, consuming, everything he’d kept inside. The bond shimmered and then detonated, searing waves crawling over the walls like cracks in reality.

“Something’s happening,” she gasped against him, voice wrecked, golden eyes wide with awe and terror. “Sam—I feel like I’ll fly apart.”

Her hands clawed at his shirt, buttons scattering across the floor, nails raking his chest, claiming him. A guttural growl ripped from him as he hauled her up, pinning her against the wall. Her moan—desperate, helpless—shook him deeper than any battle cry.

Light erupted from them in earnest, bleaching shadows from every corner. Somewhere, glass rattled in the manor. Aurora’s veins buzzed, her grace sparking wild in rhythm with the eclipse. Sam’s soul sang—louder than she had ever felt it.

“Your mine,” he said, voice so low and sharp it could cut. “Every star in you. Every spark. Mine.”

Her vessel wasn’t human, but even she buckled under the feral certainty in his tone. She felt his power winding through her grace — not coaxing, invading — binding itself deeper, wrapping tight like it wanted to live inside her.

She clawed down his back, nails leaving glowing streaks in his skin. He liked that, groaning in a way that was almost pained, pushing harder against her as if the wall between them and the rest of the world needed to break.

“I’ll tear apart anything that tries to take you,” he said against her throat, the words ragged and deadly serious.

“Yes,” she whispered — not because he demanded it, but because every cell in her already knew it was true.

He let her down from the wall and stalked her backward, drinking her in: hair a dark halo, lips parted, eyes feral with want and defiance. 

Something snapped.

He spun her, pressing her face-first to the tall window. Her gasp cracked into a ragged moan. His teeth scraped her throat, bit down until she shuddered. One hand kneaded her breast through the fabric, the other yanked her dress high, gripping her bare ass, his fingers sinking deep as she arched into him.

“Sam—please—” she whimpered, voice breaking on need.

He spun her back around and crushed his mouth to hers, her nails carving fire down his chest. Lifting her in one motion, he hooked her thighs over his hips. She clung to him, gasping his name like a prayer as he carried her to the bed.

He tossed her down, hair fanning wild across the sheets. She started to rise—he shoved her flat, one hand pressing her sternum as he stripped her open slowly, deliberately, devouring every inch of gold revealed.

“Don’t tease—” she panted.

“Not teasing,” he rasped, mouth on her breast, teeth scraping her nipple until her sob split the air. His fingers slid between her thighs, curling inside her heat. “Savoring.”

The magic inside of her howled as she shattered around his fingers, screams muffled against his kiss as her body arched hard enough to make the bedframe groan. Their bond flared bright, shadows writhing across the ceiling.

Before she could breathe, he dragged her hips towards him, lined himself up with a growl, and drove into her. Her cry ripped the air. Power exploded outward, rattling the walls.

Each thrust was deep, brutal, thunderous. Her legs locked around him, feeding his rhythm. The old wood shrieked beneath them. Their bond blazed hotter with every stroke—sparks biting into the stone, wards flaring and cracking as their convergence burned through restraint.

Aurora’s climax hit like a storm, her scream raw and beautiful. Sam roared into her neck as he followed with blinding light and heat

But the storm didn’t stop.

Shadows warped across the floor. Stars outside the windows twisted. Their kiss burned with feral hunger, his thrusts slowing only to punish deeper.

“This isn’t like before,” he panted, voice jagged. “Aurora—it’s bigger.”

Her moan broke, half-laugh, half-sob. “You’re everywhere.”

He shoved her knees high, folding her beneath him, pounding harder, faster. Her cries turned ragged, nails ripping bloodied crescents down his back.

“Harder,” she gasped, wild-eyed. “Don’t stop.”

A snarl tore from his chest as he obeyed, driving her higher, faster, until the walls cracked with every brutal thrust. His eyes blazed, teeth bared in a feral grin as she convulsed around him, screaming his name.

She shattered again, light exploding from her skin in a molten halo.

Their bond pulsed hot, violent, until the air itself warped. Her sob broke when his grace surged into hers—slow, thick, like honey through fire.

“Sam,” she gasped, nails glowing on his shoulders. “What—what is this?”

“I don’t know,” he choked, wrecked. “But I don’t want it to stop.”

Light and shadow clashed overhead like auroras on fire. Every breath was another thread in a tapestry neither could see.

All they felt was the storm. The pull. The ache of a bond with no ceiling anymore.

And as the eclipse deepened, their bodies answered some hidden law older than prophecy.

Not fate. Not chance.

Origin.

He barely recognized the sound she made when she shoved him down onto the mattress—a sharp gasp, almost a growl of her own—but it lit him like a fuse. Aurora straddled him, thighs bracketing his hips, her grace streaking electric gold across her skin.

“I need more,” she panted, voice wrecked, desperate. “All of it. Don’t hold back.”

Sam stared up at her, chest heaving, vision full of her—wild, trembling, radiant. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” he rasped. Because the thing inside him was not soft.

“I do.”

That was it. The leash snapped.

He flipped her fast, dragging her beneath him like gravity had reversed. She gasped, sharp and broken, before he hauled her up onto her knees and slammed into her from behind with a force he’d never used on anyone. Ever.

Her cry split the room—loud, beautiful, completely undone—and it nearly destroyed him.

His hands clamped hard on her hips, keeping her right where he wanted her as his body took over, driving into her again and again. No finesse. No hesitation. Just power and hunger, flesh and fire colliding.

Her grace struggled to stay coherent, vibrating under her skin, sparking with every thrust until she glowed like molten glass barely containing its core. She moaned, sobbed, clawed at the sheets.

“You need this,” he growled.

“Yes—Sam—please—more—”

He leaned over her back, lips hot at her ear, pounding mercilessly. “You begged the stars for me. Touched yourself to the thought of my mouth, my fingers inside you.”

She whimpered, nodding frantically, body convulsing beneath him.

“You burned for me,” he snarled. “Now take what you asked for.”

She broke mid-thrust, climax tearing through her, scream raw and radiant as her grace detonated outward. The room lit like a supernova—gold fire on stone—and still he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. She was shaking, moaning, and still pushing back, demanding more.

“Fuck—” he roared, wrapping one arm around her throat, dragging her upright, the other hand circling between her thighs until she sobbed.

“Say it.”

“I’m yours!” she gasped, voice wrecked. “Yours—all of me—”

“You feel it,” she cried. “Oh god, Sam—your soul—it’s devouring me.”

“You want it,” he rasped, thrusts vicious, desperate. “You always have.”

Her head fell back. “Yes—fuck, yes!”

Their rhythm broke into something primal—beyond mercy, beyond restraint. Her grace flared with every surge, not gentle but blazing, while his blood boiled with divine hunger, demon-shadow laced in holy flame.

Magic howled through the walls. Runes scorched into the grass outside, Iron Oak trembling to its foundations. The stars above lurched, bending to make room.

Inside, the bed cracked beneath them, wood screaming. Aurora writhed, her nails carving divine sigils into his back, sparks burning along his skin. He gripped her thighs, yanking her into him again and again until rhythm dissolved into sheer, grinding ecstasy.

The eclipse crested.

The cottage shook.

Sam’s growl vibrated through her chest as he slammed deep, over and over, until she came apart in a scream that burst golden light across the ceiling. He followed with a roaring release, pouring into her with brutal, perfect finality—his body, his grace, his soul.

It filled her. Claimed her. Anchored in her.

Aurora arched, mouth open in a silent cry as his essence buried itself deep—not just in her body, but in her grace. Not a flood but an implantation of something new. Something eternal.

They collapsed onto one another, breath ragged, sweat-slick, undone. Sam cupped her cheek, trembling. She turned into it, dazed. Her whole form shimmered like dusk-lit water, gold and crimson veins trailing smoke into the air.

She didn’t speak. Not yet.

Because some truths were too vast to name.

The eclipse had begun to fade, its bruised light drifting off the cottage roof like smoke from a snuffed candle. Outside, the loch stilled, reflective as if it too had been holding its breath.

Inside, the air still glowed faintly—runes along the baseboards pulsing in rhythm with two heartbeats bound beyond flesh.

Aurora was curled against him, one leg tangled with his, her curls damp across his chest. Sleep tugged at her, her breath soft, but her body shimmered faintly—grace still humming in her skin like the echo of a bell rung too hard. Her fingers rested at his ribs, relaxed, instinctive.

Sam stared at the ceiling, too raw to close his eyes. The convergence had shifted something inside him—everything, maybe. He could still feel the weave of her grace threaded through his own, his soul adjusting to her like iron to magnet.

And then—

Something new.

Subtle. A beat out of rhythm. A thread sewn into the tapestry that hadn’t been there before.

Sam stilled, heart thundering. It wasn’t hers. Not fully. It was within her. A spark, quiet and sure, tucked beneath her ribs. Not demonic. Not divine. Something… becoming.

Aurora shifted in her sleep, brow furrowing. Without waking, her hand slid from his side to her own stomach, palm flattening there. A faint flare of light answered her touch.

Sam’s throat went dry. He hovered his fingers over her belly, trembling. The light rose again, like it recognized him.

Aurora gasped awake, sharp and uncertain. Her golden eyes found his instantly, wide and searching.

“You’re… different,” he whispered.

Her hands pressed lower, eyes filling with tears she didn’t bother to hide. A sound left her—half laugh, half sob—as light bloomed softly beneath her palms.

“I feel it,” she breathed. “Sam—it’s in me. Not just your grace. Not just power. Something alive. It’s… growing.”

He sat up, stunned, cupping her face like she might vanish. “Aurora—what—”

Her tears spilled, molten as starlight. “I didn’t think I could. Chuck bound me. He broke my grace. I thought that part of me was dead.”

Sam’s voice cracked. “Then what is this?”

Her lips trembled, but her eyes burned with certainty. “I think you rewrote me.”

The words shattered him.

Aurora laughed then—wet, radiant, wild—and kissed him hard, clinging like she might never let go. When she pulled back, her gaze devoured him. “You’ve made me able to carry life. Not in flesh. In grace. Sam—you did what even he couldn’t.”

Sam’s arms tightened around her, protective, terrified, undone. “I didn’t know I could.”

“I know,” she whispered, pressing her forehead to his. “That’s why it worked.”

The cottage walls thrummed faintly. The air sang with potential.

Aurora’s grace pulsed, not in warning, but in rhythm—steady, growing. And Sam felt it answer inside him, the new spark already pulling them into orbit.

Not prophecy. Not chance.

Inevitability.

The room hadn’t returned to normal. It couldn’t.

The walls still breathed, pulsing with something deeper than grace—something raw, stitched fresh into the marrow of creation. Light drifted along the beams like the afterimage of fire, but it wasn’t fire. It was memory. Memory of what they’d just made.

Sam lay beneath the sheets, skin streaked faint with fading glow, every scar lit like molten wire. His chest rose in slow, uneven breaths, not from exhaustion but from awe that left no room for words. Aurora curled against him, cheek pressed to his sternum, hair a bronze halo spilled across his skin.

And between them—

Something new.

Two somethings.

Her eyes opened, gold too bright for the dim room. She pressed her palm to his chest, then lower, over her own belly. Her breath caught.

“I can feel them,” she whispered.

Sam listened intently. 

Two steady thrumbeats. Not flesh, not yet—but real. Sparks of becoming. Twin suns nested in her light.

A rough sound tore out of him—half laugh, half disbelief. “Twins. Of course it’s twins.”

Aurora’s laugh broke too, wild and luminous, tangled with tears that shone like molten gold. “I thought… I thought I would never feel this. Never be this.”

Sam cupped her face, thumb catching the streak of her joy. “Chuck bound you. Tried to make you a cage for his story. But this—” He pressed her hand harder to his chest, where his heart hammered. “This is ours.”

Her tears spilled anyway. She shook with laughter through them, radiant and disbelieving. “They’re real, Sam. Two souls. Whole. Bright.”

“I feel them too,” he said, voice cracking. His eyes burned, crimson edged with gold. “Like they’re in my blood already. I can’t… I can’t hold still. My body wants to fight the whole damn world for them.”

Her smile was fierce, golden. “Because you’re meant to. Because they’re ours.”

Their bond flared—not wildfire this time, but ember. Steady. Alive. Anchored.

Aurora whispered against his chest, her voice trembling but sure. “It was never going to be anyone else. Only you.”

His mouth brushed her hair, reverent and rough all at once. “Only us.”

Outside, the eclipse had passed, but the world hadn’t exhaled. The air stayed taut, metallic, bent like it knew two new stars had entered its orbit.

And in the cottage’s heart, Sam and Aurora lay wrapped in each other, while the pulse of two new lives quickened—grace and blood weaving stronger with every beat.

Undeniable.

Inevitable.

His feral edge knew it.

Her joy crowned it.

And the universe itself leaned closer, bracing for what came next.

Chapter Text

Aurora stood at the edge of the room, wrapped in a robe that still steamed faintly from the bath. Her damp curls clung to her shoulders, golden eyes uncharacteristically quiet.

“They’re going to stare at me like I’m a bomb,” she murmured.

From the armchair, Sam’s voice was dry. “That’s because you are. A really elegant, terrifying, light-drenched bomb.”

She gave him a flat look. “Not helpful.”

He rose, crossing to her, sliding his arms around her waist. “Wasn’t trying to be. I meant it.”

Her hands spread across his chest, fingers curling in his shirt like she needed the feel of him to stay grounded. “Do you think they’ll understand? Rowena, Sabine… the others?”

“No,” Sam said bluntly. “But they’ll feel it. The moment you walk in, they’ll know. You don’t explain a tidal wave. You survive it.”

Her lips twitched, but didn’t quite smile. “I don’t want to frighten them.”

“Too late.” He brushed damp curls from her cheek. “You already eclipsed the sun. You’re radiant, pregnant, and tied to the one guy everyone thought would die miserable in a library.”

She huffed a laugh. “Sam.”

“They’re scared because they can’t control you. Or me. Or this.” His hand ghosted over her stomach with warmth and reverence . “We’re not in their book anymore.”

Aurora leaned into his touch, eyes fluttering shut. “They’ll think I did this on purpose.”

“Let them,” Sam murmured. “You’re the Source. You’re creation, Aurora. You get to choose now. Real choices.”

Her eyes lifted to his, and for a moment the old fear bled through. “What if I unmake it? What if I unmake you? I feel it, Sam. I’m not the same. I don’t know what they need yet.”

“You won’t break me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you didn’t claim me. You let me choose you.” His hand cupped her jaw. “That’s why it worked.”

She stared at him until her breath caught. Then she pulled away slightly, shaking her head. “We should dress. If we’re late, Dean will start pounding the door like an impatient valet.”

Sam groaned. “With Cas behind him—divine quality control.”

Aurora glanced down at herself, hesitating. “Do I look different? To you?”

His smile was soft, crooked. “You look like the beginning of the world.”

She actually blinked at that, startled by the intimacy in it. Then she kissed him—light, reverent, like a promise.

“Alright then,” she said quietly. “Let’s go scare the hell out of them.”

Dean leaned against the stone railing outside the council hall, chewing a toothpick like it was the only thing keeping him from exploding.

Beside him, Castiel stood in a dark jacket, trench coat abandoned—almost civilian, if not for the weight in his eyes.

The wind pressed low across the grounds. Wards hummed overhead like a tuning fork struck inside the estate’s bones.

“You feel that?” Dean muttered.

“I’ve felt it all morning,” Cas replied.

Dean flicked the toothpick away. “Like the air’s thicker. Like something hatched.”

Cas tilted his head. “Or was born.”

Dean grimaced. “That’s worse.”

There was a pause. The kind that carried weight.

“I saw the sky ripple at sunrise,” Dean added. “Like someone poured color back into it. Like it’d been gray all this time and I didn’t notice until it wasn’t.”

Cas didn’t answer, gaze pinned on the treeline.

Dean side-eyed him. “You gonna explain, or just brood until lightning hits?”

Cas finally spoke, “It means they’ve crossed a threshold. Sam and Aurora. Their convergence reshaped grace itself. Reality’s still echoing.”

Dean scratched the back of his neck. “I hate how often we start sentences like that these days.”

Cas’s eyes flickered faintly. “I think it means they conceived.”

Dean straightened. “Conceived? As in cosmic bun, celestial oven?”

“I wouldn’t phrase it that way,” Cas muttered.

“Well, I did. That’s called coping.” Dean’s mouth twisted. “Humor, denial, cholesterol. It’s a system.”

Cas turned, gaze sharpening. “Dean. This is unprecedented. What’s inside Aurora isn’t angelic. Or human. It’s new. Unwritten. And we’re standing at the edge of it.”

Dean went quiet. “So what the hell do we do about it?” he asked roughly. 

Cas didn’t hesitate. “We stand with them.”

Before Dean could reply, the doors behind them groaned—low, resonant, like the stone recognized something before the people did.

Dean turned.

At the far end of the path, Sam and Aurora appeared—hand in hand, moving with a gravity that made even the wards hum. The air shimmered in their wake. Aurora’s grace burned like a living halo. Sam’s eyes, caught in the fractured light, glowed gold and crimson.

And beneath it all, if you knew how to listen—two heartbeats pulsed within her grace.

Dean exhaled slowly. “Yep. Definitely gonna need more toothpicks.”

Cas stepped forward, shoulders squared. “Time to go inside.”

They walked into the Council chamber like teenagers sneaking in after curfew—trying for casual, failing miserably.

The room went dead quiet. Not reverent. Not hostile. Just… rattled.

Something permanent had happened.

Aurora’s veins glowed faint gold beneath her skin, her curls threaded with shimmer. Rowena’s eyes widened first, sharp as ever. Then the ripple spread—Sabine’s breath catching, Selwyn blinking like he’d been slapped. A prayer muttered. A cross drawn. A vampire growling, “Bloody unnatural.”

Predators realizing they weren’t the apex anymore.

Dean, Cas, Rowena, Henry, and Markus flanked them. No words. No smiles. Just gravity.

Dean broke the silence. “So. Nobody’s gonna say it?”

Nothing. Chairs creaked. Eyes darted.

Dean gestured at Aurora, smirking. “Cosmic boom. Sky lit up. Pregnancy aura brighter than Vegas. You’re all too polite to mention the apocalypse’s cutest first trimester?”

Laughter cracked—thin, nervous, false.

Sabine rose carefully. “What exactly… are we witnessing?”

Sam’s voice carried low, steady, a resonance that made the chandelier quiver. “The eclipse was conception. Not prophecy. Not fate. Choice. And it’s already changing the world.”

Aurora added, sharp as steel “We are not asking for permission.”

The chamber rippled with gasps, mutters, curses.

Selwyn stepped forward. “Do you even know what’s inside you?”

“Not yet,” Sam said. “But we’ll protect it.”

Dean cut in, hard. “And so will we.”

Aurora’s glow sharpened. “We told you because the storm has already started. You’re either under our roof, or in its path.”

One witch panicked, shouting, “They’ll come for all of us because of you!”

Aurora’s gaze cut like a blade. “That’s why you choose a side.”

The tension fractured—arguments spilling, a vampire sneering about curses, a Viennese warlock railing about collateral damage. Dean’s voice snapped through them like gunfire, “Keep talking, and you’ll learn real quick what happens when you threaten her.”

Rowena, ever the queen, leaned back with a glittering smile. “Curiosity’s cheap, darlings. Fear’s expensive. And right now, survival’s running up quite a bill.”

Markus’s voice followed, lazy but lethal. “Stop whining like victims. What you’ve been handed is a shield. Stand under it, or get out of the way.”

Henry’s tone was final. “What’s conceived cannot be undone. Decide where you stand—now—or wait until war decides for you.”

The chandelier rattled again.

Sam’s voice grounded the room. “This is happening. You don’t have to like it. But you will live—or fall—by your choice.”

Aurora’s light flared once, final. “Choose. Survive. Or scatter.”

The silence after wasn’t confusion. It was decision.

Rowena clapped her hands, too bright. “Well. Lines drawn. Hearts aflutter. Delightful.”

Dean muttered, low, dangerous: “This was just the opening act.”

And the chamber knew he was right.

The chamber buzzed, mutters rippling like vermin in the walls. Tension was a fraying wire.

Henry stepped forward, shoulders squared, flame-red hair catching the light. His voice cut clean across the noise.

“Enough.”

Silence dropped.

“When balance shifts, the Council does not scatter. We decide. We stand. That is the law.” His gaze raked over them, cold and merciless. “You may fear what you see. You may hate it. Doesn’t matter. What is conceived cannot be undone. Break that truth, and you break yourself.”

A warlock started to rise. Henry’s hand snapped up, silencing him.

“You will not poison this with cowardice. The world is watching. If you cannot stomach what is required, step aside—quietly. Permanently.”

The chandelier above groaned in agreement.

Markus stood, tossing his half-eaten apple onto the table with a loud thud. His grin was all blade.

“Let me make this simple. My name is Winchester. That means two rules: protect what matters, end what threatens it. Aurora matters. Sam matters. These children matter. Anyone here moves against them—” his smile widened, teeth bared “—I put you in the ground myself.”

A ripple of discomfort shuddered through the chamber. A witch hissed; Markus pinned her with a look until she dropped her eyes.

“Don’t mistake me,” he went on, lighter now, mocking. “We’re not asking you to kneel. You don’t have to like it. You just follow the rules. Sit on this council? You stay. You fight with us. Or you walk out those doors and never come back.”

Henry’s hand came down on the table, iron finality. “That is the covenant. Break it, and you answer to all of us.”

The silence was different now—cornered, not frantic.

Then a witch near the back snapped, voice shrill. “This is madness! You expect us to kneel to a pregnancy none of us understand? To gamble our lives on—”

Dean’s voice cut across her, low and sharp. “Careful.”

She froze. Dean leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, eyes like gun barrels. “Call it pregnancy, apocalypse, fairy tale—I don’t care. What matters is this: if you so much as think about plotting against them, I’ll know. And I’ll end you before you light a candle.”

She sat. Hard.

A vampire wasn’t as wise. He shoved his chair aside, growling. “This isn’t a council anymore. It’s a cult. You expect us to bow to a Winchester and his glowing—”

Markus was on him in a blink, a hand at his throat as he pinned him to the wall. His grin was vicious, humorless.

“You don’t get to finish that sentence,” Markus murmured. “Open your mouth like that again, and I’ll decorate this hall with your ashes.”

The vampire choked. Markus let him crumple back into his chair, then dusted his hands as if he’d straightened a painting.

“See?” he said brightly. “Rules. They keep things tidy.”

No one else rose.

Dean leaned back, smirking without warmth. “Now we’re on the same page.”

Aurora didn’t move. She didn’t need to. Her glow filled the chamber, steady, unyielding. Sam’s presence pressed down like gravity made flesh.

Henry’s voice sealed it, calm and final. “Let there be no confusion. Sam and Aurora are under this Council’s protection. From here to the ends of the world. Break that covenant—and you break against us.”

The chamber sat cowed for a moment, forced to reckon with a truth older than any law: iron bends for no one.

The chamber was still trembling from Markus slamming the vampire into silence when another voice cut through—high, bitter, venomous.

A wiry warlock at the coven table lurched to his feet, face carved by spite. His hands shook, but not with fear but with rage.

“No,” he spat. “I won’t bow. Not to her. Not to him. You’re not saviors—you’re abominations. Look at you!” His finger jabbed at Sam, trembling with fury. “The boy who drank demon blood, who should’ve been put down long ago. And now you’re breeding? This isn’t a council—it’s the start of a plague.”

Shouts erupted, chairs scraped—but the man wasn’t finished. He sneered at Aurora, his words thick with venom.

“You think you’re a queen? A goddess? You’re just a womb with a leash tied to a monster.”

Everything snapped.

Sam didn’t move like a man. He moved like inevitability. One moment he was at Aurora’s side—the next, the warlock was pinned against the wall, feet kicking at empty air, throat crushed by an invisible hand.

The chandelier above shuddered violently, light flaring, runes sparking to life like they recognized the execution already underway.

Sam’s voice was low, feral. A sound from under the earth.

“Say it again.”

The warlock’s face purpled, veins bulging. Nails clawed at nothing. The table splintered under the force bleeding off Sam’s restraint.

“Sam,” Aurora said sharp but steady. He didn’t turn.

Dean shifted forward, but froze at the look on Sam’s face. This wasn’t rage or vengeance. It was older. Darker. Primal.

The grip tightened. The man’s body convulsed, choking, eyes rolling white.

Aurora moved. Her hand pressed to Sam’s arm. Not pulling because no one could pull him back. It was just a tether. Just her.

“Enough,” she whispered. Not plea. Command.

For a long, trembling beat, Sam’s eyes stayed locked on the warlock’s. Then, slowly, he let go.

The body collapsed to the floor, wheezing, crawling away in shame. The chamber stank of ozone and fear. No one else rose.

Sam turned back to Aurora. Then she saw it. The truth burning in his eyes.

The eclipse hadn’t crowned them. Prophecy hadn’t forged this. He had. Sam Winchester, feral, grieving, in love beyond reason, had bent heaven itself to protect her and what they would create.

Aurora’s chest ached. She felt it in her blood, in her bones. Their children weren’t fate’s doing. They were his will, his need, carved into reality.

She turned to the council, glow pulsing steady, voice unyielding.

“You see him now. You see us. We are not a petition. Not a prophecy waiting to be stopped. We are permanent.”

No one whispered. No one dared breathe.

The old rules cracked in silence, the room forced to witness what had just been born.

The chamber dissolved into whispers and scraping chairs. The council scattered like prey after a predator’s roar—Rowena smirking, Sabine silent, Selwyn gone without a word. No one else dared meet his eyes. Not after what they’d seen.

Dean and Cas stayed close. Henry and Markus held the door like sentinels. But the air was still heavy, iron and ozone, when Aurora stopped and turned to him.

“Sam.”

Her voice cut through the noise like a wire pulled tight.

He stopped, searching her face, waiting—he always waited for her to speak first. Her hand pressed flat to his chest. His heart thudded steady under her palm, but he felt her feeling something larger, something under the beat. Not sky. Not prophecy. Him.

“It wasn’t the eclipse,” she said, low but certain.

He blinked. “What?”

Her eyes burned into his. “The world didn’t bend because of alignment. It bent because of you. Because you needed me. Because you gave me all of yourself without hesitation. Not fate. Not Chuck. You.”

His throat worked. “I just—” The words cracked on the way out. “I just needed you to have all of me. Every part. Nothing held back. That’s all it was.”

She looked like she wanted to tell him more—that his will had pulled the sky into alignment, that the eclipse itself had bowed to his need—but she only whispered:

“You’ve already changed the world, Sam. And now you’ll kill it if it tries to take me. Or them.”

The words hung like a blade between them.

He didn’t deny it. Couldn’t. His silence was darker than any vow.

She leaned into him, forehead against his chest, her glow seeping into his storm. “Then let it break,” she murmured. “We’ll hold each other.”

His arms went around her automatically, fierce, unyielding. He felt it in himself—the same primal force that had bent the heavens once already. It would do it again.

For the first time in centuries she was both terrified and safe. And for the first time in his life, so was he.

Her forehead pressed to his chest, her light soaking into him like sunlight through scars. And all he could think was: she knows.

Her words rang in him sharper than any blade. It wasn’t the eclipse. It was you.

He wanted to deny it. Blame prophecy. Blame fate. Anything but himself. Because if she was right, then his need for her, raw and unrestrained, had bent the heavens. Not because it was written. Because he couldn’t hold back.

In the chamber, with that bastard choking on nothing but his will, he’d felt it again—the instinct that rose in him whenever anyone dared look at her like prey.

What am I becoming?

Worse still—Do I care?

Because he didn’t regret it. Not for a second.

He remembered the eclipse like it was still overhead: her body burning against his, his soul ripped bare and poured into her. He had wanted her to have all of him. Needed it. And he’d do it again.

Her voice lingered: You’ll kill the world if it dares try to take me or our children.

And she was right. He could feel it in his blood, in the heat that never left him since. He would burn Heaven, Hell, and every creed between before he let them touch her.

The thought steadied him.

He lowered his chin, breathed her in. For once there was no leash, no master, no script. Just choice. And he had chosen her. Again and again—until the sky itself had bent.

“I don’t regret it,” he murmured into her hair. “Not one damn thing.”

Her head lifted, golden light catching, and she looked at him as if she was finally seeing what had always been there.

“All my life,” she whispered, fingers trembling against his cheek, “men loved fragments of me. My beauty. My power. The idea of me. And when I slipped beyond their reach, they cursed me for it.” Her lips curved, fierce and soft. “But you… you wanted me whole. Even the dark parts. Especially the dark parts.”

His breath caught.

She pressed her forehead to his again, her glow steadying his storm. “That’s why the sky broke. Because you didn’t hold back. You gave me everything.”

Her voice sharpened, silk wrapped around steel. “Let them try to cage me. Let them try to kill me. They don’t understand. I am safe now. Because you will burn everything that dares touch me.”

He closed his eyes, her words sealing into him like a brand.

And Aurora, at last, exhaled. The first breath of true safety she had ever taken.

The council chamber had wrung him dry. Too many voices, too many sideways looks. Dean wasn’t built for politics. He was built for fights. And right now, watching his brother terrify a room full of immortals counted as both.

He found Sam hunched over a table in one of Iron Oak’s side rooms, lamplight carving the hollows of his face deep. He looked heavier somehow, like the weight he carried was finally visible.

Dean dropped into the chair across from him, boots hitting stone with a thud.

“You know, Sammy,” he muttered, “after we iced Chuck I thought maybe I’d get a break. Beer that didn’t taste like regret. Fishing, even. Instead, you knock up a cosmic goddess during an eclipse. Real considerate.”

Sam huffed a laugh, but his shoulders stayed taut.

Dean studied him, then leaned in, voice dropping. “That thing you did in there—when you grabbed that warlock without lifting a finger? That scared the hell outta me. Not just ‘cause of what you can do now. Because it wasn’t power running wild. It was you. Choosing.”

Sam’s eyes lifted, wary. “And that doesn’t scare you more?”

Dean’s jaw tightened. “You remember what it was like, right? When you were juiced up on demon blood? You could wipe out whole nests in seconds. I watched you drink that crap like it was oxygen. And yeah, you killed demons, but it ate you alive at the same time. I was scared I was gonna lose you to it. Hell, I almost did.”

Sam didn’t answer, but his throat worked.

Dean’s voice softened, but it stayed rough. “But this? This isn’t that. This isn’t poison or addiction. This is your biology. Your design. You’re not getting high off it. You’re steering it. You’re still you. That’s what scared me today. Not that you had the power, God knows, you’ve always had it. But that for once, you weren’t running from it. You stood there and decided no one touches her. And you meant it.”

Sam leaned back, mouth tight. Not in shame this time, but something steadier. “And if I lose control?”

Dean shook his head. “Then Aurora hauls you back. Every damn time. She’s already done it. You’re not white-knuckling this alone anymore.”

He drummed his fingers on the table, grinning despite himself. “Point is—world-bender, dad, apocalypse’s proud parent—you don’t gotta carry it alone. You got me. You got Cas. Hell, even Rowena, God help us. And if you ever start acting like this is a drug again, I’ll knock you flat on your ass.”

At last, Sam’s shoulders eased. A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “Balance, huh?”

“Damn right,” Dean said. “I’m the balance. Always have been.”

Sam laughed then—low, genuine—and the sound settled into the old stones like a ward renewed. For the first time since the eclipse, Dean felt the ground steady beneath them.

The cottage door wasn’t locked. Of course it wasn’t.

Rowena pushed it open with one elegant hand, Sabine close behind.

Heat hit them first. Not warmth but pure heat. Saturated. Laced with sweat, smoke, and something older and wilder. Divine. The kind of air that stuck to the lungs and left you trembling. Wards hung half-melted, sparking faintly in the walls. The stones themselves seemed to breathe.

The bed was a ruin. Headboard split, feathers in every corner, singed walls, a lamp shattered across the floor. Claw marks raked deep into the plaster, desperate, exalting.

But the magic. The magic was still here.

It vibrated in the marrow, thick, feral, holy. A pulse pressing against their chests, too much like a heartbeat.

Rowena stepped forward, and it caught her.

Not sight. Not sound. Sensation.

Heat burning her throat. Nails carving skin. Teeth at the soft place where neck met shoulder. Aurora’s rapturous scream tearing through the air. Sam’s weight pinning, driving, breaking the bed beneath them. The raw thunder of their bond pouring through her veins as if it were her own.

Rowena staggered, hand shooting out to catch the dresser. Her body betrayed her. Cheeks flushed, thighs pressed together, breath ragged. “Bloody—” The word strangled itself in her throat.

Sabine’s pupils were blown wide, chest rising too fast. “That wasn’t sex,” she whispered, voice wrecked. “That was creation.”

Rowena’s fingers trembled as she brushed the shimmer above the ruined sheets. The air struck her again. Another flash: Aurora’s back arching in light, Sam’s hand locking at her throat, his growl low and feral in her ear. Pleasure like scripture. Pain remade into worship.

Rowena choked on a gasp, eyes glassy. She’d come looking for proof. What she found was more than she could stand.

“They scarred the walls with it,” she whispered hoarsely. “The eclipse didn’t mark them. They marked it.”

Sabine tore her gaze from the bed, shaking. “If we stayed here long enough, it would change us.”

Rowena laughed thinly, envy twisting it raw. “It already has.”

Because this was more than intimacy. This was what no spell could conjure, what no ritual could counterfeit: to be met without fear. To be taken whole—darkness, ruin, power—and answered with equal ferocity. Aurora had it. Aurora had him.

And every woman alive would feel the sting. Because they knew, instantly, they would never be chosen like this. Not with such awe. Not with such hunger. Not with such holy ruin.

Sabine whispered, low and bitter. “No wonder the sky bent.”

Rowena’s lips curled, but her eyes glistened, unguarded. “Greedy bastards. They make love and it becomes scripture.”

They fled the room at last, breathless, rattled, burning with jealousy they would never name.

Behind them, the sheets glowed faintly still—gold braided with crimson, spiraling like incense into the rafters, whispering of something permanent as law.

Aurora’s head snapped up first.

She had been curled against Sam in the quiet of Iron Oak’s western wing, her glow dimmed to something human-soft. But suddenly her body stiffened, golden fire racing under her skin like a struck match.

Sam felt it a heartbeat later. A sharp ripple through the bond—foreign, invasive, wrong. His chest seized. His vision tunneled. His fist drove into the blanket hard enough the chair beneath him groaned.

“They touched it,” Aurora whispered. Her voice wasn’t soft. It cracked like a blade. “Rowena. Sabine. They went into the cottage.” Her hand pressed to her chest, over the bond. “They reached for us.”

The air itself pulsed. Sam’s blood boiled in his throat. He felt their trespass like grease on sacred glass, like nails on skin that wasn’t theirs to touch. His jaw flexed until his teeth ached. “They don’t get to touch it.”

Aurora caught his face between her hands, glow burning against his cheekbones. But her own eyes were molten, sharp as judgment. “And yet they did. And the bond burned them for it.”

Sam froze. And then he felt it—the echo, faint but sure. The lash of fire and shadow his bond had struck out on instinct. A brand left behind. His breath ripped free, half snarl, half savage satisfaction.

“They’ll think twice,” Aurora murmured, steadying him even as her light flared hotter.

“Not enough,” Sam growled, voice low thunder. “If they do it again—”

“They won’t,” she cut in, steel in her glow. “Because now they know. What’s ours isn’t theirs.”

His hand closed over hers where it pressed against his chest, heat thrumming like a live brand. His voice was steady but feral beneath. “They’ll remember.”

And outside, in the orchard, two witches staggered from the cottage—Rowena flushed and trembling, Sabine’s aura sparking out of control. Across their palms faint sigils smoldered, seared there by something greater than spellcraft.

A mark that whispered, undeniable:

You trespassed.

You survived.

Do not return.

The corridor outside the cottage was cooler, but not enough to strip it from them.

Rowena still glowed faintly, pupils blown wide, lips parted like she’d swallowed lightning and wine together. Her cheeks were flushed, her pulse running too fast, her thighs pressed close without meaning to. Sabine was worse. She was trembling, her aura sparking silver-blue like an overstrung harp. They moved like women leaving a shrine where something divine had spoken and had let them listen when they shouldn’t have.

Selwyn was waiting in the archway. Not lounging this time. Still. Straight-backed. Watching with sharp eyes that saw too much.

“You went inside,” he said. Not a question. A judgment.

Neither witch answered. They didn’t need to. The hum clung to them, thin threads of gold and crimson woven into their very breath.

Selwyn stepped closer. His smirk wasn’t playful—it was surgical. “And you felt it. The storm they’ve made of themselves. You touched the air, and it touched you back.”

Rowena lifted her chin, but her voice was raw, betraying the tremor she couldn’t suppress. “It was an imprint.”

“No,” Selwyn said, soft as a blade sliding between ribs. “It was a claim. On the room. On you. On me. On the world. That wasn’t residue—it was law.”

Sabine flinched, whispering hoarsely, “It was more than ritual. More than prophecy.”

Selwyn’s gaze sliced between them. “You thought you were witnessing intimacy. What you saw was sovereignty.”

Rowena’s nails bit crescents into her palms. Her body still hummed from what she’d felt. The echo of Aurora’s cry, Sam’s growl, the weight of it pounding through the very stones. She admired Aurora, more than she ever admitted. Her elegance, her defiance, her fire. But this was different. This was Aurora answered. Aurora crowned. Aurora loved in a way that no spell, no pact, no kingdom could counterfeit.

And Rowena hated how much her body ached for it. Hated how much her heart twisted knowing she would never be chosen like that—seen whole, darkness and all, and met without fear. It wasn’t just jealousy. It was grief.

Selwyn leaned closer, voice low, reverent with menace. “Do you understand what they’ve done? They bent creation around their bond. They planted something in the soil of reality, and already it’s sprouting. You can’t out-chant it. You can’t unmake it. You can only survive it.”

Silence fell, hot and heavy. Sabine trembled with awe, her hands twitching like she wanted to ward herself, or touch it again. Rowena’s eyes burned, too bright, caught between envy and reverence.

Finally Selwyn straightened, his voice carrying like prophecy.

“They are not asking the world to bend. They already made it.”

He turned, walking away, his last words a curse and a promise all at once:

“And gods help us all when they decide it isn’t enough.”

Rain slashed against the leaded panes, the wind shoving at the glass hard enough to make it tremble. Beyond the oak walls the storm rolled deep and endless across the moors, thunder growling like some old beast that hadn’t been fed in years. Iron Oak didn’t flinch—it had seen worse—but the house breathed with it, timbers creaking, banners stirring restlessly overhead.

Dean kicked his boots off and let them thud against the wall. He dropped into a wide leather chair, elbows on his knees, dragging a hand down his face. “You know, I thought the worst thing I’d hear today was Rowena’s smug I-told-you-so. Turns out it was my baby brother announcing he just rewrote biology.”

Cas sat across from him, jacket neatly draped over the armrest, his stillness unnerving as ever. “It wasn’t biology he rewrote.”

Dean gave a humorless laugh. “Yeah, thanks. Real comforting. Biology, physics—whatever. You heard that room. Half wanted to light a candle, half wanted to sharpen a stake.”

“And you?” Cas asked.

Dean leaned back, staring at the beams overhead while the wind moaned in the rafters. “Me? I wanna hand Sam a beer and tell him he’s an idiot. Then dig a bunker so deep the sun forgets about us. Guess which one I’ll actually do.”

Cas’s gaze softened. “Dean… this was always going to happen. Sam has been orbiting Aurora since the moment they met. The eclipse only made visible what was already true.”

Dean huffed. “You sound like a Hallmark card written by a trench coat.”

“Perhaps. But I meant it. Their bond is unprecedented. Dangerous, yes. But it’s theirs. And it feels… right.”

Dean’s mouth twitched—half grin, half grimace. “Right. Sure. Except now she’s carrying something nobody can name, and every predator out there just scented blood.”

Cas leaned forward. “Then we stand between them and the door. As we always have.”

Dean looked at him, long and searching, then exhaled. “You make it sound easy.”

“It isn’t,” Cas said. “But it’s necessary.”

The thunder rolled closer, shaking the panes. Silence filled the gaps like armor.

Dean scrubbed a hand down his face. “Sam knocked up the Source of Creation. Even for us, that’s one hell of a headline.”

“It was inevitable.”

Dean snorted. “Boy meets cosmic girl, eclipse does the rest. Hallmark movie of the week. Doesn’t mean I gotta like the fallout.”

“You’re afraid,” Cas said, plain as fact.

Dean shot him a look. “Yeah, no kidding. Every other time Sam touched power it gutted him—demon blood, Lucifer, the trials. I spent my whole life dragging him back from the edge. And now? He looks at Aurora like he’s daring the edge to blink first.”

“And part of you is proud.”

Dean’s laugh was sharp. “That’s the sick part. Proud and scared. Sammy’s finally standing like he doesn’t care who sees him. And me? I’m wondering if I can keep up—or if I’m just the guy holding the doors shut while gods rewrite the script.”

Cas’s voice was steady. “You’ve never been just the man at the door. You are his anchor. His witness. What steadies him when the storm threatens to take everything.”

Dean stared into the embers. Rain hammered harder. “Anchor, huh? Feels more like a sandbag some days. Like he’s building a volcano and I’m stacking buckets around it.”

“He doesn’t need you to hold him back,” Cas said softly. “He needs you to believe he can survive it.”

Dean leaned back, breath shuddering. “Damn, Cas. You always know how to hit a guy in the gut.”

“That’s because you never say these things unless someone forces you to.”

Dean smirked despite himself. “Yeah, well. Don’t get used to it.”

The fire popped. The storm rattled the windows. For a long while, they let the weather do the talking.

Finally Dean muttered, “Guess I’ll stand there. Same as always. No matter what he’s becoming.”

Cas’s eyes didn’t waver. “And I’ll stand with you.”

Dean set the whiskey aside, then crooked a finger. “C’mere.”

Cas crossed the small space, banners stirring overhead, and lowered himself onto the wide chair. Dean wrapped an arm around him, pulling him close until the weight of the day eased.

Cas angled his head and kissed him—ember-slow, tasting of whiskey and storm. Dean sighed into it, letting the calm in his arms match the fury outside.

When they broke apart, Dean rested his forehead against Cas’s. “Feels different now. Not just us. Everything. Like the whole damn house is listening.”

“Let it listen,” Cas murmured. “It should know what we’ve chosen.”

Dean kissed him again, softer, then pulled him fully into his lap. Cas went willingly, grounding him more than any grace ever could. Dean buried his face in Cas’s shoulder and just breathed, the storm rattling the windows, the fire humming low.

The manor held. And for once, Dean let himself be held too.

Chapter Text

It happened fast—because that’s how cowards operate.

One minute, Selwyn Briarwood was adjusting a wardstone on the western wall—alone but humming something soft and off-key. The next, the air cracked sideways.

Six bodies shimmered into view mid-stride, cloaked in military-grade concealment spells, peeled off by the wards like rotten fruit. One raised a gun. Another whispered a containment sigil. A third lunged, blade drawn.

Selwyn didn't scream.

He moved.

The first intruder got a fist of glamour and bone through the chest. The second triggered the fail-safe ward and convulsed, mouth frothing violet. But the third was silent and surgical, landing a cut along Selwyn’s ribs, silver-laced. He staggered, blood hissing against the cold stone.

Iron Oak didn’t howl like a castle under siege. It hunted.

The wards didn’t keep them out. They let them in then snapped shut like a bear trap.

By the time Markus and Henry came running, it wasn’t an ambush. It was going to be a meat grinder.

Markus reached them first—shirt half-buttoned, barefoot, expression murderous. He didn’t speak. He didn't need to. His body moved like it remembered war.

The agent who turned to face him died before he could blink. Markus’s hand shoved through his ribcage like wet paper, pulling out something that might have been a heart. He didn’t check.

Henry was quieter, which was worse. A blur of tailored sleeves and old-world steel, slicing a throat, spinning to snap a neck, muttering something cold and Latin over the last.

They were clean men. Elegant men. But there was nothing clean about what they did next.

Blood pooled like ink across the stones. One attacker tried to flee, found the threshold blocked by runes burning bright blue. His own shadow ate him.

Selwyn had gone to his knees, hand pressed to his side, glamour flickering. When Markus crouched beside him, he swore quietly.

“You alright?”

Selwyn managed a thin smile. “Better than they are.”

Only one was left alive—barely. Half-conscious. Markus stepped over a cooling body and grabbed the agent by the collar.

“You picked the wrong ghost house to piss on.”

And then he dragged him toward the manor.

The wards shrieked like war horns.

Sam was already moving. Aurora didn’t flinch—she simply turned, fully healed, gold-bright and steady, grace coiling around her shoulders like heat lightning. Castiel disappeared in a ripple of light. Dean grabbed his blade without a word.

By the time they reached the hall, Markus was dragging a man by the collar. Boot heels thunked wetly against the stone.

“He’s the only one left,” Markus said, breath sharp. “The others are—”

“Handled no doubt,” Aurora finished. Her voice was quiet, cold.

Dean jerked his chin toward the stairwell. “Put him in the cells.”

They didn’t use the cells often but Iron Oak wasn’t built for mercy. The rooms still smelled of salt, blood, and the kind of truths carved into bone.

Markus dragged the surviving agent down the stone spiral, one hand twisted in the back of his collar. The man's boots scraped the steps. His breath hitched on every impact.

The Iron Oak holding cells hadn’t seen use in decades. But, they remembered.

Runes along the walls shimmered like freshly inked scars. The door groaned open.

Sam waited by the iron chair. He didn’t speak.

Dean stood in the doorway, arms crossed. Stormlight licked his throat and flickered across his knuckles.

Markus threw the agent into the chair. The restraints snapped shut.

Aurora entered last, her light dimmer than before but focused. Surgical.

The room stank of old blood and promise.

Dean approached the agent slowly.
 “Well,” he said. “That went badly for you.”

The agent spit blood on the floor. “You don’t know what you’re part of.”

Dean’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Neither do you.”

Dean crouched in front of him, calm as death.

“Let’s skip the foreplay,” he said. “Tell me who sent you, or I’ll start introducing your joints to new career paths.”

The agent blinked hard, blood running down his temple.

Dean’s voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to.

Beside him, Sam stood still, tall and dangerous. Castiel radiated stormfront stillness. Markus lingered by the door, expression unreadable. Henry loomed with a menace that belied his usual gentle aristocratic exterior.

And Aurora—Aurora stood silent and radiant, arms crossed, her glow casting long shadows. Her presence wasn’t comforting. It was pressure. Like gravity and judgment.

Dean raised an old black blade. Not angelic. Older and war-forged. Damned and blessed.

“You got ten fingers,” he said lightly. “Let’s find out how chatty each one is.”

The agent spat blood.

Dean smiled faintly. “Ah. A screamer. Good.”

The blade kissed the man’s collarbone. Nothing lethal. Just enough to remind him he was meat.

“Who sent you?” Dean asked again.

Silence.

“You see her?” Dean tilted the blade toward Aurora. “She burned down a realm and slept like a baby after. And that was before you pissed her off.”

The man’s eyes flicked to Aurora.

She didn’t blink.

“You’re already dead,” she said softly. “You’re just dragging your soul on the way out.”

The agent smiled wider. “This isn’t going to go the way you think.”

Dean looked up. “Oh yeah?”

He strolled forward, slow and relaxed.

“You think you’re scary,” the man said. “You’re just hunters with a castle fetish.”

Dean’s expression didn’t change. “You think you’re a soldier,” he said softly. “But you got caught by a man who is over two centuries old and still doesn’t break a sweat in a fight.”

He leaned in.

“You’re not special,” Dean said. “You’re a paperclip in a place you don’t understand.”

The agent snorted. “You don’t even know who I work for.”

Dean raised his eyebrows like that was adorable.

“Oh no,” he said. “You’re right. You’re very mysterious. All I know is your team came through my front door with Enochian rounds and a list of names that ends with mine. That’s not black ops. That’s a death wish.”

“You’re all liabilities,” the man said. “Time bombs. Monsters dressed up in memory.”

“And you’re a bureaucrat with a gun and a superiority complex,” Dean replied, voice flat. “But I’m sure that plays great in the mirror.”

Something dark flickered behind Sam’s eyes.

Dean’s smile was gone now.

“Cas,” he said. “Turn up the volume.”

Castiel nodded once and pressed two fingers to the man’s temple. Grace shimmered—then dulled.

“He will feel it all. Down to his soul,” Cas said.

“Don’t need him to scream too much,” Dean murmured. “Just need him to understand.”

He reached for the pliers.

It was twenty minutes before the man stopped laughing.

Then another ten before he started begging.

He’d broken two fingers, crushed a kneecap, and left a careful sigil carved into the man’s bicep—a ward to suppress glamour, to prevent teleportation, and to mark the agent for tracking even after death.

Sam hadn’t said a word.

“Let’s start with names. Yours. Then your little clubhouse.”

The agent gave a dry chuckle. “Go to hell.”

Dean shrugged. “We’ve all been. It’s loud.”

The agent leaned forward. “You think I’m scared of you?”

“Nope.” Dean took out a pair of pliers. Set them beside a vial of holy water. “But I think you're scared of pain.”

Nothing. The agent's mouth curled.

Dean tilted his head. “Trained, huh? Military?”

No answer.

“Agency then.” Dean reached for a blade and checked its edge, casual as slicing limes. “Private? Government? Vatican’s ugly cousin?”

Still nothing.

“You're not military. Not standard ops. Not Vatican. That means off-books. Blacker than black. You showed up without triggering half our protections, which means someone gave you access.”

Nothing.

Dean moved in close, crouching. “And then you went for the fae. Not the Source. Not the Severance. You went for the weaker target. You thought Selwyn would scream pretty.”

He twisted the pliers into the agent’s shoulder with practiced cruelty.

The scream echoed up the stairwell.

Dean leaned in. “Now, most people who mess with my house don’t live long enough to explain why. You? You get the VIP treatment. Because I wanna know who sent you. And I wanna know what the hell DAT is.”

That cracked it—just barely. A flicker in the agent’s expression. Recognition.

Dean smiled, slow. “Yeah. You didn’t say it, but your eyes did. DAT. Cute acronym. What’s it stand for? Department of Angelic Termination? Demonic Asset Tracking? Or just Dumb-Ass Team?”

No answer.

Dean stood. Picked up the pliers. “You know, my brother’s the patient one. I’m not.”

He walked behind the agent.

“Last chance. Give me something useful.”

Silence.

Then—

Dean drove the pliers down onto the agent’s pinky finger, fast and brutal. A sharp crack split the air.

The agent gasped, body jolting, but didn’t scream. Not yet.

Dean pressed harder. “We’re just getting started.”

Fifteen minutes later, the agent was bleeding and breathing hard. 

Dean knelt, sweat on his brow, voice calm.

“Once more. Slowly.”

The agent spit blood. “Domestic…Anomalous…Threats. DAT. That’s all you get.”

Dean wiped his hands on a rag. “Better.”

He reached into the duffel. Pulled out a brass coin and rolled it across his knuckles.

“Now. Who gave the order?”

The agent’s lip curled. “You’re already dead, Winchester. You just don’t know it yet.”

Dean smiled without humor. “Then you won’t mind telling me who signed your deployment form.”

Silence.

Dean’s smile faded.

“I can do this all night.”

The agent looked up, finally, and said:

“Director Latham. That’s who sent us. We were here to extract the fae.”

Dean’s brow twitched. “Why?”

No answer.

Dean stepped forward and pressed the coin to the man’s throat.

It burned like acid.

The agent gasped, sweat on his brow now.

Dean’s voice never rose.

 “You’re going to give me Latham. You're going to give me a location. You're going to give me the name of every bastard that signed off on this mission.”

The agent coughed. Blood spattered the floor.
 “You’re... dead men. You don’t know what DAT really is.”

Dean grinned. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Aurora watched from the corner, golden eyes hard. She said nothing.

Sam stood like judgment behind her.

The library breathed in golden scone light and shadow, the kind of quiet that braced instead of soothed. Henry stood at the head of the long table, a leather folder before him stamped in red: SEVERANCE / PRIORITY ALPHA. Pages spilled out when he opened it—grainy photos, warrants, relic inventories—lives flattened to ink and margins.

Markus lounged with his boots on the table, whiskey spinning slow in his hand. Dean leaned forward, shoulders coiled. Castiel stood behind him, jacket cut dark and sharp, a silence that carried Heaven’s weight. Aurora sat steady, glow pared down to embers. Beside her, Sam didn’t sit so much as anchor the air: heat rolling off him until the candles guttered and the chandelier gave a nervous tremor.

Henry’s words were stone on stone. “Directorate of Anomalous Threats. DAT. Born from your file, fattened when the evidence stopped making sense. Blackthorn, CIA counter-ops, NATO money, Vatican relics. The Directorate is what hunts you now.”

He laid down a photograph: Sam at a gas pump, Aurora mid-turn with impossible light at her shoulders. The paper curled faintly under Sam’s gaze, as though ink and pulp remembered fire.

“Jonathan Latham,” Henry went on. “Ex-MI6. Calls Sam a warhead on two legs. Calls Aurora a bomb. Obsessed with leashing you both.”

Markus’s grin cut the room. “Leash gods? Cute. Let’s show them how chains turn into nooses.”

Dean barked a laugh, hard as glass. “I’m done lettin’ spooks write my obituary.”

Castiel’s voice was calm, but it thudded like a verdict. “He isn’t wrong to be afraid. You’ve been constants in every catastrophe for fifteen years. To men like him, you’re not people. You’re equations that can’t be solved, and therefore—containment is the only answer.”

Aurora’s glow sharpened. “They won’t stop until they’ve harvested proof. That gods can be broken. That love can be carved into parts.”

The heat in the room bent toward Sam. He hadn’t spoken yet, but the silence around him was not passive. It was the quiet of an animal circling in tall grass—measured, inevitable, aware of every heartbeat in the dark. When he finally leaned forward, it was with the weight of something that did not bluff.

“No next time,” he said, low and deliberate. “They reach again, they don’t reach twice.”

It wasn’t shouted, but the words unsettled the air. Elegant in its restraint, terrible in its certainty. Even Henry, unshakable as oak, turned a page with care as though the edges might burn him.

Markus gave a humorless laugh. “God, I’ve missed this.”

Dean’s grin thinned into feral agreement. “Now you’re talking my language.”

Castiel inclined his head, voice quiet but warning. “Pieces become patterns. Don’t forget that.”

Henry gathered the files, deliberate, as if stacking bones. “The Council won’t stay blind forever.”

Aurora’s hand brushed Sam’s beneath the table. Her glow pulsed once, like a hidden heartbeat. “Nor will Latham. His hunger will devour him. And when it does—” her eyes swept them all, calm as a blade sliding home “—we’ll be waiting.”

The wards outside shivered low and vicious, Iron Oak humming its approval.

Men with guns and stolen scripture had declared war. Not on monsters. Not on myths.

On gods who no longer intended to be hunted.

And Sam—heat coiled in his chest, jaw tight as though holding back teeth—sat with the kind of stillness that promised not frenzy, but precision. 

Swiss Border, 0200 Hours — The Convoy

The Alps were knives against the sky. Six black vehicles wound up the switchbacks: four armored SUVs, two vans packed with relics pried out of crypts DAT swore didn’t exist. No music. No chatter. Just the hum of engines and men too arrogant to imagine they could die tonight.

They were wrong.

The asphalt cracked and roared apart. One van pitched sideways, relic wards shrieking as steel bent.

Dean Winchester stepped out of the dark, shotgun in hand. His veins pulsed faint gold—not a holy glow, but something dirtier, meaner. Like a fuse burning toward detonation.

“Fuck me,” one of the drivers breathed, slamming the brakes. Doors flew open. Agents spilled out, rifles raised in arcs that shook.

“Winchester!” one shouted, his voice cracking.

Dean smirked, glass-sharp. “That’s right. And if you’re here? Means your boss is a dumb motherfucker.”

The first rifle spat fire. Sparks screamed down the barrel before it buckled like tinfoil. Dean didn’t blink.

Cas appeared at his side, coat whipping in the mountain wind, eyes burning blue. His voice was flat, merciless. “Your weapons are lies. And lies don’t work here.”

Agents fumbled rune-bombs from their belts.

From the ridge, Markus was like a meteor—precise, silent until impact. He landed without a grunt, movements crisp and surgical. He ripped a man’s heart out from his chest before he could raise his weapon with practiced force, blood spraying across the hood, and beat the next attacker with brutal efficiency. The crunches echoed down the pass.

“That’s how you fucking say hello,” he growled—measured, not manic—as he stepped forward, seized another by the throat, and crushed it in one clean motion.

Henry emerged from the treeline, pale and furious. His hand rose, and the wards sewn into the vans shrieked like dying animals. Red sigils cracked, flared, then blew apart in sparks. Relics wailed as their bindings ruptured. His voice cut like judgment: “You steal from gods and call it progress. Tonight, you choke on it.”

An agent lunged at Dean with a silvered blade smoking angelic residue. Dean caught his wrist, veins blazing gold, and crushed the knife to scrap. Then he punched straight through the man’s chest. Bone gave, meat folded, the body dropped.

Dean spat blood from his lip. “Not in your training manual, huh, asshole?” He swung his shotgun up and blasted another across the hood.

Cas flicked his hand. Every convoy light shattered. The mountain drowned in black. Only Dean’s veins glowed faintly, and Henry’s wards burned like dying suns.

That broke them. Half the agents bolted for the trees. The rest dropped to their knees, praying like boys who’d never believed until now.

Markus moved like a shadow through the wreckage. No wasted motion. He grabbed one by the vest, dragged him across the asphalt, and smashed his face into a crate with calm, controlled force—cold as winter steel. Teeth scattered like dice. He didn’t blink.

He shoved a jagged shard of grimoire into the man’s plate and snarled, “Go tell Daddy Latham we burned his toys. Next time, I piss on the ashes.”

Henry’s voice was cold iron. “Leave some breathing. Fear travels farther than corpses.”

Dean stood in the wreckage, shotgun smoking, golden veins burning under the moon. His grin was feral. “Next time I don’t leave bodies. Next time, I leave shadows.”

By dawn, the convoy was ruined: steel twisted, ash scattered, blood steaming in alpine cold. Survivors staggered back to their blacksite with one story, all the same:

Winchester burned us.

Location: Blacksite Theta-3, undisclosed coordinates

Time: 0647 Hours

The war room stank of cold metal and bleach, the kind of sterile air that couldn’t mask dread.

On screen: body-cam footage stuttered, corrupted by radiation. An armored van swerved out of frame, tires shrieking. A scream skated down the Alps. Then static. Then—

Dean Winchester emerged. Shotgun raised, stride relentless, face bloodied. His veins shimmered faintly gold—not glowing, but burning like oil catching a hidden spark.

“Pause,” Latham snapped.

The analyst froze the frame: Dean mid-stride, eyes wild, irises struck-flint bright.

Carter’s voice was low. “This is your proof?”

Latham didn’t answer right away. He stepped closer, eyes devouring the screen. “That shimmer—that’s not chemical, not radiation. That's a transfer. She touched him. She seeded him.” His breath hitched, manic. “Do you see it? He’s carrying her.”

The feed resumed. Castiel appeared beside Dean, coat flaring, eyes searing blue. Agents screamed as their runes fizzled. Rifles jammed, sparked, imploded. The camera jolted again—Markus dropped from the ridge, dismantling men with brutal precision. Henry followed, wards collapsing like fabric under a knife.

But Latham’s gaze stayed welded to Dean.

“She gave him a fragment,” he whispered. “Not a vessel. A conduit. He burns with her.” His words tripped faster, hungrier. “Proof of replication. Proof divinity can spread.”

Carter cut in. “You didn’t know.”

“No,” Latham admitted, a smile cracking his face thin. “But now I do. And it explains everything—his immunity, the anomalies we couldn’t chart. He’s proof she can lace human tissue with grace.” His hand struck the table. “Which means we can take it. Bottle it. Reproduce it.”

Carter’s tone sharpened. “The Board rescinded authorization. No escalation. No recovery.”

“They rescinded because they’re cowards!” Latham’s voice rattled the steel room. “They see danger. I see inevitability. She’s not hoarding power—she’s dispersing it. She’s a network. A circuit. She bleeds divinity into whatever she touches.” His finger stabbed the screen. “And Dean Winchester is the proof.”

The feed flickered to another still: Aurora in a council chamber, skin flaring gold, fury written like scripture across her face.

Latham leaned toward it, whispering like prayer. “She is infrastructure. She is a vein. And veins can be tapped until they run dry.”

The room went taut with silence.

At last, one aide spoke. “Sir… reports confirm she cannot be separated from Sam Winchester.”

Latham’s head tilted, birdlike, sharp. “Why?”

The aide hesitated. “Their bond—every attempt to isolate them has failed. It isn’t just proximity. It’s structural. When one shifts, the other reacts. Wards collapse. Devices burn out. Every reading says the same thing: separation destabilizes both.”

Latham’s eyes gleamed, fever-bright. “So it’s equilibrium.” He began to pace, words spilling quick. “He anchors her. She infuses him. A loop. Closed, self-sustaining.” His smile thinned to a line. “But loops can be broken. Equations can be rewritten. Even equilibrium collapses under enough force.”

Carter’s voice cut sharp. “You’re talking about dismantling the only thing holding her steady.”

“Exactly,” Latham hissed, almost joyous. “If she can transfer power through bond, then severing that bond doesn’t end her—it liberates her. And once she’s unmoored—” He spread his hands as if already holding it. “—we harvest what spills.”

The footage bled out into static. Aurora’s last frame hung in grain, golden and furious.

Latham stared into it, whispering like confession. “You can’t chain a god. But you can bleed her dry.”

The alarms outside flickered once, then failed.

The agent slumped against the wall, breath ragged, the collar of his tactical vest soaked with sweat and blood. Wards flared along the floor in quiet menace—angelic and demonic both, layered with precision.

Markus stood nearby, arms crossed, bloody knuckles flexing. One of the agent’s molars lay on the floor beside his boot.

“You’re trained,” Markus said conversationally. “But not for this.”

The agent didn’t reply. His lips were split, eye already swelling shut. His silence wasn’t courage—it was instinct. The kind honed by operatives who knew exactly how quickly a name could sign a death warrant.

Dean crouched beside him again, blade tapping lightly against his thigh. “Want to impress me? Don’t break.” His voice was a honeyed threat. “Because I will.”

The agent spat blood on the floor and grinned through it. “Do your worst, Winchester.”

Dean’s smile faded.

“Markus.”

Markus didn’t hesitate. The punch was clean, a bone-deep crack that snapped the agent’s head sideways. He coughed, groaned, slumped again.

Aurora stood near the edge of the circle, incandescent. Grace leaked off her in slow spirals, curling the air around her wrists. She hadn’t spoken yet. She didn’t need to.

Sam’s voice cut through the room, low and unreadable. “He’s not handler class. Just muscle. They wouldn’t give him locations.”

“They gave him enough to walk into Iron Oak,” Dean said. “That earns him a confession.”

Markus knelt next to him now, whispering something in Enochian—soft, like a prayer. The wardlines flared violet. The agent screamed as blood wept from his ears.

Dean grabbed the man’s jaw and forced his eyes open. “Where’s the base?”

The agent gasped, “No base. No—no maps. They don’t let us know.”

Aurora stepped forward. Her voice was still and absolute. “But you know something. A code. A name.”

The light around her deepened, gilded with power.

“You will not die in this room,” she said. “But you will wish you had. Where?”

The agent whimpered, the last of his bravado gone. “Theta. It’s called Theta.”

Sam frowned. “That’s not a location.”

The agent gave a shaky nod. “Codename for the black site. We don’t get coordinates. It moves. No phones. No files. You get picked up and dropped in. They cycle us in teams—handlers only speak to Latham.”

Dean leaned in again, knife tracing just beneath the skin of the agent’s throat. “Describe the handlers.”

The agent shuddered. “Black pins. Unmarked. They don’t speak unless it’s from him. We only knew them by what they carried—cases, doses, restraints… Grace dampeners.”

Cas’s voice cut clean, without emotion. “Your equipment bore Watcher sigils. Where did you get them?”

The man’s breath hitched. He hesitated, eyes darting like a trapped animal.

Dean slammed him once more into the wall, blade pressing higher under his jaw. “Answer him.”

The words burst out, broken. “Recovered fragments—ruins in Scotland, off the coast. A cave. Men died handling them. But… but we brought back the scripts. Latham said they were… incomplete, but enough.”

Aurora’s lips curved, a cruel gleam in her eyes. “So he digs through corpses and calls it innovation. How fitting.”

Dean’s jaw tensed. “And then you came for Selwyn.”

The agent nodded.

“Why?”

“Bait,” the man rasped. “Not for him. For her.”

He tilted his chin toward Aurora.

Markus’s voice went cold. “You picked the wrong bait.”

Dean stood and wiped the blade clean on the man’s jacket. “We’ve got enough.”

The wards dimmed, their light sinking into the stone like coals banked for morning. The agent sagged, trembling, half-slumped against the wall.

Aurora moved closer, her steps measured, deliberate. She raised her hand, two fingers poised, and touched his temple. Grace lanced through him, burning veins like molten wire. His scream was raw, breaking in the middle.

When she pulled her hand away, a sigil glowed seared into his skin—spiraled flame, perfect and cruel, a rune older than men. It shimmered between gold and scarlet, alive with the rhythm of her pulse.

The man gasped, clawing at it uselessly. Aurora’s gaze was unflinching.

“You will live,” she said, voice low, calm. “And you will carry this back to him.”

The glow flared once, burrowing deep, unerasable.

Aurora leaned close, her words brushing his ear like frost.

“Tell Latham the Source has marked you. Tell him he can covet what he cannot own. And tell him the Severance is coming.”

Markus dragged the man to the door and threw him out into the night like refuse. The wards hissed shut, leaving only the faint echo of his sobs in the corridor.

Dean’s jaw tightened. He slid his knife home. “Yeah,” he muttered. “That’ll keep him up nights.”

Sam didn’t move. He stared at the sigil fading from gold to ember in his mind’s eye, knowing exactly what it meant: Latham would crave it, dissect it, dream of it—while knowing it was also the promise of his end.

Aurora turned back to Sam, light fading around her shoulders. “Now he knows we don’t run.”

Chapter Text

The chamber at Iron Oak was barely holding.

Not structurally—though the old stone creaked under the weight of tension—but metaphysically. The wards rippled like they could feel it coming. The air had that charged stillness that comes right before a lightning strike. Or a massacre.

At the center, Henry Langford stood like the embodiment of a well-aimed knife. His presence was all angles—elegance honed to lethality. No one interrupted him because no one dared.

The bodycam footage played behind him, grainy and sickening. An angel—body ragged, eyes wild—screamed as black-armored DAT agents dragged it across a sterile lab. Machinery whined. Grace hissed from the angel’s chest like steam from a cracked pipe.

Someone dry-heaved in the back of the chamber.

But Cas’ vessel did not flinch. Though inside, he catalogued every scream. He had been caged once. He remembered what it felt like to be an experiment, a vessel, a weapon.

Dean noticed. Dean always noticed. His hand brushed against Castiel’s sleeve as though to anchor him—unspoken reassurance in the storm. Castiel didn’t look back, but he felt the warmth of Dean’s gaze anyway. A reminder that love could be quieter than fury and still shake a room.

“This is what we’re dealing with,” Henry said, voice like ice. “They’re not just hunting anomalies. They’re caging them. Draining grace. Injecting it into mortals to manufacture weapons.”

He let the words hit like bullets.

“The project is called Dominion. Overseen by Director Benjamin Latham. Funded through buried federal black budgets masked as pandemic response and disaster logistics. The blacksite they brought the angel to is codenamed Theta.”

He changed the slide. Surveillance. Schematics. Bloodwork annotated by surgeons who never intended their subjects to survive.

“They’ve stabilized the process on less than 3% of their test pool. Most of them die in agony. The rest are kept barely alive—used for missions and burned out when they glitch.”

Across the room, a pale warlock in gray silks rose too fast.

“And what, we’re meant to condemn this while sitting in the lap of the creature who started it all?”

He didn’t point. He didn’t need to.

Aurora’s name tasted like poison in his mouth.

“She gave grace to four mortal men. Four. That’s four too many.” He foolishly continued. “And yet here we sit, condemning governments for their sins while coddling the creature who opened the door.” His eyes cut toward Aurora, lingering like a blade pressed against flesh. “She conceived on mortal soil. Now she carries more of it. Children of grace are not blessings. They are weapons waiting to detonate.”

Before anyone else could speak, a low, seismic hum started rolling through the room.

Sam was already on his feet.

The shadows around him twisted. His body vibrated with barely leashed violence—an earthquake inside human skin. When he moved, chairs scraped back instinctively. Not because of fear. Because of instinct. Something in them still recognized what he was.

“Say her name. Say it!” he said roughly.

The warlock blanched.

“Sam—” Dean stood too, pressing a hand to his brother’s chest, but even he was breathing harder now. “Not yet.”

“You think I care what that coward thinks?” Sam growled, voice breaking like thunder. “They tied an angel to a table and peeled it like a fruit. And you want to blame her?”

“You don’t understand the cost—”

“I am the cost.”

That shut the room up.

Sam’s eyes flicked gold. Not grace, not light—something older. Something earned.

“I am what she made. And I’d do worse than what they did to that angel if they come near her again.”

Aurora hadn’t moved. But her eyes were glowing now—soft and molten, like a sun held behind glass. Her power curled around the room like smoke.

Henry let the silence throb before he spoke again.

“Latham doesn’t want to honor grace. He wants to break it. He isn’t trying to create gods. He’s building soldiers. Carriers. Bodies with just enough grace to kill.”

Another file displayed on the screen: Transport Manifest – Project THETA. Rows of names. All crossed out in red.

“These aren’t assets. They’re casualties. And Theta is only one of six active sites.”

Rowena stood, slow and deliberate. Her rings caught the light as she tapped the table.

“If this bastard thinks he can harvest celestial power like it’s an oil well, then I vote we salt the earth and burn his bones.”

“You’d have us go to war,” someone muttered.

Sabine Leclerc stood now, every inch of her precise and terrifying. “Then it’s war.”

“Against a human government?” asked a trembling scholar from the Eastern Conclave. “You’d risk it all for one celestial and her—”

“She is not one celestial,” Dean snapped, suddenly in front of the table. “She is the Source. The reason half this room still has souls to scream with.”

Cas’ grace surged to steady them both, his voice breaking the silence when no one else dared.

“And if you think Sam is dangerous now,” Cas said calmly, voice low and lethal from the shadows, “imagine what he becomes when she’s gone.”

No one dared speak after that.

Aurora finally rose. Her voice was quiet. Steady.

“I gave my grace to four men. And I love them all. One I loved for his kindness. One I loved for his storm. One I couldn’t let die. And one I chose to walk through fire with, even when the world said he wasn’t worthy.”

Her eyes swept the room.

“You know them. They sit among you. They fought for you and with you. They are loyal not just to me, but to protecting what was built.”

When she sat again, the room felt smaller. Like something vast had brushed against it and passed on.

Henry closed the presentation with one final line:

“They came for Selwyn. They will come for the rest of us. We can either kneel, or we can bury them.”

Sam smiled. Just a little. Teeth showing.

No one argued after that.

They didn’t speak as they reached the cottage. The heavy oak door shut behind them with a muted thud, and the stillness that followed was almost electric, thick with the echo of the gathering, the heat of Sam’s defense, and the way her pulse refused to slow.

Aurora stood with her back to the door for a moment, watching him. He still had that dangerous energy coiled inside him, shoulders squared, hands loose at his sides like he hadn’t fully put the moment down.

She liked it.

No—she wanted it.

Two steps and she was on him, slamming him back into the wall. Her hands hit his chest, not to hurt but to feel—to ground herself in the reality of him, in the heat rolling off his skin, in the strength he carried like a second soul.

“You don’t get to do that,” she said, voice low, shaking with heat.

Sam’s brow furrowed. “Do what?”

Her palm pressed flat over his heart, where it pounded slow and deep. “Stand in front of everyone like that. Say my name like it’s a fucking war drum. Make me feel like I belong to you—and then just walk away.”

Something in his eyes flickered—dark, hungry, half-wild.

Before he could speak, she dragged him down and kissed him.

Hard.

It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t soft. It was a claim. Her fingers knotted in his hair, yanking just enough to make him groan. He kissed her back like he’d been waiting hours, years, lifetimes. His hands crushed into her hips, gripping like he might fall if he didn’t hold her hard enough.

She bit his lower lip—not to punish, but to own it—and pulled back, breath ragged. “You have no idea what that did to me,” she hissed. “Hearing my name in your mouth like a weapon.”

“Aurora—”

“Shut up.”

She kissed him again, deeper, pouring everything she felt into it—every shattered wall, every pulled thread. His answering growl tore through him, low and feral.

Her hands found the hem of his shirt, tugging it upward. She wanted skin—needed to feel the heat of him under her hands, to map every line of muscle and scar like she was reminding herself that this was hers as much as she was his.

When the shirt hit the floor, she pressed her palms flat against him, dragging them up over his chest, nails grazing lightly. She felt him tense under the touch, his hands gripping her waist harder.

Something in his eyes flickered, dark and hungry. She dragged him down into another kiss, hard and insistent, her fingers tangling in his hair until he groaned. His hands found her hips, gripping, holding—but he hesitated.

She felt it in the way his strength stuttered, in the way his breath caught. His mouth tore from hers, his forehead pressing against her temple. “Aurora,” he rasped, rough and almost broken. “You’re pregnant. I can’t—what if I hurt you?”

Her hand slid lower, cupping her stomach, her glow a soft, molten pulse beneath her skin. “You won’t,” she said, steady and unflinching. “Not me. Not them. We are stronger together.”

The words cut through him. He shuddered, as if something in him had been waiting for her to say it. Then his restraint snapped. 

“You like it,” he said roughly. 

“Yes,” she admitted — and the moment the word left her lips, he moved.

He turned her in his grip, her back pressing against the wall, the contrast making her shiver. His mouth was on hers before she could take another breath, claiming her the way only he could — not just with lips and tongue, but with presence. He kissed like he was anchoring her in place, like the bond would burn through reality if he didn’t keep her here with him.

Aurora gasped into him, her hands finding the hard line of his jaw, nails scraping against his stubble. The sound he made at that — low, dangerous — shot straight through her.

Sam didn’t waste time. He hauled her against him, the strength in his arms leaving no doubt that if he wanted, he could hold her like this forever. He wedged his thigh between hers, pressing until her body sang.

When his mouth left hers, it was only to trail down her neck, slow and deliberate. Each kiss was a statement. Each scrape of his teeth a line drawn in the universe itself: mine.

“Sam—” she started, her voice trembling more than she liked.

“You want this,” he cut in, his voice so deep it rumbled through her bones. “Every part of you is telling me to take you. You think I don’t feel it? You think I don’t know exactly how far you’ll let me go?”

Her breath caught, and she hated that he was right. She wanted this. Wanted it in a way that reached beyond physical hunger, beyond centuries of restrained need. 

His hands slid up her thighs, gripping, anchoring. The cold wall at her back, the heat of his body pressing forward, the raw need in his eyes — it all made the rest of the world fall away.

Sam crushed her to him like she was oxygen and his lungs had been empty for a decade. Their mouths continued to meet in a collision of teeth and tongue and unbearable need. They didn’t undress—they tore. Fabric ripped like paper, skin met skin, grace met fury, and the floor groaned beneath them.

She shoved him onto the bed, straddling him, the force of her power crackling through her spine. But when he flipped her beneath him, pressing her down, there was no fear in her, only heat. Only surrender. But, it wasn’t submission. It was permission. 

His grip tightened, locking her wrists above her head. She twisted once, just to prove she could But she found she couldn’t. Sam held her firm, all muscle and heat, his body pressing her into the mattress like he’d claimed the right.

The shock sent fire through her veins.

She should have flared. Should have thrown him off in a blaze that would have cracked the walls. But instead, her body arched into his, every nerve alight with the revelation that he was stronger now. Strong enough to hold her down. Strong enough to take what she had always been so careful to ration.

Her gasp turned into a laugh — low and half-mad.  It startled her as much as him. She had never laughed like that in bed before. Never had reason to.

“Sam,” she breathed, her voice wrecked, golden eyes wide.

He growled her name against her throat, hot and rough. She writhed, thrashed, tested him — and every time, he shoved her back down harder, meeting her fire with something wilder.

And she let him.

No — she wanted him to.

He entered her in a smooth, claiming stroke, and her name tore from his lips—a shattered, reverent sound. For a moment, he was still, forehead pressed to hers, eyes squeezed shut as he was engulfed by the sheer, overwhelming rightness of it. She was warmth and light and home, a sanctuary he had been fighting for without knowing its name.

As he began to move, it was not a gentle rhythm, but a tempest. Each thrust was a punctuation to the words they hadn’t spoken, each gasp a confession. He drove them both toward the edge with a single-minded intensity, his hands gripping hers to pin them above her head intertwining their fingers. He watched her,  with a burning gaze, drinking in every flicker of pleasure that crossed her face—the parted lips, the fluttering eyelids, the faint, golden glow that pulsed in time with their joining.

For the first time in her life, Aurora wasn’t holding back. She was begging, cursing, laughing, crying out with raw need that had nowhere left to hide. Sam devoured it, pinned her tighter, kissed her harder, his strength carrying her past every boundary she thought she had.

 Beneath him, undone by him, she realized with a kind of holy terror that this — this feral collision — was the freedom she’d starved for. Not to be obeyed. Not to be worshipped. But, to be wanted without hesitation. To burn without breaking anyone but herself.

Aurora locked her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, meeting every one of his thrusts with a roll of her hips that shattered his coherence. The bedframe protested, a steady creak beneath the symphony of their ragged breaths and skin against skin.

“Look at me,” he demanded, his voice rough. Her eyes, hazy with pleasure, found his. “See what I am. See what you’ve made me.”

“I see you,” she gasped, her voice breaking on a wave of sensation. “Sam, I… I’m…”

He knew. He could feel the tension coiling tight within her, mirroring his own. He shifted, angling deeper, and her words dissolved into a sharp, keening cry. The sound of her climax unleashed his own. 

Sam’s mouth crashed against hers, swallowing her gasps, his tongue fierce, demanding. He devoured her like a man finally unchained, every bite of his kiss staking his claim. She arched into it, into him, until there was no space left to surrender. Her grace flooded outward, golden light staining the sheets, the walls, his skin—only to be pulled back into him with each thrust, each growl, each desperate press of his body against hers.

Sam clutched Aurora tighter, pouring into her, surrendering everything. He felt the stars bend, reality shiver, their bond rewrite itself anew. Her golden eyes locked on his, wet and wild, and she sobbed against his mouth, “Mine.”

“Yours,” he snarled back, hips grinding, light breaking through his skin. 

The convergence tipped—no longer just pleasure, not just possession. Creation itself writhed around them. Space bent, constellations flickered, whole systems burned new in the black.

The aurora settled like a breath after the climax. The cottage steamed with power. Outside, the world looked different—subtly rewritten, stars shifting half a degree.

Sam collapsed against her, chest heaving, sweat shining on his skin. Aurora held him, trembling, golden glow fading back into her.

The air still burned. Gold threads clung to the beams of the cottage, flickering like fireflies trapped in amber. The wards hummed low and pleased, their song stretching thin but intact, as if the walls themselves had chosen to cradle what had just erupted inside them.

Aurora’s curls were damp with sweat, her glow soft as candlelight now instead of blinding sun. She tilted her chin, eyes golden, and caught his gaze. For once, there was no urgency in her—just wonder.

“Do you feel it?” she whispered.

Sam did. Not just her—though she was everywhere inside him, grace and heat and trembling breath—but the universe beyond. Through the thin veil of their bond, he felt the newborn shimmer of galaxies, tiny points of light that hadn’t existed yesterday. Somewhere out there, stars were being written because they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

The feral heat was gone, replaced by a deep, thrumming warmth that settled in his bones. He pressed a kiss to her sweat-dampened hair, his hand tracing idle, soothing patterns on her back.

Sam looked down at her, seeing not just the woman he desired, but the anchor to his soul. The hunger was still there, a low, contented hum in his blood, but it was no longer a monster. It was a part of him, and she was its keeper.

The room reeked of sterilized power—steel walls, mirrored glass, fluorescent buzz pitched just high enough to make men sweat before they realized why. No windows. No clocks. Just the kind of place where time stopped taking your calls.

Director Latham sat at the head of the table, hands folded over a manila folder as pale as the operative across from him. The poor bastard was still damp with sweat, knuckles bone-white around his pen.

“Contact made,” the operative said. “Extraction failed. Team Alpha… neutralized. Subject Briarwood not recovered. One agent returned.”

Silence. Just the hum above and the creak of Latham’s chair as he leaned back, expression flat.

“Returned?”

The operative swallowed. “Alive. Branded.”

Two guards shoved the agent through the door. He didn’t walk so much as collapse forward, boots dragging, wrists hanging limp in the cuffs. His uniform was shredded, dark with blood that had long since dried stiff. One arm bent wrong at the elbow, swollen grotesquely. His face was a ruin: nose smashed flat, teeth missing, lips split so deep his smile would never heal straight. One eye was swollen shut, the other bloodshot and unfocused, rolling like it couldn’t hold the world steady.

But the worst of it was the mark.

The spiraled flame was carved into his cheek like a god’s signature, blistered red-gold that throbbed faintly with its own pulse. The skin around it was torn, charred, festering—but the sigil itself burned clean, incorruptible, as if her grace refused to fade no matter how much he bled.

He hit the floor hard and stayed there, twitching, a wet sound dragging out of his throat. His fingernails were broken down to meat, a sign of how long he’d tried to fight chains or walls before giving up. Dean’s bootprints still striped his ribs in bruises; Markus’s work showed in the precision breaks—deliberate, surgical cruelty delivered by a man who knew exactly how much pain a body could hold.

For the first time all evening, Latham actually leaned forward. His eyes locked on the mark, and something flickered in his face—revulsion and hunger sharing the same breath.

The guards hauled the wreck upright into a chair, head lolling, the brand glowing against the mirrored glass like a beacon.

The guards forced him down and cinched the restraints until leather bit into broken skin. The branded agent sagged, breaths wet and uneven, but the sigil on his cheek burned steady. Not bright—steady. Like a coal that refused to die.

Latham leaned in, close enough that the sterile air felt warmer. The spiral pulsed once under his gaze, and a faint hum pressed at the glass, just on the edge of hearing. The operative shifted uncomfortably, rubbing at his temple as if the noise wormed inside his head.

The agent whimpered, twitching against the cuffs, and the mark flared in answer—enough to make the restraints creak, enough to leave the scent of scorched leather drifting through the room. Then it dulled again, ember-glow settling back into the ruin of his face.

Latham’s expression didn’t waver. He smiled faintly, hands folding like a priest over scripture. “Catalog everything. The light, the heat, the resonance. If it speaks, I want to know the language.”

The operative hesitated. “Sir… it resists.”

Latham glanced at him, eyes sharp as glass. “Good. Resistance is proof of value. What won’t break easily is worth owning.”

The branded agent sagged further, mumbling nonsense through split lips. The hum lapsed into silence. The spiral’s glow remained, faint and steady, a reminder that Aurora’s message hadn’t faded.

Latham smiled, soft as rot. “Good.”

The operative blinked. “…Sir?”

Latham smiled. Almost kindly. Almost. “I expected failure. Alpha wasn’t meant to succeed. They were a yardstick. A crash test. You don’t learn much from a victory, but a corpse will tell you everything you need if you ask politely enough.”

He nudged the folder open: satellite maps blooming hot red over Iron Oak, sigil ruptures scribbled in inkless pen, anomaly notes tagged harmonic like hell’s tuning fork.

“They think they’re clever, catching one of ours,” he said, voice dry as ash. “Good. A captured agent drips paranoia like blood in the water. Makes the enemy twitchy. Makes them sloppy. He’s already paid for himself.”

The operative tried for spine. “Sir, Iron Oak isn’t like anything we’ve—”

“That’s the point.” Latham’s tone cut clean. “It isn’t a fortress. It’s a box. And inside that box is an active god-tier convergence. You don’t send knives against gods.” He slid another folder across the table. Its label was bold, black, and final:

OPERATION: GLASS SPEAR

“Alpha was reconnaissance. Beta is breach and subjugation.” His voice carried the cheer of a man announcing dessert.

He opened the folder with surgical care. “Black Sky units. Sigil-piercers. Dampening pylons. Suppression armor. Full-spectrum burn-down protocols.”

The operative stared. “Sir… if the Winchesters resist—”

“Oh, they will.” Latham’s eyes lit like a man watching theater. “The Severance always lunges. And the Source?” His smile widened. “Let’s see if she bleeds starlight.”

He closed the folder with a click sharp enough to echo. “Alpha was the knock,” he said pleasantly. “Beta? Beta kicks the door off the goddamn hinges.”

Chapter Text

The wards screamed first, a sound like molten glass cracking under divine weight. All across the manor, sigils flared, searing into the stone like open wounds. Lanterns exploded. The sky outside pulsed blood-red.

Aurora was already moving. Nightgown sliding off one shoulder, bare feet whispering across cold stone, her glow erupted—not golden, but white-hot. The kind of light that devoured darkness and memory alike. Sam was beside her in an instant. 

Then the sky split.

Black Sky helicopters poured from a rent in the clouds, floodlights trained on Iron Oak’s ancient garden like it was a sacrificial pit. Pylons dropped with a thunderclap, sigils burning into the earth—each one laced with stolen grace and ward-break glyphs. Smoke hissed. Suppression fog crawled, hungry, burning lungs and dimming aura.

Iron Oak shuddered, as if waking to pain.

They came like wolves: fast, armed, trained, and wearing sigils that mocked Heaven and Hell.

Selwyn went down first. A crack of gunfire, then his shoulder exploded in sparks of green and black. He snarled—true fae now—and unleashed a coil of fire that melted the face off two soldiers before he dropped behind the hedgerow.

Henry’s blade was silver-edge death. He moved like a man carved from iron and grief. “Push them back!” he roared, cleaving through a soldier’s helmet and half his spine.

Markus was brutality made flesh—tackling a man into a wardstone so hard his skull split. Another he caught by the arm and slashed his throat with precision, flinging the corpse into oncoming boots.

Still, they kept coming.

Aurora, glowing, descended through the fog scorching it. Suppressant canisters ruptured,  glyphs on armor bubbled and burned like acid. An operative lifted a cannon with stolen grace pulsing in its core.

She lifted a hand. Her voice was like a knife. “Not in my house.”

Fire streaked forward, cracking the weapon in half. It detonated, the shockwave spraying bone and viscera across the lawn. The blast knocked Markus flat, his coat shredded in ribbons.

The cannon went up like a sun bursting in the wrong sky. Shards of light, bone, and metal rained across the lawn. Aurora stood in the middle of it — radiant, terrible — but her glow sputtered even as the fire fell.

Her knees buckled. The light guttered. For one terrifying instant she looked less like a goddess and more like a candle burning out.

Sam was already there, catching her against his chest. His own radiance bled red and gold through the smoke, steadying hers, holding her upright when the twins inside her pulled at her grace like greedy hands. His jaw locked, every vein in him sparking with the fury of it.

“I can still fight,” she whispered, ash streaking her cheek, breath ragged.

“Not like this,” Sam growled, voice thick. He pulled her close enough that the glow of them tangled, crimson into gold, daring the night to try again.

Then he stepped forward—his body humming with converged power, grace threaded with fury, demon blood laced with divine will.

The sky screamed again. A helicopter locked on, cannon charging.

Sam raised a hand.

The air collapsed inward, and the machine crumpled like paper, falling in on itself until it was a burning fist of ruin that slammed into the trees beyond the wardline.

Every soldier hesitated. A few dropped their weapons. One openly wept in fear.

The manor doors blew open as Dean and Cas moved like a breach in the firmament.

Dean tore a pylon from the ground—white-blue light pouring from his skin, storm-eyed and savage. He drove the rod through the chest of a glyph-wielding soldier, lightning exploding out the man’s mouth.

Cas’blade was carved of Heaven and rebellion, trailing arcs of blue fire. “You are trespassing,” he said, and sliced an armored brute clean in half.

Together they were thunder and clarity, convergence made righteous, holding the west flank like angels of vengeance.

But the enemy had come prepared.

A second cannon fired—this one laced with Void extract. It hit Selwyn full in the ribs, slamming him into the ward wall with a crunch that sounded final. He screamed once before falling limp.

Markus roared, charging like an animal, but three rounds punched through his side. He went down on one knee, blood running like ink.

Dean saw red. He detonated, light flaring so bright it split armor. He didn’t stop until three bodies were broken at his feet. Castiel shielded him, wings appearing in shadow, killing with mercy and precision.

Aurora ran to Selwyn, hands ablaze, sealing flesh with grace barely held in check. “Stay with me,” she whispered, glow flickering like a candle about to blow.

Sam turned toward the cannon team.

His eyes bled light. The ground beneath the gunners fractured and then it opened.

They fell screaming into the earth—swallowed whole by the house itself.

Aurora rose slowly, watching him.  The  man who once feared his own blood now wielding it without hesitation, without apology, to shield what was his. A ghost of a smile touched her lips, even as her eyes filled with heat and mist.

The garden was a battlefield: smoking, blood-slick, echoing with the groans of the dying. Ash coated everything.

Dean’s chest heaved, hands still crackling.

Cas laid a hand on him. “They’re gone.”

Sam’s power receded like a tide. He looked to Aurora—her glow soot-streaked but steady.

“That was their first strike,” he said.

Aurora’s fire licked her skin. “Then let them learn what it means to threaten what I love.”

The wards pulsed deep underfoot.

Iron Oak remembered.

The chamber still smelled of scorched ozone and blood.

Markus sprawled shirtless at the table, chest wrapped in bandages, one knuckle dark with dried gore. He looked like he’d won the fight and then picked another with the furniture. Selwyn leaned back in his chair, pale as chalk, fae fire guttering low behind his eyes. Dean prowled the wall like a storm on two legs, Castiel beside him with the poise of a sheathed blade. Sabine leafed through Dominion files with the exact expression of a woman deciding whether to hex or simply decapitate.

Aurora stood at the head of the table, barefoot, scorched silk clinging to her skin. Her radiance had dimmed to a trembling glow, like heat rising off blacktop. She was pale and exhausted, every breath costing her more than she wanted to show.

Sam sat beside her, not merely at her side but anchoring her, one large hand wrapped over hers beneath the table. She leaned the smallest fraction toward him, enough that the room understood what it meant: she was still burning herself out to protect them.

Henry set a tablet down with a soft clack. “The Glass Spear raid wasn’t just retrieval. It was a sync point. Everything they’ve stolen—artifacts, encounters, myths—it’s all backed up at Theta.”

The word landed heavy.

“They’re not making weapons,” Henry added. “They’re building a pantheon. And they want the patents.”

Dean folded his arms. “Great. Government Pokémon, but make it apocalyptic.”

“Not Pokémon,” Rowena purred. “Gods. Domesticated. With leashes.”

Sabine looked up. “We don’t destroy Theta.”

The silence snapped taut.

Selwyn coughed out a laugh. “You want to occupy a black site?”

“No.” Sabine’s eyes glinted. “I want to flip it. They stole our power. We take it back. Make their cage our citadel.”

Markus barked a dark laugh. “Now that’s a thought. Ghost op. Corrupt the feeds, rewrite the logs. Let it keep reporting to Washington—only it’s reporting our gospel.”

Henry tapped the tablet. “We have their keys. We know the layout. The only thing missing is someone reckless enough to hold it.”

Sam’s voice carried low and steady, cutting through. “Then we hold it. Surveillance, backdoors, command trees—we take it all. Quiet. Efficient. They won’t realize it’s ours until they’re reading our edits.”

Aurora tilted her head, golden eyes flaring. “They called me a resource. They tried to cage him. No mercy.”

Rowena clapped, delighted. “A queen and her consort laying claim to a fortress. Positively Shakespearean.”

Castiel’s tone was cooler. “If we hold Theta, we set the balance point.”

“And not just for us,” Sabine pressed. “For witches. For fae. For every soul waking to magic. We show them evolution doesn’t ask permission.”

Henry leaned back, gaze solemn. “Do this, and we’re not just reacting anymore. We’re a regime.”

Sam’s lips curved—not a smile, not really. “Good.”

That was when Magistrate Corvan rose, oiled arrogance coiled around his spine. Corvan sneered, voice oily.

 “So this is the plan? We crown the Severance and his celestial bride, storm a government black site, and expect the world to curtsy? Don’t think we’ve forgotten what you are. A vessel. A freak experiment in blood and grace. Call it love if you like—mud doesn’t stop being mud when it clings to marble.”

Aurora swayed faintly at Sam’s side, her glow flickering pale. Sam’s hand steadied her, but before he could speak—before his power could rise—Dean was already moving.

One moment he leaned against the wall, arms crossed. The next, he was across the chamber. The chair under Corvan shattered as Dean’s fist slammed into his jaw, sending the man crashing into stone. The crack of impact shook dust loose from the rafters.

Dean pinned him there with his forearm across his throat, eyes storm-bright, voice low and venomous. “You sit here fat and comfortable, hiding behind titles, while my brother and Aurora bleed themselves raw to keep your asses breathing. And you want to point the finger at them? Blame them for the hell knocking on our door?”

Corvan gagged, clawing at Dean’s arm. Dean leaned harder, grinding him into the floor. His voice rose, sharp enough to cut the chamber in half. “They didn’t invite the angels. They didn’t invite the cults. They didn’t invite Glass Spear or Latham or any of the other bastards who can’t stand that the world’s changing. All they’ve done is fight. And you—” he shoved Corvan harder, teeth bared—“have the balls to act like they’re the problem?”

The chamber was silent but for Corvan’s strangled wheezing. Aurora’s dimmed glow sparked behind Dean like a flare, not soft but jagged, echoing his fury.

Sam rose, his voice steady but hard. “Dean.”

For a heartbeat Dean didn’t move. Then his jaw clenched. He released Corvan with a violent shove, the man collapsing in a heap.

Dean turned back toward the table, chest heaving. “You want to sit here pointing fingers while the world burns? Be my guest. But stop blaming the two people who are actually standing between you and the fire.”

No one spoke.

Rowena’s painted mouth curved. “Well. I suppose that settles the vote.”

Aurora rose. Not to soothe. To bear witness. Her glow surged behind Sam like a flamed corona with sharp edges, her gaze flat as judgment.

Rowena arched a brow. “Well. I think the vote just counted itself.”

Sabine’s voice was steel. “Anyone still dithering, choose. Because between that”—she pointed at Corvan, crumpled on the stone—“and the machine that built him, I’ll back the fire every time.”

Henry straightened. “Let the record reflect: Iron Oak assumes control of Project Theta.”

No one argued.

Aurora’s eyes lingered on Corvan, then slid to Dean. The air shifted—gravity itself bending to the new order.

Theta was no longer a target.

It was a throne.

And Iron Oak had just claimed it.

OMEGA BLACK CHAMBER

Post-Glass Spear Incursion: Internal Review

Location: Redacted — Attendance: Level-9 only

The last frame froze.

Aurora stood in the wreckage, barefoot and backlit. Her skin shimmered; her hair lifted on a heat that had no wind. Sam stood beside her — still, not peaceful, but contained in a way that made hurricanes seem like withheld breaths.

No one moved.

Latham exhaled, reverent. “So that’s her.”

“Play it again,” he ordered.

The footage restarted.

Aurora lifted her hand.

From above a spear of glass and light slammed down — silent, precise. It didn’t fall. It chose. It skewered a Carrier mid-charge, pinning the armored figure to the smoking earth with a sound like thunder under water. The blast spun out in a perfect spiral; soldiers went flying. The shockwave curved around Sam as if the world remembered him.

Latham leaned forward. “She is…designed.”

“You mean created?” the DARPA analyst said.

“Built. Sculpted. Self-correcting,” Latham said, eyes on the close-ups — Aurora turning, golden eyes flaring, a smile like someone who’d found justice; Sam behind her, unreadable, watchful. “She rewrote the field in real time. She glows like she’s already beyond this world.”

“She is,” the MI-7 attaché said flatly.

“Zoom on Aurora’s face,” Latham murmured, “More than a Source. A keystone. A metaphysical constant wrapped in organic matter. Isolate her frequency—”

“You mean tear her apart,” the Vatican envoy snapped.

“Not tear. Replicate. Share. Engineer.” Latham didn’t look away. “She shouldn’t belong to them. She was meant to change the world — and she’s wasting herself in the countryside.”

“The man killed six of ours just by thinking too hard,” the NSA woman cut in. “We lost fifteen seconds of global alignment.”

Latham turned. “You think it’s him we fear? He’s an outcome. Unstable. She’s the origin. She made him possible. Langford. Markus. Dean Winchester. All altered. She leaves divinity in her wake and doesn’t know it.”

“If we capture her,” Latham said slowly, “we don’t just stop them. We reshape the world. Not faith. Not chaos. Design. Controlled divinity.”

Aurora, barefoot in the ruin, her hair lifted on a heat with no wind, her skin incandescent even under soot. She looked unearthly, yes — but not like a weapon. Like something holy. Sam was behind her, half in shadow, his power folding inward as if the world itself bent around them.

Latham leaned so close the screen’s glow painted his face. “My God,” he whispered. “Look at her.”

The DARPA analyst shifted uncomfortably. “She’s a threat vector, Jonathan. A containment nightmare.”

“She’s perfection,” Latham said, breathless. His eyes drank her in — the curve of her mouth caught mid-smile, the fire haloing her skin, the absolute inevitability of her presence. “Not just Source. Not just constant. She is beauty incarnate. Sculpted. Self-correcting. She chose where to strike, and the world obeyed her.”

“And him?” the NSA woman asked, voice flat.

Latham’s mouth twisted. “He’s noise. An unstable equation. She stabilizes him. He doesn’t deserve to stand in her light.” His fingers drummed once against the table. “She should be mine. Not his. Mine.”

“You’re obsessed,” the MI-7 attaché snapped.

“No,” Latham said, smiling faintly, eyes never leaving her face on the frozen screen. “I’m enlightened.”

The long table carried all the trappings of Iron Oak’s war council—coffee gone cold, half-burnt fire guttering in the hearth, maps buried under knives. Dean sat sprawled at one end, boots up like he owned the place. Sam sat opposite, jaw wired tight, every breath caged in his chest. Aurora beside him glowed faintly, steady as a lantern storming against the dark.

Henry entered polished and perfect, cufflinks catching light like they were meant to blind. Markus strolled in grinning like a thief who’d stolen the crown jewels and couldn’t wait to brag.

“Gentlemen. Lady,” Henry intoned. “The wine in Paris remains abysmal.”

Dean squinted. “That’s your opener? Wine reviews?”

Markus dropped a thick stack of cards—dossiers, tokens, invitations—onto the table. They landed with a brutal thud. “Fine. Try this. Half the world’s intelligence community wants to peel Aurora like an orange and see what’s inside.”

Dean’s boots slammed to the floor. “Much better.”

Aurora’s glow sharpened, eyes cold. “Who?”

Henry’s voice was smooth as glass. “Who doesn’t? DARPA. MI-7. Vatican black chambers. Pentagon. All smiling, all shaking hands, all funneling checks into the same shadow fund.”

“DAT,” Sam muttered.

Markus wagged a finger. “Bingo. Distributed Anomalous Threat initiative. New name every quarter, same rot underneath. Less an agency, more a boys’ club for men who think godhood belongs in a quarterly report.”

Dean snorted. “Bet they got a secret handshake.”

“Black pins,” Markus said with a curl of his lip. “Boy Scouts with artillery.”

Castiel finally spoke. “And their intent?”

Henry’s voice was still echoing in Sam’s skull when the words caught fire in his chest: Capture. Dissect. Replicate. Keystone.

Dean scoffed from his chair. “Keystone? What, like she’s a load-bearing wall?” His laugh was sharp, brittle. He was watching Sam more than the word itself.

Aurora flared—grace licking the air in gold—but Markus laid it out plain: “Inventory. Nothing more than stock on a shelf to them.”

Sam barely heard any of it. The word dissect stuck, barbed and festering. The image came unbidden: Aurora laid open like a specimen, her veins threaded with cold steel, grace siphoned by strangers who thought they could understand her. And now the world wanted to carve her like a laboratory rat.

His chair screeched back, legs gouging the floor. He was already standing, every nerve in his body screaming for violence. The room bent around him, heavy with heat. “Then we burn their altar to ash.”

The wards flared, answering the rage he couldn’t cage. White fire crawled across ceiling beams, sigils blistering like skin. The chandelier shook overhead, glass hailing down, but the crash barely cut through the roar in his ears.

Sam’s hands dug into the oak table, the grain groaning, splintering under his grip. His vision rimmed red and gold, eyes burning. Something older, hungrier than language breathed through him. His voice came out guttural, hollowed, as if the world strained to carry it:

“They called her a keystone. A specimen. They think they’ll carve her open?” His laugh scraped raw, jagged, alien. “I’ll tear their world apart before they touch her.”

Dean’s hand clamped his arm—hot, but not enough to cool the fire. Cas’s grace pressed at him like chains, Markus’s grip anchored his other side, Henry’s Latin grated against his skin. Paper shields against a storm.

And he wanted to let it. God, he wanted to let it. To rip down every wall between him and them and make them choke on their own ambition. His muscles trembled. The wards howled. The air stank of burning metal.

He opened his mouth again—when her hands caught his face.

Aurora’s glow pressed through him, not against. Silk over fire, light into marrow.

“Sam,” she said, low and absolute.

His eyes locked to hers, gold, fierce, unyielding. He tried to resist. Some feral corner still wanted blood, wanted ruin, but she held steady, her forehead pressing to his. 

“They can’t have me. Not while you breathe. Not while I breathe.”

The words slid through the fire like water on coals. The wards snapped back with a thunderclap, steady again.

His knees nearly buckled. He sagged into her, trembling, his chest dragging in ragged breath. He felt Dean’s hand heavy on his shoulder, Markus’s cautious retreat, Cas’s grace folding back. But all of it was distant.

Only her hands were real. Her glow softer now, brushing his cheek as if she could smooth away the monster still pacing under his skin.

“They call me a keystone,” she whispered. “But you, Sam, you’re the wall they’ll never break.”

His forehead pressed harder into hers. He shut his eyes. And at last, the fury bled out of him like smoke, leaving only the ache of what might have happened if she hadn’t been there.

The hunger didn’t vanish. It never would. But in her hands, it finally remembered how to be still.

The library door slammed hard enough to rattle the glass. Dean stalked in first, eyes storm-dark, Cas following like a shadow at his shoulder. Aurora was standing by the tall window, glow dimmed to a faint shimmer, but even so she looked almost otherworldly against the mist beyond.

Dean didn’t waste a second. “What the hell was that?”

Aurora turned, calm but taut. “Sam was provoked—”

“Don’t,” Dean snapped, pointing at her. “Don’t you do that. Don’t you dress it up in your pretty words. I saw my brother about to level this house. I saw the wards bleeding like they were ready to crack, and you’re telling me he was just ‘provoked’?”

Aurora’s lips parted, but no sound came.

Dean’s voice climbed, ragged with fear he didn’t bother hiding. “He’s not himself anymore. He hasn’t been since you tied yourself to him. Don’t look at me like I don’t see it—because I do. He’s volatile now. He’s dangerous. And it’s because of you.”

The words cut. Her glow flickered like a candle gutted by wind.

“I—” she faltered, eyes lowering. “I didn’t mean for—”

Dean stepped closer, jaw tight. “Didn’t mean to? Aurora, every time someone so much as mentions your name in the wrong tone, he nearly comes apart. You make him want too much. You make him burn. And one day he’s not gonna stop. One day, he’s gonna take you down with him. Or all of us.”

Her face went pale, a flicker of shame tightening around her mouth. For the first time in centuries, she looked unsure of herself. Maybe even guilty.

Cas broke the silence, his voice steady as a blade sliding from a sheath. “Enough.”

Dean turned on him. “Don’t you start—”

But Cas’ gaze was unblinking. “You’re afraid for him. That much is true. But you are wrong to place the blame at her feet. Their bond is not corruption—it is creation. It is hunger, yes. But hunger is not evil. Left untempered, it destroys. Learned, it sustains.”

Aurora’s eyes shimmered, hurt still raw but steadied by Cas’ certainty. She whispered, voice frayed at the edges, “It is hunger. When I am threatened, Sam feels it like a wound. He burns with it. And I feed it, without meaning to.” She swallowed hard, cheeks coloring with humiliation. “I never wanted him volatile. I only wanted him alive.”

Dean exhaled hard, scrubbing both hands over his face like he could tear out the fear that had turned him cruel. He didn’t apologize. Couldn’t. But the fight bled out of him all the same.

Aurora looked at him—eyes bright, stricken—and for the first time, she almost believed he was right.

Aurora’s eyes shone wet, tears streaking her cheeks as she pressed against the window frame, trembling. Dean’s words sat between them like broken glass—One day he’s not gonna stop. One day, he’s gonna take you down with him.

Sam’s voice cut through the silence. Low, steady, but tight like the words were dragging themselves out of his chest. “Dean.”

He stood in the doorway, breath sharp, his fingers white around the frame. Aurora was folded in on herself at the window, sobbing—small, unguarded—and the sight hit him like a blade. He didn’t think—he never thought when it came to her anymore. His body just moved.

Three strides and she was in his arms. She sagged against him, clutching his shirt hard enough to rip it. Sam bent low, murmuring into her hair, desperate to calm her, desperate to calm himself. Her glow licked faint against his chest, her grace trying to wrap around him and failing, and the thought nearly split him open: What if she breaks because of me? What if Dean’s right?

He shoved it down. Not now. Not in front of her.

When he looked up, his eyes were already burning. “You think this bond is something that happened to me. Something she did to me.” His voice roughened. “No. I chose it.”

Dean’s brow furrowed. “Sam—”

Sam’s glare cut him off. “You know what it’s like. To have something inside you eating you alive—the Mark, Michael, every curse that tried to hollow you out. You think I don’t remember? I do.” His voice shook but didn’t break. “The difference is my demon blood makes me the one who can hold her without shattering. I can burn and still be here in the morning. That’s what makes me hers.”

Aurora sobbed once, soft and sharp. Sam pulled her tighter, burying his mouth in her curls just to breathe her in, then forced himself on.

“Yeah, it’s hunger. Yeah, it scares the hell out of me sometimes. But it’s also the first thing I ever got to choose for myself. No prophecy. No orders. No god with a pen. Just me.” His voice cracked, but he didn’t stop. “I chose her. And she chose me.”

Dean’s jaw clenched, his eyes flashing with a grief Sam had seen before—fear dressed up as anger. “And when it kills you?” he snapped. “When it burns her out and leaves me standing in the wreck? What am I supposed to do then, huh?”

Sam’s eyes narrowed, a flash of red-gold catching the light. He angled his face down toward his brother, voice low and dangerous. “Don’t you dare blame her for a fire I was born carrying. You’ve known me my whole damn life, Dean—you think this bond is what’s killing me? I’ve been dying since I was six months old.” His voice sharpened to a blade. “At least now I get to choose what I burn for.”

He drew Aurora tighter, hand sliding instinctively to her middle. The thought of the twins—fragile, infinite—made his chest ache so deep it almost killed him. “I will not lose them. I will not lose her. And if that terrifies you? Good. Because you should be terrified of what I’ll do to anyone who tries to take them.”

The silence stretched, heavy as thunder. Aurora’s sobs steadied into quiet breaths, her glow firming around them like a shield. Sam held her tighter, half afraid if he loosened his grip she’d vanish.

Cas’s voice finally came, even but solemn. “Choice is what sanctifies it. Not prophecy. Not coercion. Choice.”

Dean sat back hard, dragging a hand over his face. His laugh was rough, almost broken. “Yeah. Choice. Damn Winchester thing to do.”

Sam’s eyes stayed on him. No apology. No retreat. Just the quiet, feral edge of a man who had finally decided what he would burn for.

The door’s echo had barely died when Sam crouched in front of her. Aurora sat hunched on the sofa,  glow dim and guttering, her hair shadowing the tears streaking her cheeks.

“Dean doesn’t understand,” she whispered. “Or maybe he does, and that’s worse. He’s had Cas, he knows what it means to be bound — and still he looks at me like I’m wrecking you.”

Sam touched her knee, grounding her as much as himself. The old oak floor beneath his boots trembled, a faint vibration like a held breath. He thinks you’re breaking me, he thought bitterly. He has no idea you’re the only thing holding me together.

“He’s scared,” he said. “He’s always been scared when it comes to me.”

Aurora’s voice cracked. “He sees it, Sam. The hunger in you. I see it too. Every time I touch you, it pulls at me. Like you’d burn through yourself just to stay with me.”

Sam’s hand slid up to her face. Her skin was warm, thrumming faintly with grace, and the feel of it made something primal flare in his chest. The lamp beside the sofa flickered, the bulb whining like it had just remembered fear.

“You’re not wrong,” he admitted. “When I chose you, I knew. I felt that pull — like the whole damn universe was tilting me toward you. And yeah, I knew it would change me. But I wanted it anyway. I wanted you.”

The ceiling beams creaked. The sigils carved into them glimmered, then dimmed, then glimmered again, as if bracing for a storm.

Aurora shook her head. “It isn’t gentle, Sam. It isn’t tidy. When you touch me, I feel like I could rewrite the world by accident. That terrifies me.”

Sam leaned his forehead to hers. His voice dropped, rough and unsteady. “That’s exactly how I feel every time you kiss me. Like I’ll never be full again unless it’s you. Like I’m starving, and only you can stop it. It’s terrifying, yeah. But it’s also the only time I’ve ever felt whole.”

A crack skittered through the plaster near the window, fine as a hairline fracture, glowing faintly before fading. The wards above pulsed once and steadied, like they were holding their breath. Outside, a gust swept through the orchard though no wind moved, leaves flashing silver as though lit from beneath.

Aurora’s glow flared brighter, golden against his skin. “It feels like need. Not just love. Need. And I don’t know if that makes me monstrous or holy.”

Sam’s hands tightened on her face. His hunger surged sharp enough that the glass in the window rattled and a thread of light crawled up the bedposts like fire. She’s mine, he thought, fierce and trembling. Mine, and I’m hers, whatever it does to me.

“It makes you mine,” he said aloud. “And me yours. What matters is we don’t stop choosing it. Even if it burns us alive.”

The wards gave a low hum, answering, before falling quiet again.

Aurora’s tears broke into a trembling smile. “You sound like you’re daring me to drown with you.”

“I am.” His whisper was raw, his heart hammering hard enough that even the walls seemed to pulse with it. “Because I’d rather drown with you than breathe without you.”

Aurora shivered, pressing her forehead harder against his. Her glow steadied, bright and fierce, and the hum in the walls became a soft, resonant chord, like an unseen choir. Outside, the orchard stilled again, leaves settling as though something immense had exhaled.

“Then I’ll keep choosing the fire,” she murmured.

Sam held her there, the ache in his chest finally easing. The hunger was still there — gnawing, endless — but for once, it felt like the house itself understood. The cracks sealed. The ward-light steadied. The storm in them found its shape.

Chapter Text

The elevator groaned as it dropped, six floors into a black site gut. Dean’s grip on the rail was bone-white, like if he let go the whole car might fall. Beside him, Sam’s arms hung loose, but the air bent around him, trembling with heat.

The Dominion files scorched his mind: Aurora reduced to schematics, margins, bloodwork. Viability of extraction. Consent: N/A. Every jolt of the car whispered: burn it, end it, make them ash the second the doors opened.

“Sam.” Dean’s voice cut through the hum. “Look at me.”

Sam turned, eyes burning low red-gold. Dean stood his ground—scarred, jaw locked, steady as stone. But Sam saw it now. The sweat on his temple. The quiver in his hand. Dean wasn’t calm. He was terrified.

“I know what’s in your head,” Dean said, iron over a crack. “I’ve had that itch—burn it all, make it clean. Mark of Cain. Demon blood. Doesn’t matter what you call it. You go that way, you don’t come back.”

Sam’s teeth clenched. “They drew blueprints of her. Like she was a warhead to split open. She can’t even stay awake, and they’re planning to cut her down to wires. You want me calm?”

Dean stepped in, chest to chest, fear making him fiercer. “No. I want you you. Not this furnace. You lose yourself down here, it’s not just them that burn. It’s you. It’s her. It’s the twins.”

Sam’s voice was rough, the air shimmering hot around him. “Then get out of my way.”

Dean shoved his hand into Sam’s chest, hard. “No. You hear me? No.” His voice jagged, desperate. “You think I’m scared of Dominion? Screw that. I’m scared of you. Scared I’m gonna lose my brother before the fight even starts.” His throat worked, his voice frayed. “And if I have to—I’ll put you down myself before I let you become what they think you are.”

The words hit like a hammer. For a second, Sam saw it—Dean raising a gun, grace-lit, jaw broken with grief but steady, because he would do it. He would stop him. And the sickest part was how close Sam had come to giving him reason.

Aurora’s presence brushed him, soft but firm, and Dean’s hand trembled against his chest. Not weak—never weak. Just desperate. Afraid of him. And Sam knew Dean had every right.

His shoulders eased a fraction. He swallowed, the fire in him guttering. “You won’t have to,” Sam said, voice raw. He locked eyes with Dean, forcing the promise out. “I won’t lose it. Not to them. Not to this.”

Dean studied him, eyes searching for the lie, and finally gave a single, sharp nod. “Then we do it together.”

The lock clanged. The doors yawned open, heat spilling out like judgment.

Sam drew a breath sharp enough to scorch his throat. “Together,” he echoed.

And they stepped out side by side—judgment, and the one man alive terrified enough to keep it human.

The chamber sat six floors down, buried in concrete and secrets. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead like trapped insects. Six power-brokers ringed the table, folders of Dominion schematics and clipped stills of Aurora fanned out like hunting trophies. Their pens ticked; their eyes flicked; their hands moved over paper like surgeons prepping a body.

Dr. Keller told himself this was control. This was the job. The room was sterile, safe. Until the noise began.

At first a muffled shout from the corridor. Then a scream — high, short, cut in half. Gunfire barked, boots hammered tile. A command was given, clipped by the crunch of something heavy into concrete. Metal groaned. The walls shook.

And then silence. Not quiet. Total silence. The kind that said everything between them and the door had been reduced to pulp.

Every face at the table froze. Keller’s pen slipped from his hand. Sweat bloomed in his palms, slick and sour.

The lock shrieked. Steel twisted like wax in a forge, hinges popping, bolts snapping until the door sagged and collapsed with a final, wet clang.

Dean Winchester walked in.

The files hadn’t prepared Keller for him. They had shown a drifter, a soldier with tired eyes. What stepped through looked carved from fury and function, stormlight burning behind his gaze. He carried no weapon. He was the weapon, moving like arithmetic in blood.

And then came Sam.

Taller. Slower. Heavier. The air bent around him, the table’s water glasses trembling as though gravity itself pulled toward his chest. His eyes burned low red-gold, heat rolling off him until Keller’s lungs faltered, each breath like dragging fire. His bowels turned liquid; his throat closed. His body screamed to run, but his knees locked, useless.

Lucifer’s vessel, the files had said. Demon blood. Clinical words typed in black ink. But here it was alive, incandescent, wrong in a way that felt holy.

Keller realized, sickly, that the word he was searching for wasn’t “threat.” It was “altar.” And Sam Winchester was walking straight toward it.

The fluorescent lights flickered, humming louder, like they too were afraid.

No guards followed. None could.

Keller tried not to look. He failed.

Sam’s eyes found him.

Not a glance — a weight. The red-gold burn of them locked across the table, pinning him like a pinned moth. Keller’s chest cinched. His bladder almost let go.

For one terrible second he swore Sam could see every file he’d signed, every lab he’d greenlit, every body bag zipped under Dominion’s banner. He felt the lies peeled away, the justifications stripped to bone, leaving only the truth: you fed the fire, and now the fire knows your name.

The air pressed heavier, heat rolling until Keller thought his lungs would blister. His pulse thundered in his ears. He wanted to beg, to bolt, to crawl beneath the table like a child, but his legs wouldn’t answer.

Sam didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. The look alone carried judgment older than Heaven.

Keller understood then why soldiers screamed in the hall. Why silence followed. Why the files had failed.

This wasn’t Lucifer’s vessel. This wasn’t demon blood.

This was Severance itself, and it had seen him.

Keller’s throat was dry. He tried to remember protocol. “This is a classified chamber, you can’t—”

Keller couldn’t breathe. Sam’s eyes burned through him, past skin and bone, into everything Keller thought he’d buried. His pulse throbbed in his throat, his bladder threatening to give. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t look away.

Across the table, Director Halvorsen broke first. The man who had authored entire chapters of Dominion’s doctrine was suddenly on his feet, voice cracking, both hands lifted like palms could fend off judgment.

“We can deal! Resources, access, whatever you want—”

The words died as Sam turned his head. Just the shift of those eyes. Halvorsen choked, clutched his chest, and crumpled back into his chair, gasping like the air had been ripped from his lungs.

Another, Keane, tried denial. Fingers white around his pen, jaw clenched. “They’re just men,” he rasped. “Winchesters. That’s all. Trick of the light, some parlor—” His words shattered when Dean moved, just a step, the weight of it enough to rattle the glass in front of him. The pen snapped in Keane’s grip. His hand bled, and he didn’t notice.

To Keller’s right, Prentiss whispered prayers under her breath, words Keller didn’t recognize — Latin, maybe. Her lips trembled, tears streaking down as she mouthed Mater Dei, ora pro nobis again and again, like a child trying to hide beneath holy syllables.

Keller sat frozen. His colleagues screamed, bargained, bled. But Sam’s eyes hadn’t left him. He understood, bone-deep, that the others were noise. He was the one marked.

And when Sam finally blinked, slow and deliberate, Keller felt it like a verdict.

Dean’s fist hit the table. Solid wood dented inward like soft clay. Papers jumped. Keller dropped into his chair, clutching his notes like a child clings to a blanket.

Beside him, the MI-7 attaché moved for his sidearm. Sam’s hand closed around his wrist. The sound of bone snapping cracked through the chamber like a pistol shot. The attaché screamed, arm bent at an angle no body allowed, the gun clattering uselessly. Sam let him fall, discarded.

The silence that followed was worse.

The Vatican envoy clutched his rosary, beads rattling in his trembling hands. His voice shook as he whispered: Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio—

And Sam laughed.

It wasn’t a man’s laugh. It was thunder shaking loose dust from vents, a sound that filled Keller’s marrow until he wanted to crawl under the table. Sam bent over the envoy, pressing him down with a hand heavy as stone, eyes molten. “Your God is dead,” he said between cruel bursts of mirth. “And the new one walked away. Left the wreckage to us.”

The envoy whimpered, beads snapping in his grip.

Dean crouched beside him, voice low and conversational, as if asking for directions. “You were praying to Michael, right?” He tapped his own chest with two fingers, grin sharp as glass. “Guess what. Michael’s vessel, right here. Congratulations, padre — prayers answered.”

Keller thought he might be sick.

Dean leaned closer, smile cutting deeper. “Only problem? Michael’s a giant dick. So… not the answer you wanted.”

The envoy sobbed. Sam’s laughter rolled on, dark and relentless, rattling the bolts in the table.

Dean straightened, leaning close enough to smell the priest’s incense-stained hands. His voice was knife-cold.

“You want prayers? Pray for her. Pray she never remembers your name.”

He hurled a tablet onto the dented table. Aurora mid-flare stared up from the screen, glow caught and frozen in pixels, reduced to a specimen. Dean snapped it in half, shards skittering like teeth.

“Stop writing her down. Stop pretending she belongs to you.”

The fluorescents shrieked, glass bursting into sparks. The chamber dropped into half-dark.

And then Sam moved.

He picked up a folder with two fingers, like it dirtied him, and flipped it open. Charts of Aurora’s blood. Heat signatures. Notes on “viability of extraction.” His jaw tightened.

“This,” he said, voice low, “is how you see her? Numbers on a page. Schematics. Like you can catalogue her soul.”

The paper curled black at the edges. Then his hand closed, and the file went up like tinder, ash raining onto the table.

His gaze lifted, pinning each man in turn. The room bent with it.

“You call yourselves scholars. Envoys. Men of God. But you’ve built altars out of scalpels and lies.”

The steel table groaned. A crack zigzagged across the concrete floor. One of the power-brokers sobbed, clutching his crucifix. Another began babbling, words dissolving into shrieks when Sam’s eyes burned molten-red.

He leaned forward, planting one massive hand on the table. The wood hissed under his palm, smoking where his skin touched. His voice dropped lower, but carried like thunder in bone.

“She is not your project. She is not your cure. She is not yours.” His lips curled, the words came out more as a growl. “You tried to dissect her. And you thought you’d be safe, hiding six floors down.”

Silence swelled. Silence that felt like drowning.

Sam’s gaze swept them again, and Keller’s guts turned to ice. Because it wasn’t just anger staring out of those eyes. It was knowing. Every form he’d signed. Every lie he’d told. Every experiment he’d justified. Stripped bare in a single look.

Sam straightened, towering. The air crackled with heat, fluorescents flickering as though afraid to stay lit.

“Pray,” he said softly. Too softly. “Pray she chooses not to remember what you did. Because if she does—” he leaned in, voice gone feral, “I’ll make sure she doesn’t have to dirty her hands.”

The lights died. The chamber went black.

When they flickered back on, the Winchesters were gone.

On the floor, the attaché whimpered over his ruined arm. The envoy’s rosary beads glittered like broken teeth. Keller stared at his own palms, bleeding where his nails had torn into flesh.

He’d read the files. He thought he’d been ready.

But the files had lied.

They had not met men.

They had met judgment.

Dean found him in the east wing. No trench coat anymore — Markus and Aurora had made sure of that. Cas stood by the window in a dark sweater and slacks, human clothes that looked almost strange on him, but also right. He belonged here now.

Dean threw back a swallow of whiskey, words scraping out rough. “Cas, you should’ve seen it. That chamber—six floors down, and they had her reduced to numbers on a page. Blood work, schematics, charts like she was a damn machine. Sam tore through that door, and the whole table folded. They saw him, and it was like judgment walked in. He scared them to death. Hell, he scared me.”

Cas turned, expression unreadable. “And yet, Dean… he stopped. He didn’t lose control. You asked him not to, and he honored that.”

Dean set the glass down too hard, the sound sharp in the quiet. “Yeah, this time. But when he laughed—Christ, Cas, that wasn’t Sam’s laugh. It was thunder. It was something old. And all I could think was, if anything happens to her, if Aurora goes down—” His jaw locked, eyes wet and hard. “He won’t survive it. Not with the twins in the mix. He’ll burn the world, Cas. And I won’t be able to stop him.”

For a moment, silence stretched. Then Cas stepped closer, voice firmer than Dean expected. “You’re not afraid of Sam. You’re afraid of grief. His and yours. You’ve lost too many people, Dean, and you’ve learned to brace for loss before it comes.”

Dean’s mouth twisted. “Don’t act like you’re not thinking it too. She’s carrying their kids inside her grace. Not in her body, not human, but she’s still exhausted. She can barely stay awake some days. And if she falls, if they all fall. Sam’s gone. There’s no pulling him back.”

Cas’s gaze sharpened. “Then stop mourning a tragedy that hasn’t happened. Aurora is not fragile, Dean. She’s older than your bloodline, and she chose this. She chose Sam. She chose the children they’ll bring into this world. She does not need you circling her like a wolf waiting for the sky to fall.”

Dean bristled, but Cas didn’t let up.

“Sam didn’t lose himself tonight. He won’t. He has Aurora anchoring him. He has those children—his children—pulling him toward life, not death. And he has you. The only thing that could break him is if you keep treating him like he’s already broken.”

Dean sat down hard, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You make it sound simple.”

Cas’s tone softened, though it didn’t waver. “It isn’t simple. It’s trust. And that is harder for you than for anyone else I’ve ever known.”

Dean let out a rough laugh, eyes glassy. “That’s the truth.”

Cas touched his shoulder, steady. “Then learn it. For him. For her. For the children. Because they are not your weakness, Dean. They’re his strength.”

The wards thrummed low through Iron Oak, like the house itself agreed. Dean sat there, staring into the dark glass, fear still gnawing but tempered by something heavier. Not certainty. Not yet. But the beginning of it.

The great hall smelled of damp stone and woodsmoke, its fire guttering low. Rain ticked against the tall windows — a soft percussion to hard truths.

Markus and Henry entered first, coats still wet, faces tight from travel. Rowena swept in after them, all fire and rings, Sabine a cold shadow at her side. They dropped a single folder on the table.

Henry’s voice was cool, precise. “Theta is ours.”

Markus smiled that easy, infuriating smile, but his eyes were predator-cold. “They don’t even know it yet. As far as DAT is concerned, Theta hums along under their control. In truth, every byte, every corridor, every operative in that place now bends to Iron Oak.”

Rowena poured herself a drink. “Which means Latham is down one stronghold. He’ll scramble soon enough, but for now?” She raised her glass. “We own his little toy.”

Sabine spoke flatly. “Next step is cornering him. Cut off his access. Expose Dominion — soldiers dosed with grace, bodies hollowed to house weapons. Rip it out root and stem.”

Sam sat apart by the hearth, his long frame hunched forward, elbows on knees, fingers worrying the arm of his chair. He didn’t even hear the little victory in their voices. His eyes kept drifting — always back to Aurora.

She sat near him, shawl too heavy for spring, glow dulled to embers. Her hair fell soft over her face. She smiled faintly at the Council’s report, but Sam could feel it; her energy slipping, grace draining into the twins. Bone-deep tired.

He reached out, his hand closing over hers. Her fingers curled weakly back, a reassurance she should not have been the one to give.

Henry’s voice softened. “She needs rest.”

Rowena tilted her head. “She needs protection. Dominion won’t die easily, and Latham won’t take his loss quietly.”

Markus leaned forward. “Then we bring the fight to him. Trap him before he can regroup. When he’s exposed, we strike.”

Sabine’s gaze flicked to Sam. “But not at the cost of what sustains us all.”

Sam finally looked up from Aurora, and the firelight caught his eyes — faint red-gold in the shadows. “If she falls,” he said, voice low but carrying, “none of this matters. Not Theta. Not Dominion. Not the Council.” His hand tightened around hers. “I won’t let that happen.”

The fire popped, scattering sparks across the grate. The room fell into silence, the Council staring into the flames as though they might show a way forward.

Iron Oak had grown stronger. Theta was theirs. But as Aurora’s glow dimmed, everyone felt it: time was thinning.

Henry spread the map flat. It wasn’t paper so much as skin—layered satellite prints, occult diagrams, stolen layouts from a hundred black files. “Latham’s command node isn’t Theta,” he said quietly. “Theta was a feeder. The core sits east—old military campus converted into three hangars. Carriers staged like a private army. This is where he thinks he’s untouchable.”

Markus leaned against the table, shirt still open from bandaging, grin a blade with no warmth behind it. “We own his eyes now. Cameras, comms, even his ghost accounts. He’s blind, deaf, and smug enough to stay that way. We can walk into his house before he knows we’re at the door.”

Rowena snapped her fingers and a little wisp of fire hissed up. “Hex his suppressants, gut his dampeners, seed his data with our own rituals. By the time he realizes, his ‘Carriers’ will be our ghosts. Their cage, our citadel.”

Sabine’s gaze was flat and surgical. “We flip it. Turn Dominion into a noose. Burn the body, wear the skin.”

Dean stood, arms crossed, jaw tight. “We hit fast. Quiet. Pin exits, cut power, choke Latham’s little science fair before it crawls out of its cradle. No speeches. No prisoners unless they’re worth the air.”

Castiel’s voice was low, the kind of calm that made everyone else stop moving. “We extract evidence. Contain carriers. Isolate Latham. Remove the trigger from Sam.”

That name cracked the tension. Everyone’s eyes went to him.

Sam sat beside Aurora, one big hand curled around hers like a lifeline. His eyes weren’t human now; they glowed dull gold and red at the edges, a storm banked under skin. He’d been silent since the meeting began, watching Aurora with the kind of focus that made everyone else feel like intruders.

Aurora shifted faintly, glow dimmed to embers. Sam could feel the drain in her like his own pulse. His thumb stroked her knuckles once, a silent plea.

Henry cleared his throat. “If Latham is captured alive, we break Dominion. Publicly. His machine dies before it finishes.”

Markus glanced at Sam, then Dean. “And if our Severance decides to make it personal?”

Dean didn’t even blink. “Then I stop him.”

The room went very still.

Dean’s voice stayed low, dangerous. “We didn’t invite this. We didn’t build it. They keep coming to our door. And every time we pick up the mess. This ends now—but not by burning down what’s left of Sam with it.”

Sam finally lifted his gaze. The storm inside him shifted, dangerous and bright. “If he even looks at her—”

Dean cut him off, stepping close enough to put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, fingers digging in hard enough to hurt. “I know. And that’s exactly why we plan. We do this clean. We gut the beast. We don’t let Latham make you into his last experiment.”

The map between them flickered as Rowena whispered a charm. Latham’s name burned black on the page like an infection. Aurora’s glow flickered again, her head bowing just slightly. Sam tightened his grip until she gasped.

“Sam,” she murmured, wincing.

He blinked, forced a breath. The storm receded an inch.

Henry laid out the final points. “We breach under misdirection. We loop their comms, cut their dampeners, and free the carriers. Markus and I handle the keys. Sabine seeds the rituals. Castiel keeps the perimeter. Dean leads the strike. Sam… holds the line. We pull Latham into a box he can’t get out of and finish it before the world realizes it’s begun.”

Dean’s eyes never left Sam. “We do this my way. Fast. Quiet. He doesn’t get to turn you into the story, Sammy. He dies in a footnote.”

Sam nodded once, but his hand stayed on Aurora’s, eyes still glowing at the edges.

Aurora exhaled, a soft ember sound. “Then let’s end it.”

The lights guttered as if the house approved.

They noticed it in fragments.

Rowena, sharp as a blade in silk, saw the tremor first. Aurora’s fingers wavered on the stem of her goblet, grace disguising the fatigue but not erasing it. “Even the sun tires, my darlings,” she whispered toward Sabine, voice pitched for spite and sympathy both. Sabine’s expression didn’t shift, but her gaze never left Aurora, measuring, calculating.

Henry Langford, seated a little apart, felt it in his marrow. He had been the first to touch that light, the first mortal to learn how dangerous it was to cradle fire. Watching her now, centuries later, his chest tightened. She carried herself as though exhaustion were a choice, but Henry saw through it — he always had. And when Sam’s hand slid protectively closer to hers, Henry knew both pride and ache. This was what he had failed to be for her.

Selwyn pretended detachment, but the lie frayed at the edges. The Hollow Court had taught him to hunger, to worship what he could never have. That had not left him. When Aurora leaned back, lashes lowering, her glow dimmed but not gone, Selwyn’s breath caught. Her weariness only deepened her beauty — the kind that begged devotion. He admired her openly in that moment, and if anyone noticed, they mistook it for fae fascination. They did not know it was love, bitter and wordless, pressed down beneath centuries of silence.

Gregor Weiss cleared his throat, eager to reclaim footing. “Imbalance,” he muttered, eyes darting between the Source and the Severance. But no one echoed him. They all felt the shift.

Because Sam was changing too. His shoulders drew tight when Aurora sagged against him, his eyes cutting across the chamber with a predator’s warning. His power didn’t crackle; it pressed, heavy and relentless, until even the old wards seemed to bow.

Markus hid his unease behind a practiced grin, lounging like the wolf he was. But he felt it in his bones — the drain of her grace into the children she carried, the way Sam coiled tighter each day she waned. One wrong word from anyone, and Markus knew the Severance would stop pretending at restraint.

And so the Council understood: Aurora was not weakening. She was dividing. And Sam Winchester, all patience burned away, was the wall between them and the unthinkable.

Chapter Text

The fire burned lower still, shadows stretching long across the hall. The others had gone. Only Sam and Aurora remained.

Sam hadn’t let go of her hand. He couldn’t. His thumb moved back and forth over her knuckles as if memorizing them, as if letting go might make her dissolve.

Aurora tilted her head, golden eyes sad. “Sam,” she whispered, “you’re looking at me like I’m already gone.”

His head jerked, hair falling into his face. “Because I can’t shake the feeling I’m about to lose you.” His voice cracked, raw. “You’re weaker every day. I feel it in you. And I…” He swallowed hard, tears stinging. “I can’t stand it. I love you more than living. If you disappear from me, I—” He covered his mouth with one hand, shoulders trembling. “I can’t.”

Aurora reached up, brushing his hair back, her touch feather-light. “The twins are alive because of me. Because of my grace. They’re feeding from it, clinging to it like vines. And that means at some point… I may fall asleep. I may not wake again until they’re ready to be born.”

Sam froze. Breath caught, chest tightening like the air had vanished. He shook his head violently, almost frantic. “No. Don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth.”

He pulled away, pacing the hearth like a man unraveling, fists clenching and opening, shaking with helplessness. “Do you know what that would do to me? Waking up next to you cold? Calling your name and you don’t answer?” His voice cracked louder, echoing off stone. “I’ll lose my mind. I’ll burn everything down. I’ll rip the world apart trying to bring you back!”

Aurora rose unsteadily, crossing to him despite her weariness. She laid her hands on his chest, grounding him. “Sam,” she whispered, “I will come back. I always come back to you.”

He pressed his forehead to hers, tears hot. His whole body shook as he whispered, “But what if this time you don’t? What if they take you from me? What if I’m holding you and you don’t wake up? I can’t—I can’t breathe without you.”

Aurora’s eyes shimmered, her own throat tight. “Then breathe for me. Hold on for me. Because if I fall into that sleep, Sam, it’s not death. It’s creation. It’s life. And I need you to be the one who keeps the world standing until I return.”

He broke then, sobs muffled against her hair as he clutched her like she might vanish. She held him through it, whispering over and over, “I will come back to you. I will always come back.”

Still, in his chest, fear gnawed like fire. He couldn’t imagine a dawn without her.

Sam’s voice came hoarse, cracked. “Aurora… if you don’t wake up… if you leave me here—” His breath shuddered out, his whole body trembling. “I’ll follow you.”

Her breath caught.

“I can’t stand the thought of breathing without you,” he said, words tumbling out raw. “If you slip away and don’t come back, I’ll go after you. I swear I will.”

Aurora’s hands trembled on his jaw, her thumbs brushing tears from his cheeks even as her own vision blurred. “Sam—no.”

“I mean it.” His voice was a growl now, ragged, frightening in its sincerity. “I’ve lived without hope. I’ve lived hollow. But I can’t live without you. You’re everything. You’re… you’re it. If you don’t come back, I don’t want this world.”

Aurora’s glow flickered in grief. She pressed her lips to his temple, urgent, fierce. “You can’t follow me. You can’t. Because if I fall asleep, it won’t be because I’m gone — it will be because they need me. Because the twins need everything I have. And if you follow me, Sam… then they’ll have nothing left. And neither will the world.”

His face crumpled, devastated. He buried it against her shoulder, choking back another sob.

She held him, her own tears slipping silently. “Promise me,” she whispered. “Promise you’ll stay. That you’ll breathe. That you’ll live even if I’m not beside you. Because if I’m gone into that sleep, the only thing that will bring me back is knowing you’re here waiting. Strong. Standing. Keeping the world whole for me.”

Sam shook his head against her, broken. “I don’t know if I can.”

Aurora kissed the crown of his head, whispering into his hair. “You can. Because you love me more than living — and that love is what will keep me alive. Even in the dark. Even if I don’t open my eyes for months. I will come back to you, Sam. I swear it.”

He clutched her tighter, fire spitting sparks behind them. His voice was muffled, raw. “Then if you fall asleep, I’ll sit right here. I’ll hold your hand until you wake. And if it’s the last thing I do, you’ll open your eyes and see me first.”

Aurora closed her eyes, her tears glinting in the firelight. “Then that’s how I’ll find my way back.”

The hall fell silent, save for the fire’s low crackle and the sound of Sam’s ragged breathing — a man who had confessed the darkest truth of his heart and was still trying to be strong enough to keep the world whole for her.

The fire had burned low to embers by the time Sam left the hall. His shirt clung damp to his back, his hands still trembling from holding her. The stone corridor outside felt colder than it should, air heavy with the tang of rain blowing in from the moors.

Dean, Henry, and Markus were waiting in the antechamber, chairs pushed back, untouched glasses of whiskey on the table between them. They all looked up when Sam appeared, and for a heartbeat no one spoke. He wore the whole conversation on his face.

Dean straightened, throat dry. “How is she?”

Sam shut the door behind him, leaning against the oak paneling like it might keep him upright. His voice came hoarse. “Alive. For now. But…” He swallowed, the word catching. “She told me what’s happening.”

Henry’s hands tightened on the arm of his chair. “What did she say?”

Sam moved toward the hearth, staring into the flames. “The twins are feeding off her grace. They’re alive because of her. And it’s draining her faster than she expected.” His shoulders hunched, the words raw. “She might not wake up again until they’re born. She called it a sleep, but—” his voice cracked, “—it feels like death to me.”

Dean’s stomach twisted. He’d heard this tone before. Jess. Eileen. Every time Sam’s voice had broken like that, it meant he was bracing to lose someone who made him feel human. Dean remembered flames on the ceiling, silver bullets through fur, hospital beds and blood on sheets. Every single time, Sam had been left standing in the wreckage. Alone.

Sam kept talking, voice low, rough. “She made me promise. If she falls into that sleep, I’m supposed to hold the world steady until she wakes. I’m supposed to be here. Breathing. Waiting. Not following.” He looked up, eyes bloodshot but fierce. “She made me promise to stay.”

Dean swallowed hard, jaw working. Sam had never stayed. Not with Jess’s ghost on his back, not with Madison’s blood on his hands, not with Sarah’s body cooling on the floor. He’d always tried to go down with them — or drown after. Dean had spent years dragging him out of that undertow. And now Sam was standing here swearing he’d stay breathing for a woman who wasn’t just a woman but the damn Source of Creation herself.

Henry bowed his head, grief softening his voice. “She’s always done this. Given until there’s nothing left. Only this time it’s not just her at stake.”

Markus’s eyes stayed locked on Sam. “And only you she’s ever trusted to bring her back.”

Dean pushed up from his chair and crossed the room, laying a hand on his brother’s shoulder. His palm was steady, even if everything in him wasn’t. “Then we’re with you. However long it takes.”

Sam nodded, jaw set, standing straighter in the firelight. He looked like every broken vow he’d ever carried was burning off him, leaving only this one that mattered.

The storm pressed harder against the manor walls, rattling the windows like the world wanted in. Sam stood steady before the fire, his vow hanging in the air like iron.

Dean’s hand stayed anchored on his shoulder. He knew it now — this wasn’t the kind of love you braced yourself to lose. This was the kind you braced yourself to fight for.

Across the room, Henry had gone still, eyes lowered but gleaming with a grief older than anyone else there. He had known Aurora for five centuries — fierce, unbound, dazzling in her hunger for life. He had loved her then, deeply, but even at its height, their bond had never bent the air, never cracked the bones of the world. Watching Sam hold her hand, hearing the way she had entrusted him with her life, Henry understood. This was different. Not passion. Not history. Not devotion. Something larger, older, inexorable.

Markus felt it too, though he fought to keep his face composed. He had loved Aurora for his entire life, loved her enough that his betrayal still carved at him in the quiet. And yet — even in their closeness, even in the nights they’d shared, she had always held something back. A silence, a corner of herself untouchable. With Sam, there was no holding back. Aurora had given him the whole of herself — body, grace, hunger, fear. Markus could see it in Sam’s eyes, hear it in the break of his voice. This was not the kind of love mortals survived easily, but it was the kind of love that reshaped creation.

Dean caught their faces in the firelight. Henry bowed with the weight of recognition, Markus standing rigid as if daring himself not to flinch. And he knew they saw it too.

Aurora was tethered to Sam by grace, yes. But what bound them was older than grace, older than curses, older even than Heaven’s first draft of the world. A love bigger than human love, vast enough to terrify anyone watching, vast enough to keep the cosmos standing or tear it apart.

The fire hissed low, the storm rolling across the moors. No one spoke. They didn’t need to.

Because in that silence, every man in the room understood the truth: Sam Winchester wasn’t going to lose her. Not this time.

They moved like a rumor graduating to conspiracy—small, laughable at first, then inevitable. Iron Oak didn’t march; it seeped. Through servers, through sigils, through hangars and labs like a draft creeping under doors no one thought to lock.

Theta squatted in the Oklahoma plains, fifty miles north of Enid. Out here the sky went on forever, a flat dome of darkness pressing down on grass and scrub. Wind carried the smell of oil and rain, rattled the chain-link that ringed the compound, and hissed through wheat like it was keeping a secret. At night the campus looked like a cheap disguise: fluorescents buzzing mean, hangar doors yawning black, security feeds blinking maintenance-mode blue like polite doormen. The horizon swallowed everything except the floodlit concrete scar in the middle.

Henry Langford studied it with the calm of a man reading scripture from a map. He’d folded Latham’s empire into one thin line of logic and cut until only bone remained. “Three nodes,” he said, voice flat as the land. “Command center. Two field labs. Hangars for the carriers. Scale, not miracles.”

Markus smiled the way a man smiles when he knows which pipe to burst and how much flood will follow. “They think they’re insulated. We gave them the lullaby. Theta fed us the keys. Their cameras are now our mirrors.” The word “mirrors” carried teeth.

The network looped easy—like a noose tied with a bow. Ghosted pings posed as system checks. Fake errors nudged the carriers into maintenance mode. Cameras blinked themselves blind. Men in control rooms shuffled their rounds like sleepwalkers while Henry quietly unbolted screws they never knew were loose. The hangars exhaled, docile.

On the ridge, Castiel’s silhouette bent the air. Sigil-cords coiled around his wrists glimmered faintly, catching wind that smelled of wet grass and ozone. His voice was a scalpel: “Surgical. Fast. No fireworks. The carriers are volatile. One wrong note, and grace sings like glass.” Nobody wanted a concert.

Dean’s team smelled of oil and sweat, wolves disguised as men forced to waltz at a funeral. They crouched low in the wheat, clothes damp from the mist, eyes reflecting floodlight glare. Sam stood apart, the plains bending around him like weather: not a beacon, but a hazard. His silence compressed the air, a warning the wind itself seemed to carry across the empty fields.

Phase One unrolled like a magician’s sleeve: loop. For forty minutes, the campus believed itself untouched. Blue light bathed blank faces; technicians tapped ghosted numbers. The carriers slouched into sleep, lulled by false routines.

Crossing the line was almost graceful. Markus and Henry slipped through yawning hangar doors, business folded into violence. Inside, the air reeked of oil and dust. Rigs breathed shallow in the dark. Markus moved with casual cruelty—sigils carved into ductwork, code coiled tight as a garrote. Henry’s hands rewired sanctions, redrew backdoors. Sabine and Rowena braided ritual with firmware until it read like both prayer and malware.

For half a minute, it felt like a crime that would never fail.

Then one carrier hiccupped.

The sound rattled the hangar like thunder rolling across the plains. A tremor of blue licked the ceiling, making the concrete hum.

In their pens, the “carriers” twitched as if they’d heard something only they understood. They weren’t soldiers — not anymore. Each had been built from a human frame but hollowed out, vessels wired with stolen grace that pulsed beneath their skin in cold veins of cobalt light. Their eyes were milk-pale, pupils pinpricked, arteries glowing faintly blue where the tubing fed into their chests.

Normally they swayed together, docile, locked in their trance. Tonight one convulsed — a jolt that made its whole frame seize. The others shuddered in sympathy, restraints snapping taut.

A technician slammed a panic switch. The lullaby loop faltered, its sterile chime breaking apart. The carriers’ heads snapped up in eerie unison, and for a heartbeat the whole hangar filled with the glow of blue veins flaring like cold lightning.

“Containment breach,” Castiel said into the night, the words as final as a storm warning.

Grace is neat until it isn’t. The fragile rig in Hangar B coughed light, a blue flare crawling across the floor like spilled kerosene fire. Its neighbor stuttered in sympathy. An alarm designed to be discreet howled into the wheat fields, shrill as a tornado siren. The sound carried for miles, tearing across the flat land like an animal let loose.

That was when Dean stopped being an option and became inevitable.

He hit the steel gate shoulder-first, the screech loud enough to make the sky flinch. A console smashed under his fists before it could scream wider alarm. Two techs flailed; Dean caught them, slammed them flat, left them whimpering instead of broadcasting terror. He had a knack for teaching people how useful they could be once they stopped arguing. The sound of their bones cracked into the Oklahoma night, carried far over the plains.

Dean’s fists on steel bought seconds, but the alarms still howled, red light jerking across the hangar like a pulse gone rabid. The carriers bucked against their restraints, eyes opening to reveal pupils drowned in blue. A low vibration hummed through their throats — not speech, but resonance, a broken choir.

Sam felt it hit him in the chest—the pull, the wrongness, the demand. It wasn’t fire. It wasn’t warmth. It was cold, sterile grace that reeked of theft.

He stepped off the ridge.

The wheat parted at his knees, wind curling around him like recognition. The Oklahoma plains carried sound for miles, and now every bootstep echoed too loud, too final, like the land itself was amplifying him. Floodlights flickered. Dust spiraled at his heels. The horizon tilted, leaning with him.

The soldiers noticed. They’d been drilled to expect men, not this. One squinted into the dark, and for a second swore the tall figure cutting through the wheat was glowing. Another blinked and saw nothing human at all—just a moving shadow where the night bent wrong. Fingers twitched on triggers, but no one fired. One man tried raising his rifle, then lowered it halfway, as though some part of him knew it wouldn’t matter. Another swallowed hard, breath fogging even in the warm night, muttering a prayer he hadn’t said since childhood.

Sam kept walking. The silence built with each step, pressing hard against his ribs—and theirs. It felt like weight dropping from the sky. Techs in the control room bent over their consoles, wheezing, hands clawing for air. One soldier staggered, convinced the ground itself had tilted under his boots. Another rubbed his eyes until they bled with red capillaries, trying to banish the vision of stars flickering where Sam’s eyes should be.

And the soldiers broke.

First one—boots scuffing against concrete as he turned, stumbling through the hangar doors, abandoning his post without shame. Then another, panic catching like fire. The sound of fleeing feet slapped against steel and dirt, sharp as gunfire in the vast emptiness of the plains. Rifles clattered as they were dropped, forgotten. The air smelled like sweat and iron—prey realizing the hunt was already over.

Sam didn’t chase. He didn’t have to. To the men watching, his stillness was worse than any pursuit. One soldier would later swear that Sam’s shadow had followed him even as he ran, stretching across the plain, never loosening its grip.

The fear carried itself, spreading faster than he could move. Screens cracked under the pressure. Floodlights dimmed, trembled. The night went so still he could hear his own pulse roaring in his ears.

“Sam,” Cas warned, his voice strained. “They’ll collapse.”

Sam clenched his jaw, the hunger in his blood rising like floodwater. He wanted to let it. He wanted to see them scatter until there was nowhere left to run.

Then Aurora brushed against him through the bond—soft, insistent, fierce. A hand on his chest, her voice without words.

He blinked. Drew breath. The carriers quieted, shivering into uneasy stillness. The silence thinned, alarms shrinking back into ordinary shrieks. The soldiers who’d fled were long gone, swallowed by the endless Oklahoma dark.

The hangar reeked of bleach and blood, the air too cold, too bright under buzzing fluorescents. Chains rattled against their hooks as Sam stepped inside.

Every carrier’s head snapped up when he entered. Their eyes filmed white, veins blazing cobalt in time with his pulse. Recognition rippled through the room. They felt Aurora’s grace inside him. They felt the unborn fire.

Restraints screamed. Bolts tore loose. The first carrier hurled itself forward, jaw splitting too wide in a soundless howl. Another tore free, dragging steel with it. Then all of them broke, a surge of limbs and hunger clawing across concrete.

Sam didn’t flinch. His eyes burned red-gold. Grace pulsed through his skin.

He lifted a hand and the first carrier snapped backwards, flung into the wall hard enough to shatter bone. Blood sprayed across the floor. Another lunged. Sam curled his fingers. The thing’s spine cracked inward like a folding chair. It dropped twitching before he burned the spark out of it.

More came, jaws gaping, bodies breaking themselves just to reach him. Sam swept his arm and half a dozen bodies rose at once, suspended like broken marionettes. With a fist, he crushed them in midair. The sound was wet and final. Blue light burst from their eyes before they fell smoldering to the ground.

The fluorescents flickered, plunging the hangar into strobe. Each flash revealed a different nightmare as Sam was haloed in fire. Bodies slamming into steel. Carriers tearing themselves apart to crawl closer. Ash falling like snow.

In the doorway, the others froze. Dean’s shotgun sagged useless at his side. Markus muttered a prayer in Latin. Rowena’s mascara streaked her cheeks. Castiel said nothing, but the set of his jaw was like stone.

Sam didn’t see them. Couldn’t.

The last carrier crawled forward on shattered limbs, reaching with trembling fingers. Half its face was gone, but still it came.

Sam crouched. For a moment, the hangar held its breath. Then he closed his fist. The skull caved in with a crack that silenced everything.

When the lights steadied, the floor was slick with blood and smoking bodies. The stink of ozone and copper hung heavy. Sam rose slowly, hands blackened, shaking, his breath raw. His eyes still burned faintly, but he didn’t turn toward the doorway.

“Mercy isn’t clean,” he said.

The words carried like a sentence, and none of them spoke against it.

Chapter Text

Three stories underground, the Directorate’s ritual relay thrummed beneath a decommissioned train station. Enochian script crawled across the walls, coils humming with stolen grace. Analysts muttered over terminals, smug in their bunker.

The first sign was silence. Comms cut mid-chant, voices drowned in static.

The second was heat.

The air thickened like smoke, screens bending at their edges, candles bleeding sideways, wax dripping uphill.

And then Sam Winchester was just there.

No breach. No warning. Just there. Shoulders squared, eyes burning crimson and dark gold, heat rolling like a furnace in a tomb.

An analyst fumbled for a rune-bomb. Sam lifted his hand. The bomb powdered to ash before the pin moved.

“Latham thought he could chain us,” Sam said, voice low, shaking the stone walls. “So I came to show him how chains fucking break.”

One agent screamed and fired. The bullets dissolved midair, eaten by the shimmer around Sam’s chest. He didn’t even blink.

Rifles warped like wet iron. Bones cracked under invisible pressure. The warded door behind them sealed, locks running like molten slag.

A woman dropped to her knees, begging, “Please—”

Sam’s gaze cut her in half. “You were going to bleed her. Bleed them. There’s no mercy left.”

Heat surged. Lights burst. The coils vomited arcs of stolen grace, crawling into the analysts’ veins. They convulsed, voices shredded, bodies splitting under the weight of what they’d stolen.

Blood smeared the walls. Flesh cooked in the air. One man clawed his own throat out, collapsing soundless on the floor.

Dean’s voice cracked from the stairwell as stepped in, veins faintly lit, smirk sharp as a blade. “Hey, Sammy. Don’t hog all the fun.”

Markus dropped from the catwalk, blades already wet. He drove one through a tech’s stomach and dragged him snarling down the wall until the ward-sigil bled into a red smear. 

“Thought you wanted gods? Here the fuck we are.”

Henry strode in pale and cold, blood already drying across his knuckles. His voice was a verdict: “This ends tonight.” The wards shrieked, sigils sparking before collapsing into ash.

And Sam finished it.

He raised both hands and the chamber tore apart. Walls cracked wide, script bleeding out like burst veins. The floor split, swallowing desks, terminals, screaming men. The coils imploded with a howl, smoke and grace ash billowing up the stairwell.

The last survivor shook, piss running down his leg. “Wh-what are you?”

Sam stepped close, gold burning in his eyes. “I’m the reason God feared men more than angels.”

And then he wasn’t there anymore. Just air.

They found Latham hunched over his server banks like a priest at an altar, muttering code like prayer. The glow of monitors bathed him in cold devotion, his fingers spread on the keys as though waiting for worship to answer back.

Markus slipped out of the shadows, smile curved and sharp. “You should’ve left it alone,” he said smoothly, the words dripping honey and venom. “But leaving never was your style.”

He was six and a half feet of corded calm, eyes pale and ancient. The floor seemed to shrink under his boots.

Henry followed, tall and still, voice like a gavel. “We’ve come to take all of your toys.”

Dean broke through the smoke, shoulders squared, eyes lit faintly with Aurora’s grace, a gun dangling loose at his side like punctuation.

Latham flinched, then rallied with a smirk, jaw jutting forward. “Style? This is history. Evolution. Do you think I spent years cataloguing anomalies to let them rot in folklore? I numbered you. I named you. I turned gods into data. And data bends to me.” His gaze flicked over Markus’s shoulder to where Dean filled the doorway. “Meanwhile, you cling to chaos like sentimental children. Blankets, ghosts, guns.”

Dean barked a laugh, sharp as breaking glass. “Buddy, if chaos had a blanket, you’d be the creep selling it secondhand with mustard stains.”

Latham’s lip curled. “You think I fear you? I’ve written your weaknesses in triplicate. Every artery mapped. Every burst of grace pinned like a butterfly. Sam Winchester?” He spit the name like a punchline. “The Severance. The boy with demon blood. You’re a file to me. A system error I corrected on paper years ago.”

The air shifted. From the corner, Sam’s voice rolled out low and quiet, the kind of quiet that makes people lean forward before they realize they should’ve backed away.

“Future?” He stepped into the glow. His eyes caught the light—red bleeding gold—and every screen in the bank flickered as if they, too, recognized him. “You wanted to pin us down. Tear us apart. Call it research. You don’t build futures. You build butcher shops.”

For the first time, Latham’s smirk faltered. He tried to shore it up with bravado, voice pitching louder, brittle. “Containment! I built a system to contain you.” He said it fast, as if the words themselves could cage Sam.

Sam tilted his head, heat radiating off him in waves. One of the monitors cracked down the middle with a sharp pop. “Contain me?” The words came slow, molten. “You couldn’t contain your own imagination.”

Markus moved in, iron cuffs gleaming with sigils. “Contract’s up,” he murmured, and snapped them on. They hissed against Latham’s skin, biting with more weight than iron should carry.

Latham jerked, panic already licking at his face though he tried to sneer. “You’re making a mistake. Governments need this. Armies crave it. You think they’ll thank you for dismantling progress? No—they’ll crush you. They’ll beg for me back.”

Dean moved close, leaning until his shadow swallowed the monitors. His whisper sliced at Latham’s ear. “Don’t worry. History’ll remember you. Just not the way you practiced in the mirror.”

Latham’s mouth moved but nothing came out. He’d written their names. He’d written their weaknesses. But seeing them in flesh — Sam towering at full height, Markus broad and lethal at his side, Dean grinning like a wolf, Henry silent as stone — his body betrayed him. His throat clicked. His bowels churned. His hands went slick with sweat.

From the corner, a lieutenant lunged—needle flashing, ritual spilling from his tongue. Steel kissed Dean’s cheek, shallow but sharp.

Dean didn’t flinch. He wrenched the man’s wrist, crushed ribs with a single punch then folded him to the ground like bad laundry. Blood splattered across the floor. Dean wiped his cheek with the back of his glove. “Needles?” His grin was feral. “Should’ve brought a bat. At least then you could’ve pissed me off.”

Markus arched a brow. “Efficient.”

Dean planted a boot on the groaning man’s chest, voice flat. “Class dismissed.”

And then Sam stepped forward.

The servers shrieked. Lights popped in sequence. Heat rolled out like a furnace door kicked open, warping the air, making the walls sweat. The sigils on Latham’s cuffs glowed and smoked.

“Alive,” Sam said, voice steady but inhuman, rattling in the bones of everyone who heard it. “We put him in the light.”

Latham tried for contempt, but it cracked halfway out of his throat. “A trial?” His words wavered. “You’ll… what? Drag me to some kangaroo court? Parade me like fools?”

Sam’s jaw locked. Every screen in the room burst into static, then shattered outright, raining sparks. “Not fools. Witnesses.” His gaze pinned Latham like a knife. “You’ll name every soldier you hollowed. Every corpse you made. Every ledger you wrote in blood. And you’ll talk until there’s nothing left of you but the truth.”

Dean looked up, grin cutting across the dark. “So either way, you’re finished. The difference is trial or tombstone.”

Sam didn’t blink. “Trial. For now.” His voice landed like judgment.

Markus wrenched the cuffs tighter until bone clicked. Latham gasped, panic finally stripping him down to flesh and sweat. The man who thought he could number gods now stared into the eyes of one—and for the first time, knew what it was to be catalogued.

They moved Latham like contraband and confession both. Sam walked behind him, every step grinding into the Oklahoma dirt, the smell of oil and sweat rising from the hangars as men stirred wrong in their bunks. The convoy rattled like a hearse with too many names already in it.

Latham’s protests started small, but Sam heard them sharpen with every jolt of the truck. He still thinks he has leverage, Sam thought, knuckles tight around the iron cuffs that pinned the man’s wrists.

“You can’t parade me like this,” Latham hissed, voice like steam through cracked pipes. “Do you know who I’ve spoken with? Whose signatures I hold?”

Rowena’s reply was silk dipped in arsenic. “Darling, signatures don’t mean much when the ink’s written in blood. And yours smudges.”

Sabine didn’t look up from the manifest she was doctoring, her tone flat as chalk. “Be grateful. We’re only rewriting your paperwork, not your anatomy.”

At the checkpoint, a guard tried to bluff, hand hovering over his radio. Dean slammed him onto the hood hard enough to leave a dent. “Congratulations,” Dean muttered into his ear. “You just got promoted to witness. Don’t screw it up.”

The road into Theta stretched flat and endless across the plains. Sam could hear Latham’s breathing turn ragged as the compound gates swallowed them. The man’s arrogance was leaking out, slow as oil from a cracked engine. But he still twitched with calculation.

At processing, the second the cuffs loosened, Latham lunged. Not tactical—animal. He bolted for the far door, shoes shrieking against concrete.

Sam was faster. His hand hooked Latham’s collar, wrenched him back so hard his feet left the floor. The slam rattled the wall, shook plaster dust down, and split Latham’s lip wide. Blood sprayed across Sam’s knuckles.

“You don’t run from me,” Sam said, low and lethal. The words weren’t loud, but they carried like a trigger pulled halfway back. Soldiers froze where they stood.

Latham wheezed, chin slick with red, coughing against Sam’s grip. Sam’s fingers clenched in his shirt, every bone in his body begging for the snap, the break, the silence that would end this once and for all. The wildfire roared up his spine, hungry for blood.

But Aurora’s steadiness pulsed through the bond — not mercy, just reminder. That killing him here would waste the receipts.

Sam dropped him into the chair with enough force to make the legs screech. Not mercy. Restraint.

The lamps flared, the cameras blinked alive. Latham slumped, his posture collapsing, the proud lines of power reduced to bruises and blood.

Henry adjusted the microphone, precise as a surgeon. “Smile for the record, Jonathan. History doesn’t like a sulk.”

Latham bared bloody teeth, something between a grin and a grimace. “You think this makes me small? The world needs what I built. You’re tearing down the future.”

Sam stepped into the edge of the light, shadow stretched long across the floor. His chest burned to crush the table, to make the words stop by force. Instead he stood there, violence caged behind his jaw, and said evenly:

“No. We’re just showing the receipts.”

And the screens did the rest. 

They came alive—files, manifests, footage stolen from the Directorate’s own servers. Grace drained from screaming subjects. Names of civilians labeled as “carriers,” reduced to catalog numbers. Rows of signatures Latham had bragged about, each one stamped over the dead.

Sam’s throat closed. His hands curled into fists, not to strike, but to hold himself still. He felt the heat crawl up his spine, the same wildfire that had almost burned him out a dozen times before. He wanted to tear the room apart. Wanted to crush Latham’s words back into his throat until the man knew silence the way Sam had lived it.

Instead, he stayed. He let the evidence speak while his shadow loomed. His restraint cost him—his jaw ached, his chest hurt—but Aurora’s warmth threaded through the bond, steadying him.

On the other side of the table, Latham sat rigid, jaw tight, eyes darting. Every new piece of evidence pushed him further into the absurd: a petty man exposed under merciless light, stripped of empire, reduced to excuses.

Sam leaned in, voice low, certain. “You call this the future. I call it rot. And now everyone else will too.”

No fanfare, no speeches. Just the ugly truth projected on screens: grainy footage of soldiers twitching like marionettes, their eyes rolled back; lab notebooks with neat signatures beside autopsy scribbles; bank transfers clicking down screen lines, each one a fuse running back to names that couldn’t hide anymore.

Latham shook his head like denial was armor. “Fabrications. Forgeries. No one will believe—”

Rowena leaned closer, her red hair catching the glare of the bench lamp. “Oh, they’ll believe, sweet. People will always forgive a liar, but they never forgive being made a fool. And you’ve made fools of governments.”

By dawn the air itself felt singed. The world smelled of scorched cable, and Latham’s name burned acrid in headlines, in inboxes, in the mouths of men who had once toasted him. Indictments rolled out faster than fresh coffee, assets froze like ponds under sudden frost, and the networks that had once fed him began gnawing each other to death.

Dean poured himself a cup, watching the feeds collapse. “Guess you finally went viral,” he muttered. “Congrats.”

Latham sat in silence, wrists chained, watching the architecture of his kingdom dissolve into indictment.

But victory had the taste of copper.

Sam stepped forward until the camera drank him whole. The bench light flattened everyone else into background—Henry a patient surgeon, Markus a smile with teeth, Dean a rock of restraint—and left Sam like a column of burnished gold. His voice when he spoke was low and soft, the kind of voice meant to fold someone into trust, not to tear them down.

“You wanted to cut her open,” Sam said, not as an accusation but as fact. The word landed in the room like a scalpel. “Vivisect. Catalog. See what makes her sing and bottle it. You wrote it down in tidy little reports—protocols, consent forms, variables. You said it cleanly. You said it like a promise.”

Latham’s face went pale then red, in fluttering waves. “You don’t understand—” he began, wet arrogance clinging to the edges.

Sam’s smile thinned until it was a line of steel. The warmth was still there. This was the part of him that loves.  But it folded into something harder, a promise with an edge. He leaned in until the cuff chain whispered against Latham’s throat, and the camera caught the shadow of his jaw.

“You never saw her,” he says, voice flat. “You read her as numbers. As product. You never held her hand while she laughed. You never watched her sleep and counted the tiny victories that let her wake again.”

He lets that sit a beat, and then the softness drops out. “You wanted to cut her up and bottle what she gives. You wanted to make pieces you could sell. That is a thing I will not allow.”

Sam’s hand closed on the chain. Not a shake, not theatrics — just a slow, deliberate pressure that made Latham’s Adam’s apple bob like a trapped fish. “We can do the bright-room thing,” Sam says. “Lights. Lawyers. You explain every entry in your books and you do it while people look at your face. That’s the humane option.”

Latham opens his mouth; the sound came out tiny. Sam didn’t give him the courtesy of indignation. He tightened his grip another fraction.

“Or,” Sam continued, quieter now, “we take away the instruments of your arrogance. We take what lets you sign away other people’s lives.” His thumb brushed the cuff’s link. “You like to write things down, don’t you? You like control. I could start by making sure your hands never write another lie. I could start small. Make your bones remember what it is to be broken for betraying someone else.”

The color drained out of Latham’s face. He tried to laugh, a cracked thing. “You wouldn’t—”

Sam’s smile was a knife. “I wouldn’t trust your heart to make that decision for me.” He met Latham’s eyes without blinking. “Tell me where your labs are. Tell me every name you bought off a contract. Tell me who signed off on the injections. Give me the map. Give me the names. Put the people you used in front of a light that doesn’t lie. Or we do the other thing. You decide which part of you you’ll miss.”

The room hummed — cameras, lights, the low thrum of machines — but the sound felt distant, like a radio playing in another house. Around them, faces set. Dean’s hand lay on Sam’s shoulder — heavy, familiar, stopping him at the surface. It’s not a command but more of  an anchor.

For a second Latham saw the shape of the thing Sam meant, and the sight stole the last of his composure. He made a sound that was half-plea, half-curse. “You’ll kill me,” he said, small and suddenly very mortal.

Sam’s reply was calm, merciless, and intimate in a way that bruised. “Not if you behave,” he said. “We want you alive. We want you to tell us. We want the world to watch the math you made from other people’s lives. But if you try to make her an item—in a jar, in a ledger, in a lab—then don’t pretend you weren’t warned.”

He straightened, letting the camera frame his profile like a verdict. “You wanted to see what made her sing. Now you will hear her sing back. Not to you. At you. And then you’ll listen while the world writes your name down in a language you can’t buy your way out of.”

Latham’s voice cracked first, a tiny fissure in the practiced cadence.

“I didn’t mean—” he started, but it came out as a croak. He licked his lips, tried again, louder, words tumbling over one another like stones. “You can’t— you don’t understand. She’s— she’s not what you think she is. She’s— she’s bigger. I only wanted to— I only wanted to guide it. Contain it. Share it.”

Sam’s grip on the chain stayed steady, his face unreadable.

Latham’s eyes flicked around the room — at Henry, at Dean, at the cameras — but kept sliding back to Sam. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “Please,” he said, and the word sounded alien in his mouth. Latham nodded frantically, tears streaking his cheeks now. “Yes. Please. You don’t understand— she’s not like anyone— she’s—” He swallowed, voice dropping into a frantic whisper. “She’s beautiful. She’s perfect. She’s… mine.”

Sam’s vision went crimson. His grip tightened, yanking the chain until the cuffs slammed Latham’s wrists down onto the steel tabletop. The crack echoed like a gunshot. One wrist folded wrong, bones giving just enough to send a scream tearing out of Latham’s throat.

“Say that again,” Sam growled, voice raw. His shadow cut across the lamps, jaw locked like iron. “Call her yours again and I’ll take your hands first. You won’t write. You won’t touch. You won’t even feed yourself.”

Latham whimpered, face wet with tears and sweat, fingers twisted and useless. The cameras caught everything—the flinch, the ragged panic, the blood smearing across the manifest sheets.

Sam leaned in, pressing the chain down until Latham sobbed through clenched teeth. “Alive doesn’t mean unbroken,” he said, low and steady, a promise and a sentence in one.

Aurora pressing through the bond—warmth against fire—was the only thing that kept the chain from snapping outright.

Latham whimpered, tears streaking down his face. “I’ll give you everything. Please. Don’t—”

Sam’s breath shuddered, vision clearing, grip loosening before the chain snapped.

He leaned in, voice low and deadly steady. “You don’t get to see her. You don’t get to say her name. You get to live long enough to explain what you did to the world. That’s it.”

Latham sagged in the cuffs, wrecked and weeping. Sam stepped back, chest heaving, and let the silence do the rest.

Latham’s face broke then, not into acceptance, but into the raw animal panic of a man who’s realized his market has evaporated. Sam stepped back, hand dropping from the cuff but not from the knowledge that the promise sat heavy in the air between them.

The air hummed like live wire. Dean’s boot scuffed the floor as he shifted, ready to haul his brother back if he had to. Cas’s eyes were lit, grace flickering just under his skin. Markus’s expression was carved from marble, hands clasped tight behind his back. Henry’s jaw was set, but his gaze stayed steady on Sam, as if daring him to make the choice.

The cameras kept rolling. The feeds fed out into channels that could not be silenced. The light in the room was harsh and honest.

Sam’s last look at Latham was quiet and unsparing. “You wanted to put her under a glass. Now everyone will see what you did in the open. You won’t get the luxury of calling it progress anymore.” He turned away, and for the first time since the night began the room exhaled—slow and terrible, like a thing relieved that some small balance had shifted right.

Chapter Text

Latham expected a convoy, sirens, the flashing lights of states parading him as a prize. What he got was silence.

Henry Langford and Markus Winchester moved him through Lyon’s side streets in a nondescript car, black windows rolled up against the city. The cuffs around his wrists were iron, old-world craftsmanship worked with sigils. He pulled against them once, then stopped.

“Interpol?” Latham scoffed, his voice brittle in the quiet. “You think they can contain me? Do you know who I am?”

Henry’s eyes flicked to him in the rearview mirror, pale and cold. “Yes. A man who mistakes notoriety for immortality. You’ll find Interpol’s paperwork less forgiving than your ledgers.”

Markus’s hand stayed heavy on Latham’s shoulder. He didn’t need to raise his voice. “Keep talking. It’ll be the only thing you’ve left.”

The car slipped past checkpoints with no hesitation. Doors opened, badges flashed. Contacts Henry had cultivated over decades smoothed the way. Not bribes—favors. Oaths. Quiet debts finally called in.

No cameras waited at the Lyon headquarters. No press. Just two officers with sharp eyes, the kind that already knew who was coming.

“Messieurs,” one said in French, shaking Henry’s hand with more respect than surprise. “We’ve cleared a room. No record of his arrival—yet.”

Henry handed over a slim folder, the evidence encoded and duplicated a dozen ways. “He belongs to you now. Treat him as a witness and a criminal both. What you do with the confession is yours to decide.”

Markus pushed Latham forward, guiding him through the security doors. Latham laughed, high and frantic. “You think you’re delivering me to justice? You’re just feeding me to amateurs. Aurora will come. She’ll find me. She’ll see I was right.”

Markus bent close to his ear, the smile sharp. “The only thing she’ll see, Jonathan, is how small you look when the begging starts.”

The steel doors closed behind them, sealing him in.

Latham sat cuffed, jaw tight, pretending at composure. One wrist was already swelling where the bone had cracked under Sam’s earlier grip, skin angry and bruised above the cuff. His lower lip was split, dried blood crusted in the corner, every swallow tasting of iron.

At first, he tried his usual veneer. “You don’t grasp the scope,” he said in clipped, official tones. “DAT wasn’t rogue. We were the future. You’ll realize that once the panic burns off.”

The officers didn’t answer. They only pushed photographs across the table: bodies hooked to rigs, bank trails curling back to his signature. The silence needled him until the words cracked.

“She should be here,” he snapped suddenly, the motion jerking his bad wrist and sending pain flashing across his face. His voice jumped, louder than he meant. “Aurora. The Source. Bring her in. Do you even know what she is?”

The officers exchanged a look. One flipped another page of evidence.

Latham leaned forward, chains rattling, his injured wrist trembling with the effort. “She doesn’t belong with Winchester. You think that freak deserves her? Demon’s blood, a record of failure stacked higher than your courthouse. He’s rot dressed up in sentiment.” He bared his teeth, blood seeping fresh at the split in his lip. His eyes glittered fever-bright. “She deserves someone who can use her, who can harness what she is.”

The second officer spoke for the first time, dry as stone. “You mean someone like you?”

“Yes!” Latham barked, jerking forward until the cuffs bit his bruised skin raw. The word cracked through the room like a shot. “Someone disciplined. Someone who understands she isn’t a woman, she’s a system. A fountain you can direct. She could’ve ended wars—if I’d had her, the Directorate could’ve built order. Not chaos.” His breath came fast now, uneven, chest heaving. “But with him? She’ll burn herself out. She’ll waste herself on love.”

The first officer slid a paper across the table: a lab report where Latham had scrawled vivisection protocols in the margins, the handwriting jagged, smeared with old blood where his lip had split earlier.

Latham’s face spasmed. “Don’t—don’t look at that like it’s cruelty. It was science. Necessary. To see what makes her…sing.” His voice softened, desperate, almost reverent. “You don’t know what it’s like to stand in her presence. To feel that heat. She wanted to be used. She was waiting for someone worthy. Not him. Never him.”

His eyes darted, pupils blown wide, sweat rolling down his temples. He wasn’t looking at the officers anymore—he was staring through them, past them, lips twitching with a muttered prayer.

“Aurora. Aurora. She should be here. She should see me. She’d understand. She’d come.”

The chain rattled as he twitched against the cuffs, his bad wrist jolting, drawing out a hiss of pain.

On the other side of the glass, Markus folded his arms, watching the breakdown with a wolf’s smile. “Let him dig,” he murmured. “The hole only gets deeper.”

The interrogation had gone quiet again. Papers spread between them, his own handwriting accusing him louder than any gavel.

Latham shifted in his chair, sweat slicking his collar. “This… this isn’t your jurisdiction. You’ve got no mandate for celestial matters. Interpol handles terror cells, trafficking, financial crimes. Not—” He jerked his cuffed hands upward. “Not this.”

The older officer leaned back, folding his arms. His French was precise, clipped. “Monsieur Latham, Interpol handles what our partners ask us to handle. And we have… very old partners.”

The younger officer tapped the folder, his gaze flat. “Langford. Winchester. You know the names. You should — half your ledgers trace back to chasing their shadows. They don’t file reports, monsieur. They make them.”

Latham blinked. “You—you mean to say they own you?”

The older officer’s mouth tilted into the faintest shadow of a smile. “Not own. Patron. There is a difference. You will find our allegiance… flexible, but not to you.”

The younger one added, matter-of-fact: “Interpol answers to Iron Oak. And tonight, so do you.”

The words landed like a dropped stone. Latham’s breath hitched. For a heartbeat he tried to rally, sneering: “That’s impossible. That’s myth. Iron Oak burned out with the Men of Letters—”

The officer slid a final sheet across the table. An embossed crest, familiar, centuries old. The seal of Iron Oak, pressed into the official Interpol memorandum like a watermark.

Latham’s mouth dried.

Latham had always assumed power began with the Directorate. With DARPA spinoffs, Vatican leaks, Cold War black budgets. He thought he was working at the frontier.

What he never uncovered was that the foundation had been laid centuries earlier — in the Tudor period, when Henry Langford and Aurora began weaving a lattice of favors, wards, and financial tethers that quietly outlived kings.

Aurora had vision, but Henry had patience. He bartered protections for titles, debts for land, silences for coin. Every monarch who leaned on his sigils ended up owing him. The Men of Letters grew fat on that scaffolding, never realizing it wasn’t theirs alone.

By the 19th century, Markus Winchester had joined him. What began as brotherhood became partnership, two men running the empire in tandem while Aurora turned her focus to the Archive in Lebanon. She trusted them to maintain the empire while she built something larger — a vault of creation itself.

Favors compounded into fortunes. Magical protections became contracts. The ledgers outlasted revolutions. By the time Latham was playing spy-master, Henry and Markus had already built a portfolio that rivaled governments. Interpol, MI6, the Vatican’s black-chambers, the Pentagon’s forgotten wings — all had leaned on Iron Oak, and all had left threads in the tapestry.

That was why checkpoints melted at a glance. Why dossiers surfaced before they were requested. Why the officers at Lyon didn’t argue jurisdiction, but simply opened doors.

And that was why Jonathan Latham sat in a windowless cell, cuffed in Iron Oak sigils, realizing too late that his “future” was a counterfeit printed on the back of their centuries.

On the other side of the glass, Markus watched him squirm. “All those years, he thought he was building a throne.”

Henry’s voice was flat, centuries of work beneath it. “And never noticed he was standing in ours.”

The war room at Iron Oak smelled of coffee and cold stone. Maps littered the table — Europe, the States, the Middle East — with Theta sites and Dominion black-labs circled in red.

Dean planted his hands on the table, eyes flicking from one mark to the next. “Look, we’ve been playing defense since forever. Running motels, burning IDs, scraping together bullets. That’s over. We’ve got their keys now. Theta, Dominion — their bunkers, their files, their gear. Ours.”

Sam leaned back, long fingers steepled. “You’re talking about turning black sites into hunter compounds.”

“Damn right I am,” Dean said. “They’ve got wards baked into concrete, weapons labs already stocked, transport lines running under half the globe. Hunters die because we don’t have places like this. Because we scatter, we hide. Not anymore.”

Castiel’s voice cut through, calm but certain. “You’ll need more than space. Dominion’s bases were built to cage grace. If you turn them into strongholds, you’ll need hunters who understand what they’re sitting on. Otherwise, they’re prisons that remember their purpose.”

Dean glanced at Cas, then back to Sam. “That’s why we run them differently. No suits, no leash. These places are supply and shield. Hunters run them, not spooks. Interpol’s already in Markus and Henry’s pocket. We’ve got cover. The Council watches the front door. That gives us a chance to breathe. To train. To build.”

Sam’s brow furrowed as he studied the maps. “It’s not just supply lines, Dean. These places have records — medical experiments, occult research, ritual stockpiles. If hunters are going to inherit them, we can’t pretend that rot didn’t happen. They’ll need to clean it, purge it, and know what was done inside. Otherwise it’ll corrupt us, too.”

Dean jabbed a finger at one red circle. “So we do both. We burn what’s poison, keep what’s useful, and make these bastards pay for building it in the first place. Hunters have never had anything like this. This time, we’re not just surviving. We’re building a network. A real one.”

Castiel inclined his head. “An empire of your own, then. Born from their ashes.”

Dean smirked, sharp but tired. “Nah. Not an empire. A fighting chance.”

Dean stabbed a finger into one of the red circles — Montana. “Theta-7. Good perimeter, armory already built. That goes to Donna and Jody. They’ll make it into a training hub, not just for hunters, but for the kids coming up behind them. Claire, Kaia — hell, even the next generation needs somewhere to belong.”

Sam leaned forward, voice steady. “Then Dominion-3 in Berlin. That’s research. The Archive will oversee it, not hunters. Aurora and Markus can filter what’s dangerous, what’s worth keeping. Every file gets catalogued. No more secrets rotting in basements. Hunters deserve transparency. And so do witches, covens, fae… anyone stepping into this new world.”

Cas folded his hands, eyes narrowing at the map. “And the bases must be sanctified. Dominion designed them to trap grace — if those wards remain, they’ll corrode. I’ll bring angels willing to re-mark the foundations. If hunters are to share ground with witches and fae, the sites must be neutral sanctuaries, not cages.”

Dean smirked, tired but sure. “So hunters aren’t just swinging iron anymore. We’re cops now. Judges. Babysitters.”

Sam shook his head. “Not cops. Protectors. The monsters aren’t going to stay hidden much longer. Some of them are innocent, some aren’t. People will panic if they don’t see structure. If we don’t build it, governments will. And we know how that ends.”

Henry’s voice, calm from the shadows of the room: “Dominion and Theta failed because they thought control meant cruelty. If you build this, it has to be the opposite. Protection, regulation, fairness. Or you’ll inherit their ruin.”

Dean sighed, rubbing a hand across his face. “Alright. Hunters run the lines. The Archive runs the books. Cas runs the wards. And the Council keeps us honest. That about right?”

Sam allowed himself the faintest smile. “It’s more than right. It’s necessary.”

Cas inclined his head. “Then Iron Oak becomes more than a home. It becomes the center of something new. Not empire. Not rebellion. Balance.”

Dean leaned back, finally letting himself breathe. “Hunters, regulators, protectors. Never thought I’d say it, but… guess we’re the law now.”

The footage didn’t lie: bodies convulsing as stolen grace was forced into them, Enochian sigils crawling across concrete walls, field notes describing “winged entities” as sources to be harvested. Even the most cynical anchors faltered when they had to say the words celestial biology out loud.

The scroll at the bottom of every broadcast wasn’t just about scandal. It was about faith made flesh.

DAT EXPERIMENTS CONFIRM SUPERNATURAL ENTITIES ARE REAL

ANGELS HELD CAPTIVE IN SECRET FACILITIES, GRACE EXTRACTED

RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES WORLDWIDE SCRAMBLE TO RESPOND

The Vatican convened an emergency synod before sunrise. Cardinals shouted across the marble hall: some insisting this was proof of God’s order, others horrified at the idea of Heaven reduced to something injectable. One leaked remark, caught on a journalist’s recorder, made it to headlines within the hour: “If angels can be bled like cattle, then what is sacred?”

Mosques and temples filled with believers seeking guidance. Some clerics preached calm: angels are real, therefore so is God’s plan. Others shook with fear, calling DAT’s work a new Tower of Babel, mankind reaching where it should not.

On the streets, prayer circles formed beside protests. Hymns and chants mingled with angry slogans on cardboard. Faith was no longer abstract. It was on film, trembling inside glass tanks.

Meanwhile, the shadow world scrambled.

Black-suited men in Langley basements shredded files by the ton, only to see fragments show up on social feeds hours later. Defense contractors purged servers of angelic “material applications,” hastily rebranding projects under euphemisms like exotic physics and novel bioenergy. In London, a Ministry official was photographed leaving his office with a bonfire of documents smoldering in a trash bin.

An NSA memo, leaked almost instantly, revealed the panic in real time: “DO NOT USE TERM ‘ANGEL’ IN WRITING. REFER TO SUBJECTS AS NHI (NON-HUMAN INTELLIGENCE). ANY VARIANCE WILL BE FLAGGED.”

NATO tried to minimize the damage: “Yes, anomalous entities exist, but the Directorate acted outside recognized authority.” The word angel was avoided in every communiqué, replaced by cold acronyms.

The UN Security Council chamber was pandemonium. Russia demanded that all supernatural research be placed under international control. China called for angelic artifacts to be destroyed before they destabilized humanity. The U.S. ambassador, pale, offered only: “This was not sanctioned policy. We condemn these atrocities.”

Markets swung like weather vanes—pharmaceutical giants collapsed on rumor alone, churches’ stocks in religious media soared, and defense contractors scrubbed contracts from public record as fast as they could.

But no amount of scrubbing erased the fact that the world had seen it. The veils were gone.

Everywhere, people whispered names they had never dared to speak aloud. Names attached to classified memos and vivisection diagrams.

For the faithful, it was confirmation that Heaven was real. For skeptics, it was betrayal — that their governments had known and hidden it. For many, it was both.

One protest sign in Paris summed it up: “IF ANGELS ARE REAL, SO IS JUDGMENT.”

Another in New York: “THEY BUILT A LAB TO CAGE HEAVEN.”