Visible Targets (XO,SN,UC, Mature) COMPLETE

[vaifeal]

Title: Visible Targets

Category: XO: Roswell/Supernatural

Pairing: UC: Liz/Dean

Rating: Mature: language, violence and references to sex.

Disclaimer: I don't claim ownership on anything... seriously absolutely nothing.

Summary: The war is here. Humanity lost.

A/N: I've had this idea for a while and was slowly working on it but I'm rereading 'Madness Visible: A Memoir of War' by Janine De Giovanni and 'Necessary Targets: A Story of Women and War' by Eve Ensler [hence the title, both are worth a read if anyone is interested] and they've helped speed up the process. Hope you enjoy.

Oh, and spoilers for all episodes of both

“Much later, I remembered the stillness, the quiet of chaos.” Madness Visible, Janine De Giovanni

There was a certain stillness in war. When you where on the precipice holding out against the fall. There's that point before action has left its mark where there is nothing. No sound. No movement. Just light and breath. The peace at the eye of the storm. Then as quickly as it's there, it's ruined. Your pulse spikes and all that's left is to jump, hoping to survive the impact.

It was chaos and hope all consumed in the fire of thought.

No turning back.

No running.

Remember that all you can depend on is one breath after another and even that will fail.

Chest heaving with exertion, the painful press of two years of subterfuge reminded her of her importance even as she turned away from her only chance of escape. One hand inching towards the final layer of her role. Plans within plans. That's what she'd been told. That's what she'd lived. A press of a tiny little delicate button and she'd be done.

It wasn't the worse part. A long time ago she'd thought it was.

Her sneakers heel slipped slightly, bringing her a hair away from dropping into the dark rushing waters a hundred meters below her. The abyss. Fitting that it should end in such a place.

The man, if it could be called that, in front of her spoke with the same heavily accented voice that all the Mimics had as his lips wrapped around the uncouth earth language. Disgust and disbelief were heavy in his features as he extended a hand wrapped in near transparent skin for her to take. She wouldn't. He knew she wouldn't. The lies that spun in the air between them couldn't hide that she would face death for daring to stand against them.

And that was even though they believed that hers had been a crime of opportunity.

That it was sheer dumb luck that a creature such as she could have gotten their hands on so much of their data. That it was the same luck that had gotten her close to one of the few men who had access to it and that had gotten her out of the reconstructionist city. For it to be otherwise was inconceivable. No being so tainted by human genetics was capable of the intelligence and cunning required to pull of what she had.

She was a half breed.

Only good enough to bed but never more than a trifle. To be traded away if needed and always used. Servant. Slave. Property. A mark of betrayal by people long dead. Something to toy with before destroying. By decree all the half breeds had to be eventually destroyed. Days. Weeks. Months. Years if they were an object of obsession.

They where threats.

The mimic made a low sound in the back of its throat. Arousal. It had always enjoyed her defiance, even if she rarely showed it. It was little comfort to know that every action she had taken had been with a sole purpose in mind. But in the scheme of things she'd rather be a willing victim than the alternative.

Too many suffered the alternative.

For a brief moment she considered giving in. Letting them kill her just so she didn't have to struggle anymore. All her life she had fought. She was tired. Shaking away her morose thoughts she allowed the visible signs of slaughter surrounding her to remind her why the war wouldn't end until there where none left.

Her fingers pressed the button.

The Mimic she'd duped and his guards turned away as the explosion rocked the ground. The skyline was alight with orange and reds, dark clouds of rubble rolling outward. Angry curses erupted over the sounds of sirens.

When they turned back, Ava was gone.

~*~

The war had started suddenly and without pity.

It had been quick and messy. Whole cities had been leveled. Populations demolished. No quarter had been given until the over six billion humans that had inhabited earth where brought down to a fraction of their numbers. No place had been left without the scars; crumbleing buildings, destroyed infrastructure, water supplies spoiled with rotting remains.

Then when it seemed like it was over - when humanity was licking its wounds, refugees on their own planet – the fighting started again. Not the guerrillas, there had always been rumors of them. This was a new enemy. Just as likely to strike at the Antarians as they where the humans. Demons. That stole the bodies of loved ones and did unspeakable things.

But it wasn't the possessions or the pointless murders that were ravaging humanity like a plague. What little hunters that remained where willing enough to share their secrets for surviving both. Suddenly societies outcasts where heroes. A whole new crop of targets to study.

The worse damage came in the systematic extermination of 'infected' camps.

Those few who survived the camps they where forced into by the Antarians had to be wary of keeping the supernatural out or keeping it from being discovered because the way it was going, humanity wouldn't survive long enough for the Demons and Aliens to destroy each other.

Not that Dean remembered any of that. He hadn't know anything beyond the pain of being dead until he'd woken up in a small white cell, strapped down and with a whole knew host of scars that he couldn't explain.

They could've been from hell.

He wasn't sure.

Answers didn't come until long after but even then too many questions remained. Why was he alive? Where was Sam? Did he escape or did they let him think he had?

A part of him had said to stay alone. He was a danger to everyone he was around just by virtue of being a hunter. But he hadn't been able to stop the impulse to find anyone he knew. But it'd been useless. Bobby's house had been leveled. Ellen's place deserted. There'd been no way to get in touch with other hunters, the phone network having been brought down and the worst: Sam was gone.

So he searched for his brother because Sam was a Winchester.

And Winchester's survived against the odds.

[vaifeal]

I'm so so sorry. I just moved out of the country and now I'm starting my grad program which unfortunately has meant that saying things were hectic is a massive understatement. But I'm back now (so is Supernatural) and the ideas are flowing.


“All that did exist were small things, things that previously had been effortless and now had to be done mechanically.” Madness Visible, Janine De Giovanni

Michael knew war.

Knew the smell. The taste. The texture. He knew the satisfaction of having a hit perfectly executed and the grim gratification of watching the enemy be decimated. He knew what it was like to become the mission so that peace, and all the trappings of it, were a distant hazy dream. He lived to kill. He'd been engineered for it. A test tube baby. A genetic freak show. The General of a fucked up little shithole army.

The freezing water dripped down his body washing away weeks worth of grime. It'd been a long time since they'd been anywhere with clean water that was abundant enough not to be rationed for drinking and his unit rarely risked entering the settlements for such petty reasons.

This was what his men were trained for. It was in their blood.

Even before the war they'd been fighters. The best in his squad were the best in the armed forces: Recon Marines, Seals, Rangers, guys who had spent their careers behind enemy lines. Most of the resistance was just normal people wanting to get back what was rightfully theirs but his, his were the elite. They had the worst jobs and the highest success rate. They were Max's right hand.

Max. The hidden King bidding his time until it was time to face Kivar and end it.

He mechanically dried himself off and slipped the first clean clothes he'd been given in over a year, ignoring what others would consider to be a pleasant feeling. They'd be leaving in twelve hours anyway and the little comforts of civilian life would be forgotten.

Larek had taken his friend as soon as it had become obvious that the war wouldn't be won in the open and that any resistance would be wiped out. But the advisor had been too late to help when they needed him. He came after. After Isabel had been taken and Kyle murdered for trying to protect her. After they found out that Liz was being hunted by both because of her abilities. After she'd gone missing saving their lives. After Maria was as good as dead.

She was lost in the camps, his Maria was trapped in a place where mortality rates where higher than in any developing nation before the war. He'd tried to save her. It had taken months but he'd found her, planned a mission to get her out, had jeopardized everything.

But like Isabel, Kivar kept her close. He liked to know he had his enemies most precious.

When Larek had come and taken Max there had been room for all of them but Michael was a fighter and Ava, the duplicate that was everything Tess hadn't been, would never abandon the species that had accepted her more willingly than her own.

For being the former General of a whole imperial republic, he was the most comfortable covered in a layer of dirt and hidden in the shadows. So unlike most of his men who were partaking in the universal life-affirming act of hard fast sex, he found a quiet corner with a plate of grub in hand and let the hum of human activity surround him.

All the while trying to ignore the differences between where he was and where his memories brought him. There where too many fissures to do it effectively but he tried.

He tried to ignore the men who where filled with angry despondency but who couldn't hope for more than the chance to protect their children.

The daughters whose expressions never shifted from terrifying vacancy.

The mothers who had already given everything they for their families but their lives and who knew that's what was coming next.

The youngest ones who would grow up not knowing what it was like not living in a constant state of war.

He tried to ignore it all but every face reminded him that Kivar had come because of them. Kivar had won because they weren't strong enough. And they, the intergalactic mutts, where humanity's only chance at getting rid of the alien threat.

Michael wasn't ready to think about what it would take to get rid of the rest.

~*~

She didn't know she was alive until her chest had heaved painfully, her lungs struggling to rid themselves of water. For a moment, for just one moment, when the sun was hot against her skin and the river was gently lapping at her legs, Ava had thought she was in heaven.

Things in her life had never been that easy.

Struggling against a plethora of broken and bruised appendages, she forced herself up. She had to keep moving. If she was lucky they wouldn't have started combing the rapids for her body just yet. If they had, she needed to get back to Michael.

They had what they needed.

The Rosetta Stone of intel. It was what Liz had put them on the track towards before she'd gone missing and what could very well give them the chance to get rid of Kivar and all of his Mimics that he used so effectively to keep humans submissive.

She ignored the sleeping form she passed whose likeness had once-upon-a-time been whispered in her ear.

Finally, the pieces where coming together.

[vaifeal]

“The war was so close to her, but she seemed utterly unaffected by it: Her life just went on.” - Madness Visible, Janine Di Giovanni

Maria had known the moment she'd stepped into the van that her life would be irreversibly changed but she'd taken one good look at Michael, at the relief and love and saw everything that he could never bring himself to say.

And she'd held on for all she'd been worth.

It'd been magnificent.

Away from the poison: the whispers and fears of Roswell, Michael had come alive in front of her eyes. Joy. Love. Life. He'd taken her by the hand, his larger finger dwarfing her, and had shown her who he was. Even as her best friends marriage fell apart in front of them through Liz's increasing distance and Max's guilt.

They'd thrived.

She'd been one of those lucky girls.

Her mother had taught her better than to believe it would last but even after the war had started, she'd held on to hope. Through the battles. Through Isabel. Through Kyle. Nothing could touch her as long as she was with Michael. Oh, that woman she'd been.

So naive. So blind to what the things happening around her meant.

It hadn't been until Liz, until her best friend, her sister had pulled her out of bed in the middle of the night, her face still the serene mask that they'd all come to know and hate, that she'd come to recognize that things where about to get a lot worse. There hadn't been any reasons spoken aloud, nothing to tell her why it was so important to get out just a sense of urgency not to be ignored.

Not until – not until the room they'd been in, that crappy little motel room that'd been home for two weeks, exploded sending shards of wood and plaster out into the ether, that she hadn't need a verbal answer to the unspoken question. Her friend had just kept moving, shoving Maria behind open doors and below desks until they'd been out in the open.

She, desperately trying to keep up with a woman who never second guessed where they were going.

It wasn't the first time that Liz had scared her.

There had been the case months before the bombing but after Isabel, when Ava was going into the hornets nest. There'd been that conversation. About a man.

Liz had pulled Ava aside and told her “There will be a man unlike any other you've met. You'll pass him in haste, ignoring the slumbering form wrapped in flannel. When you know you've seen that man. That's when the end will be near.”

Ava had tried to brush it off, unnerved by to a references to the future like she always was but Liz had taken her shoulders and with more emotion than she'd shown in a long time said one word, “Remember.”

Later, when she'd had time to think Maria would remember all the little instances when her friend had spoken of things beyond herself. But at that time, squeezed into a cramp little damp cave, the sounds of their pursuers surrounding them, all she could think about was that she just wanted to see Michael one last time.

“If only Alex could see us now,” she turned and had seen her friend complete with somber smile instead of the shell that had been their constant companion. “I love you Maria,” she remembered trying speak past the lump in her throat but coming up with nothing even as soft lips pressed against her head. “Everything's going to be ok. Just you wait. It'll be amazing.”

By the time Michael and Max found her, Liz was gone.

So where the Mimics.

Three days later Maria was captured and she fought everyday so she didn't forget those words.

“It'll be amazing.”

She liked amazing.

A tiny hand settled over hers pulling her out of her morose thoughts. With her mothers grin and her fathers eyes, Serenity was exactly what Maria had always pictured her daughter to be. She wished every night that Michael could see her too.

Their reason for amazing. Her reason for being alive, being left alive.

“Come on Nity, lets go see if Aunt Izzy wants to play.”

~*~

Finding the settlement was a complete mistake.

He took a wrong turn, got a little – just a little – off track, and he'd found the entrance. It was in shambles: dirty, poorly stocked, festering in illness and misery. Dean had never been so happy as when they'd open their door to him.

This was the resistance, a network of people. Soldiers. Information. Hunters. They were willing to help him survive and help him find Sam. Once they'd proved he wasn't a plant or sympathizer first.

They had put him in with an old man who could barely stand on his own but whose spirit was full of fire when he saw her. Pitch black hair in thick plaits around her head, only a blanket loosely wrapped around her revealing tattoos down her spine that he barely recognized as predating Latin. Her brown eyes had caught his in a bare show of acknowledgment that had sent shivers through him before moving on.

“They call her Cassandra,” the old man rasped sensing his interest. “They say she can see the future, that one. Load of horse shit if I've ever heard it.”

Dean half nodded in agreement still trying to wrap his mind around it. Her.

Whatever had brought him back and led him to this place. She was the reason why.

He couldn't understand it but he believed it.

[vaifeal]

The song at the end, A La Claire Fontaine, is an old french children song.

“She had dark hair and a face that was soft and rounded but etched with hardness” Madness Visible, Janine Di Giovanni

“Do you know who Cassandra was?” hands, covered in the heavy wool gloves that so many people in the settlement used to keep warm, moved rapidly and surely across the spines of old books. A thick faded black sweater hung off the same deprivation sick shoulders that humanity had come to embody. “What am I saying? Of course you do. John wouldn't have settled for less in his son.”

She grabbed what she was looking for, the too long rolled cuffs of her pants dragged across the floor as she made her way to the cot shoved in the corner of what had once been a large closet but was now home. Her legs drawn up underneath her, she looked like a child.

“Who-” his voice stuck.

Who was this woman who had innocence and war etched into her being?

A small hand patted the space next to her and Dean tired of fighting against months of exhaustion, didn't resist the strange compulsion to follow her. Long years ago he would have run, probably killed. Before his death he would have fought against giving in just long enough to check that it wasn't a trap. He was a Winchester. Winchesters didn't meet women with open hearted smiles without there being hidden poison.

At least ones that wouldn't burn.

Her head rested against his shoulder and for a long moment they sat, her fingers dancing along the lines of his wrist.

“If wishes were horses...” her movements settled as her weight leaned heavily into him.

He didn't know how to handle this complete stranger who was so unquestioningly comfortable in his presence. So he finished the rhyme he could barely remember but which felt like a test, “then beggars would ride.”

“Tell me the story of Cassandra,” a part of him wanted to ignore where they where. Could only see the echo of a dream he'd had so long in the past he'd all but forgotten it. A couch. A home. A woman that didn't exist.

“She was the daughter of the King of Troy when it fell. The god Apollo made it so that she could see the future because he was in love with her. It was her gift.”

“And that no one believed her was her curse,” there was something in her voice that made him think of what the old man had said before he'd snuck out to find her.

Something about her just ain't right. Mark my words boy, those eyes have see the devil.

No one ever escapes war unscathed.

She turned so that they where facing each other, her weight already familiar and missed. Oh so slowly she removed the unbuttoned flannel outer shirt that he'd worn since he'd found it shoved into the back of a drawer in an abandoned house. Fingers that he barely registered as minutely shaking, pushed his sleeve up.

The hand laid down matched the raised scar perfectly.

“You. You,” there wasn't fear. It confused him that he wasn't afraid. “What do you know?”

“Nothing. Everything,” brown eyes tried to make him understand. “It's always been you Dean. Always. I've dreamed about you. For so long. And I know you've dreamed about me. Some part of you knows me.”

“You pulled me out of hell.”

“I couldn't leave you there. You didn't deserve that,” he wiped the tears off her cheek before she could. She gave him a smile and a chuckle, “besides you're too important. Too many people need you here.”

Dean wanted to ask what she meant. Wanted to know why exactly she brought him back. What was coming. Where his brother was. Why he knew who she was when he didn't know who she was, “What's your real name?”

“Liz, Liz Parker.”

Liz settled back down besides him and started to talk. About everything. He wrapped his fingers around hers and listened, knowing that he'd probably never understand why he wasn't ever going to let go.

~*~

Isabel had a soft heart and a hard smile.

She was an expert at showing the world only what she wanted them to see and she'd become a professional at hiding her thoughts as well.

It helped for when Kivar was looming above her trying to make her become the woman who'd betrayed her family. That would never happen. She'd die before she'd let that happen.

But when it came to watching her niece - Little Nity who reminded her so much of Michael but who had Maria's inability to control her tongue (something that scared both women because who knew when it was going to be released against the wrong person) – she felt like she would never be more than a stranger.

An outsider.

Isabel was loosing her ability to let her walls down.

It broke her heart.

Maria's soft humming lulled her thoughts. There was so much that could be had in life. So much that she wanted for all of them. The words to the tune flitted through her head, remnants from High School. A lifetime away.

À la claire fontaine, M'en allant promener. J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle. Que je m'y suis baigné.

[vaifeal]

“I can't help them. I can't stop the pain. I can't lie to them anymore” Madness Visible, Janine Di Giovanni

There had never been any dreams. No inkling of foggy faces or malformed shapes in the distance. Liz's dreams weren't made of such pleasant things.

But she could make those images for others.

It had been easy to do that for Dean. Easy to slip in undetected and plant the idea of a dark haired woman with all the answers. She hadn't had to do much, just give him a nudge in the direction she wanted his subconscious to take. That had only gotten easier after she'd pulled him from the pit.

What was life but a quirk of nature.

What was hell but a cage that needed the right key.

Liz understood how she scared so many people. Even her family. She had the future in her head and power infesting her being. More than human. Less than something more. She was something no one had ever seen before and her enemies where stupid enough to believe they could capture her.

They where engages in a game off chess and she knew all of her opponents tricks.

Not everything she'd told Dean was a lie. He was important. He couldn't be left in hell. She did know him. She didn't dream about him but she could dream with him. Let his mind take her where it wanted to. His dreams where her only escape.

She did know him.

More than the inane details he showed the world. More than Max. She knew him and she needed him. Not only for the selfish reasons women need the loved one's in their lives but for a very real task.

Sam.

No matter the power that the younger Winchester had, he'd forever be lost and easily led astray. The road to hell was paved with good intentions. Sam had honorable intentions in his heart and hell in his blood. The pair of them, the knight and the pawn, they'd stand with royalty and reshape the world.

It was a horrible thing she was going to do but there was no other way.

If she got Sam without Dean, she'd lose him to Lucifer. If Dean went without Sam, there'd be no bringing him back. If they both went without the Royal Four, Kivar would win.

She traced his features as they relaxed in sleep.

For the longest time she'd been so confused. When she'd first gotten her gifts she hadn't thought the flashes she was really seeing the future. When she realized that things where happening the way she saw them she hadn't known what to do. Did she have the right to change the future? The first time she'd actively used her knowledge, the shift in the timeline had almost killed her.

That had been the first time she'd reached out to him. The man who played such a prominent role in all that was happening.

When the time had come when the future became her, she'd known what to do. Accepted that she'd put herself in this position and might very well loose the man she'd love because of the choices she'd made to bring them to that point.

How many deaths where on her shoulders?

How many lives had she destroyed playing her game of God?

Dean shifted in his sleep, green eyes peaking out at her even as his body tried to tempt him back into sleep. She wanted to join him on her little cot, bury them in blankets and ignore that there was never such a thing as enough time.

“We need to go,” Liz laced her fingers with his and drew him forward. “There are people you need to meet.”

~*~

Sam had spent every moment since he'd put Dean in the ground looking for a way to get him out. He'd started with the occult. Used Ruby. Pillaged Bobby's books. He'd tried everything, even he most obscure methods he'd crossed.

Then the war had started with Aliens and a demon that made Lilith fear.

No matter how much he tried to ignore what was happening around him, tried to stay focused on getting his brother back, it hadn't been possible. He fought with the resistance instead. Killed anything that crossed his path. Demon or Alien. He still had nightmares about what Dean must be going through in the pit and still looked for ways to free a soul.

Pushing his way further through the thick underbrush his attention focused more on what he'd learned than where he was going, he didn't realize that there was someone behind him until the hand was pressed against him.

“Once there was a little girl with hair of braided gold. She sat upon a midnight chair wondering 'why am I here?'” the tension drained from him as he recognized the rhyme. Only one person used that. One person, bruised and battered but whole, standing in front of him.

“Once there was a little girl with broken stars for eyes. She wandered lost until the day she asked 'What does it mean to be free?'” Sam managed to regain his balance before the sudden weight in his arms brought them both to the ground. He held the form tightly as it shook, “Ava.”

[vaifeal]

Thank you for putting up with this, me. I hope you enjoyed it :}

“There were secrets in these hills, and the war was not over yet,” Madness Visible, Janine Di Giovanni

Max had known for a long time that the war would make him into a man unrecognizable to the one he'd been. It was a logical conclusion to an illogical phenomena. War never made any sense. He knew it wouldn't happen suddenly but gradually so he didn't look for it when he woke up in the morning. Just waited for the day when he'd look in the mirror and not know who was looking back.

His decision to go with Larek had been a part of that change. It wasn't, as Michael seemed to believe, a ploy to avoid fighting but rather a move to play to his strengths. Max did better in command. When placed in the midst of combat, he pissed people off.

Michael was the warrior not him.

But he did know how to use the power given to him and he knew what he had to do. Max needed to kill Kivar, he was the only one that could.

~*~

Ava entered the clearing knowing that her life was about to drastically change yet again. There'd been no denying that the moment she'd given the small flash drive to Liz and watched her friend sag with relief or burden. Maybe both.

Maybe guilt.

For a woman who could see anything, why couldn't she see the information on that stupid piece of plastic that had been worth her life? Were somethings blocked to precogs or was Liz afraid of changing the timelines too much? Certain things had to happen and all that rubbish.

There was no time to ask, though if given the chance Ava wasn't sure if she would. She didn't think it would be worth it.

Hands clenched, she stepped forward to face her enemy. First and foremost the sneering face of the Mimic who she'd made a fool of, giving him a cruel smirk she looked to the rest of the assembled guard. So many, there were so many.

Taking solace in the thought that either way, the war ended tonight, Ava held her head high not letting any see the instinctive fear tearing through her. Kivar was there.

~*~

Liz pressed her hands against Deans head and begged forgiveness. He didn't remember his time in the pit, that had been the only fleeting kindness that she'd been able to gift him with. His head held the solution for what hell had in store, demons didn't hold their tongues against those already condemned, so he needed to remember.

Trying and failing to ignore his anguished whimpers, she pulled away the barriers holding the memories back. Images of devils danced through her head, only a shadow of what they were in his. They still made her want to hide.

He collapsed against her, his head nestled against her stomach his chest heaving, and she tried to keep her mantra running continuously. Tried to take comfort in it.

This needed to be done. This needed to be done. This needed to be done. This needed to be done.

It wasn't working.

~*~

Sam had known the moment he met her that he would follow Ava till the end of the earth but he had never expected it to come so soon and he hadn't expected to meet his brother there. Standing between the two most important people in his life, he found himself almost enjoying the battle raging around him. Demon and alien fell indiscriminately as Ruby's knife sliced into them.

They wouldn't touch his companions.

It wasn't until he felt a black presence slither over him did he recognize what danger he was truly in. Only Dean's steady presence by his side kept him from getting lost in it.

~*~

Kivar wasn't an Antarian lacking in confidence. His arrogance wasn't from false assumptions or misplaced belief in his own capabilities. He really was the sadist that his enemies painted him as. Nothing brought more pleasure than the suffering of those who stood against him.

His power was all but complete, not even the boy king could stand against him.

Though that didn't stop the half breed from trying. Circling each other, Kivar didn't hear the sounds of his guards being beaten back or the demons joining the fray. He didn't question how Zan knew where he would be or how to get past the security check points.

Despite all his ability, he was focusing all he had on not losing.

~*~

Isabel squeezed Maria's hand as the world erupted around them, both of their starved emaciated forms providing inadequate shielding to the child pressed between them. Bullets and blasts swirled in the air around them, slowly dying down but still as destructive as they'd been in the hight of the battle.

She didn't dare peak out to search for her brother or to check the tide of the battle. Nity was shaking beneath her, Maria trying to make herself as small as possible. If no one saw them, they might just make it out unscathed.

Heat and noise choked them before silence descended. Still, she didn't dare move.

~*~

Dean fought between the memories fresh in his head, the echo of Liz's soft apologies in his ear, his brothers form beside him, and the demon before him. It wasn't Lucifer, he knew that much. No matter the evil that stood before him, it wasn't that one.

He knew that one, knew how to stop it. For once he was thankful for the monologuing he had been subjected to in the pit. At least something had come from those four months. Grabbing Sammy's wrist, Dean took the first step towards breaking the Demons powers.

If he was successful there's still be some out there but it would go back to what it was like before. Hunting them in the dark, saving people mostly unaware of what lived in the dark. He could live with that.

~*~

Michaels chest heaved from exhaustion and exhilaration. It had been the battle he'd been waiting for. Bloody, violent, and definite. Victorious. He grinned over at Max where the King stood over the body of Kivar, he'd finally earned his crown.

He saw Ava with her legs wrapped around the hunters waist, both coated in blood and dirt but oblivious to the what was around them. Too happy to remember that they were standing amongst bodies. Slowly he made his way through the wreckage, past friends and enemies alike. Past Liz where she was standing unsure but steady with the man who'd taken out the demon.

She always had had a thing for complicated men.

He saw Isabel crawl out from what used to be Kivar's transport, legs shaky but looking like the princess she was pulling a little girl behind her. A little girl that sent hope speeding through his chest. His heart breaking and healing over and over.

Then came Maria, with fire in her eyes and tears to match his.

It was amazing.

FIN