Chapter 111

Flash forward a few days, and things are almost back to normal. Charlie's gotten over Lucifer's temper tantrum and is back to spending her time flirting with Meg. Jo spends a lot of her time in the kitchen with Michael, which results in a lot of usually edible food for everyone else. Nothing really changes with the adults. Dean and Castiel enjoy their quality alone time, though not without worry about Sam — who does occasionally leave his room, but usually late at night, just to grab something to eat. Jack and the two missing archangels are nowhere to be seen, but no one really cares about that. They barely notice.

What does get people's attention is when Sam appears, just before Michael and Jo serve lunch. As he looks around, he sees nothing but kind, welcoming smiles, but he knows they come from pity, so they don't mean much.

He's not quite sure why he finally decided to come out. The last few times he's been out here, he spent his time with Lucifer, whether it was a real conversation or just bored prayers. Before that, he usually listened to Dean and Castiel, and occasionally Gabriel. Sam would barely say a word, and he definitely wasn't enjoying himself. He'd probably have about as much fun alone in his room than third wheeling with his brother and his boyfriend.

But, when Dean waves him over, he knows it's too late to back out.

"Hey, Sammy, you're back," Dean says, stating the obvious as he usually does.

Sam shrugs. "Yeah."

"Are you feeling better?" Castiel asks.

Sam fights back the urge to roll his eyes. Cas makes it sound like he was recovering from the flu. Honestly, that would be preferable to regretting every decision he's made for weeks. But all Sam says is, "Guess so."

"That's good," Castiel says.

An awkward silence.

Well, this is gonna be fun. Not.

~~

One of the many perks of being an archangel is that good and water are unnecessary. This makes hiding out in a scarcely used garage for days on end infinitely easier for Gabriel, who has no desire to see anyone for a very long time. He'd much rather pace back and forth over and over in isolation, and considering no one can leave the bunker, the odds of anyone wandering into the garage are slim to none.

But eventually, someone does make their way there, but Gabriel doesn't notice until he hears an awkward, hesitant, "Hi?"

Gabriel stops pacing, eyeing the boy suspiciously. "What are you doing here?"

"Trying to keep to myself, mostly," Jack says. "But then I saw you, and then I wasn't alone anymore."

"Well, that would be how being alone works, now, wouldn't it?"

"I guess so," Jack agrees. "What are doing here?"

"Same as you," Gabriel says. "Looking for somewhere I can be alone. And it worked, too, for a few days."

"Oh." Jack frowns. "I can leave if you want. I mean, I wasn't really looking for anyone."

But, as much as Gabriel wants to be alone, he can't bring himself to tell the kid to get lost. The poor guy's stuck in a whole new universe. The least Gabriel could do is be nice to him.

"If you want to stay, that's fine," Gabriel says.

Jack smiles.

"What are you doing in the garage?" Gabriel asks. "There's nothing to do here."

"I know," Jack says. "I was just looking around. Even if everyone here is different than the people I know, the bunker's mostly the same. It's kinda comforting. I can at least pretend I'm home."

Gabriel looks over at hm sympathetically. "I'm sorry about all this."

Jack shrugs. "It's not your fault."

"Maybe not," Gabriel says, "but I think we both know you're not getting an apology out of Chuck."

"I don't want an apology," Jack says. "I just want things to go back to normal."

"I know," Gabriel says. "I do, too."

There's a lull in the conversation, both boys pondering the misfortunes that are their lives.

Finally, Jack asks, "Do you think it will? Go back to normal, I mean?"

Gabriel sighs. "I don't think it can — at least, not for me. Not for most of us." He pauses, then adds, "But you might have a chance. I mean, this isn't your universe. Chuck will probably bring you back soon."

"I hope so," Jack says. "I miss Sam and Dean — Sam and Dean."

"I know." Gabriel pauses, cocking his head to the side. "Sam and Dean?"

Jack nods slowly. "Yeah?"

" Sam and Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Where's your Cas?" Gabriel asks. "Your Mary?"

"Castiel is dead," Jack says. "Lucifer killed her."

Gabriel flinches at his brother's name.

"And Mary is in another universe," Jack continues. "At least, she was, but she's stuck there with Lucifer. I don't know what he might have done to her."

Gabriel just nods silently.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Jack says, catching his mistake. "You probably don't want to talk about... him..."

Gabriel gives him a half smile. At least he's considerate.

"Gabriel? Can I ask you a question?"

He shrugs. "Shoot."

"Who's Kali?"

Gabriel freezes, feeling the blood drain from his face. He should have expected this, of course. He could only hide from her name for so long. But that doesn't make it easier to hear it.

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to," Jack adds. "I was just curious."

"No, it's — it's fine," Gabriel says. "I can..." He can answer. He has to be able to answer. It's just a question. It's an easy question, really. He knows Kali. He knows her better than anyone else.

.

He her.

"Gabriel?"

Gabriel closes his eyes and shakes his head.

"Okay," Jack says quickly. "That's okay. You don't need to tell me. I'm sorry I asked."

They lapse into silence again, and again, Jack can tell they Gabriel won't be the one to break it.

Finally, he asks, "What's going on? I've been here for days, and I still don't know where I am. No one will talk to me. I'm just so confused."

"Honestly, kid, I feel the same way."

Jack frowns. "But, like, I feel like I've missed so much. I have no idea what happened before I was here. I don't even know what's happened while I've been here. I don't know most of these people, and the people I do know don't know me, and I'm just so confused and —"

"Jack." Gabriel puts a hand on his shoulder. "Calm down."

"But —"

"I mean it," Gabriel says. "Take a deep breath, okay?"

Jack does just that.

"All right, good," Gabriel says. "Now, what do you want to know?"

And here's The Archer last night but without a video

And here's Daylight again without a video, and it ends with what kinda sounds like a radio interview but she says, "I wanna be defined by the things that I love. Not the things I hate, not the things I'm afraid of. I just think that you are what you love" and I just think that's a really nice way to end the album.

And here's the whole thing because the last one is You Need To Calm Down acoustic and I'm a little bitter that she picked YNTCD to perform acoustic instead of ME! because I am ME!'s biggest (and only) fan.

And here's YNTCD on Good Morning America 

And here's ME! at GMA

And here's Shake It Off at GMA

And I know y'all aren't gonna watch all that, so there's really on point in telling you that if you like the GMA ones you should search them on YouTube because the official GMA account has better quality videos but Wattpad won't accept the links 

And honestly if you even scrolled down this far I applaud you and you should go listen to Taylor Swift's new album. It's not my favorite but it's probably the best album that's come out this year so it has that going for it and my favorite songs are I Think He Knows, Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince, Paper Rings, Daylight, and Afterglow, and then there's The Man which is a feminist bop, and I refuse to listen to Soon You'll Get Better which is a song she wrote about her mother's cancer and she sang it with the Dixie Chicks because they're her mom's favorite band and I can't listen to it without crying so that's my brief album review and now we're gonna pretend I didn't spend more time talking about Taylor Swift than I did writing this chapter