The (Other) Nephilim

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"All right. Fine. Say I agree. Dean, he can't be killed.

"No, but he can be contained."

"How are we supposed to do that?"

Dean didn't answer, just let his brother follow his gaze to the covered coffin shape in the middle of the room. He marched over and pulled the sheet off, patting the Ma'lak box revealed. "With this."

Sam stared at his brother in disbelief. "Are we seriously talking about locking Jack in this?"

"No, we're seriously talking about not having a choice. We can't kill him, okay? And this is warded to lock down an archangel.

"Yeah. So -- so, what? We just... force him inside?"

"How? No. He goes in here, it's got to be his choice."

"He's never going to go along with that," Sam exclaimed, not quite understanding how his brother could even think of doing this to Jack.

"Maybe," Dean agreed. "But he might. He might if he only has to stay in there long enough for us to finish the spell to fix his soul."

"Spell? What spell? There is no spell."

"We know that."

Sam scoffed. "So you want to lie to him?"

"No. Well, I mean, I want Zeppelin to get back together," Dean snapped. "But what I need -- what we need is to stop Jack. Big difference. But here's the deal, we both gotta sign off on it. This might be our only shot, and if he even catches a whiff that this is a scam, he's off into the wind."

"Exactly. And how do you think he's not gonna know something's up?"

"Because," Dean continued. "You're gonna be so damn sincere."

"Me? Why me?"

"Because you've always been in his corner, all right? You're his go-to guy. Sam if you reach out, he'll come. If I do it, after what happened to Mom, I could lose it." Sam shook his head, looking away. Dean corrected himself, "I will lose it."

---

Sam and his brother were now in the Library, having set up all parts of their plan to trap Jack, which included sending Lucas into town "to get that Peter Johnson book you wanted." Lucas found that surprisingly funny and had corrected Dean and told him that it was, in fact, Percy Jackson. Dean had corrected himself and gave Lucas some money and permission to fly to town and browse the shops for a few hours, along with a list of groceries to ensure that he wouldn't be around anytime during their plan ."I don't think this is going to work," Sam admitted.

Dean shrugged, "One way to find out."

So Sam sighed and folded his hands together. "Jack. I hope you can hear this. Some things... some bad things happened. But we're family. We're your family. A-and bad things happen and families. So we, uh. We want to talk with you. That's how we can all... get through this. That's how we can all move forward. Jack, we want -- we need to see you. Our mother would want it. Your mother would want it. Jack, we just want things to be the way they were. Are you hearing this?" Sam looked up and around, as did Dean. No Jack. With a sigh, the younger Winchester leaned back in his chair. "Guess he didn't hear."

The sound of wings flapping appeared and Jack stood next to one of the bookshelves. "I heard," he told them with relief in his voice. "And I was so glad. I didn't think I'd ever see you again." Not noticing Dean's furious stare, he continued, "I've been working with the angels to purify the world. Oh, and making angels. Yeah. I make angels," he told them proudly. "But... I really missed you guys."

"Yeah," Dean forced out through gritted teeth. "Us too. Right, Sammy? Tell Jack how, uh -- how we want to clear things up, you know, between us."

"I know," Jack assured them. "I know things have been bad. A-and if it helps, I regret it. The accident."

Sam glanced from Jack to his brother and back again. "The -- the accident?"

"What happened to Mary," Jack told them matter-of-factly. "She kept talking about my soul, t-that I didn't have a soul, and she kept pushing."

"Oh," Dean muttered. "So... she made you do it."

"No, it -- it was me, but I didn't want this no-soul thing to become an issue between us. I guess I snapped." At this point, not that Jack paid any attention to it, but Dean was working overtime to keep himself from snapping. Jack continued, "Before I knew it, it was all over."

"'It' being the 'accident'," Dean stated.

Jack looked almost sympathetic as he told him, "I wish it didn't happen."

"Yeah, so do we. But... we understand. And we forgive you," he lied, speaking bitterly. "You know, for the, uh, 'accident.'"

Sam added, "That's what you want, right, Jack? I mean, you -- you'd like that?"

"I'd like for things to go back the way they were. I knew you'd understand."

Sam nodded, keeping up his smile, and Dean mentioned to Jack, "So if we told you that we were close to being able to fix your soul, we just need to keep you safe until everything is ready, you -- you'd be okay with that?"

"Safe? What do you mean?"

"Well," Dean pointed out conversationally. "You could hurt other people. Have another, uh, accident." Every time he heard that word, his loathing toward the nephilim in front of him grew.

"Oh," Jack mumbled.

"We -- we wanna keep you safe, Jack," Sam stuttered. "That also means we -- we have to keep you safe from yourself. You know, so nobody else gets hurt, just until we get you better."

---

The light flickered on, and reflected off the iron sigils embedded in the walls of the open Ma'lak box.

"There she is," Dean announced. "It's actually kind of comfortable. And its best feature is that it's warded, so it keeps your powers below the meltdown level."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "So you can't hurt anyone... and n-nobody can hurt you."

"I understand," Jack announced to them.

"So, uh..." Sam trailed off, nodding to the box. Dean couldn't believe how badly his little brother was playing this off, but Jack didn't seem to notice.

To Dean and Sam's -- mostly Dean's -- relief, Jack nodded, "Okay." He approached the box and asked Dean, "So... what do I do?"

"Just hop on in."

So Jack, trusting him, climbed into the box and sat down. "Hm," he observed, and smiled to Dean. "Not bad."

"Hey," he smirked. "Told ya."

Jack looked to Sam and, sounding like a little kid, asked, "How long before I can come out?"

"Not too long," Sam assured him with a slight laugh. "Jack, we got this."

"Okay," Jack sighed and lay down in the box, which Dean promptly closed and locked.

A/N: There you finally go! I hope that this extra long chapter makes up for my absence a little bit. 1,813 words!