[This Temple Tilts] Chapter Seven
The road is long. Dean has no idea how long he drives in pitch black, waiting for another message or hoping that he'll pass some big neon sign that says Angels Imprisoned Here; Prison Breaks Around Back! Dean could go for a Coke. He's rewarded with a drink in the cup holder. Awesome.
Yet hoping that a big prison will appear in front of him does nothing. Nor does hoping that he'd find Castiel, or hoping that Castiel would just appear in the front seat. Dean keeps driving. Driving is easy. Keep on the path.
He thinks of Sam, and his insistence that they would spend less time getting lost if Dean would let him get a GPS unit - which was stupid, that iPod rig was bad enough. Dean could go for some angel GPS right about now. Hell, a line to Castiel would be more than enough.
His shoulder itches, and Dean releases Gabriel's weapon long enough to scratch. He feels the raised skin of that hand-shaped scar beneath his t-shirt and hits the brakes. He yanks his t-shirt up and hits the interior lights. In the dim yellow light Dean brushes the pads of his fingers over the raised shape of the hand print. "This is stupid," he says, his voice raw, but he closes his eyes and turns the wheel of the car. The itching lets up when he turns left. His arm itches like crazy when he slowly veers right, and Dean is going to take that as sign. Follow the most inconvenient radar of all time.
He kills the interior lights and guns it.
There's light on the horizon, but it's no time at all when the Impala starts shuddering and jerking, losing momentum. There's no reason - her gas gauge is full - but even with the pedal to the metal, she slows and eventually stops. Dean steps out into the darkness. He pulls the blade from its sheath, leaving the sheath in the front seat of the Impala. The dark is so oppressive and thick that it seems to dampen any light coming from the Impala. Dean tries to turn her headlights on, but there's no light but the one on the horizon.
He takes off at a run, willing the light not to be too far. His itching starts to burn and ground beneath his feet starts sticking. Dean feels like he's trekking uphill in mud, but he doesn't stop. He climbs and breathes in hard gasps; he can't seem to pull in enough air to replenish his aching lungs. Sweat on his brow and Gabriel's sword gripped tight in one hand, he looks to where the light is closer, burning his eyes, but even higher above him.
He squints against the painful glare. The light is at the top of some huge barren tree at the top of the hill. Perched on a single limb far above, a winged creature perches tucked tight in itself, the wings drooped. “Castiel!”
The darkness seems a little less heavy; Dean takes a heavy breath and feels filled. But there's something whispering in the shadows. Deceit. Tricks. Betrayal. Dean falls to his knees as the light dims, but now he has hope - weak and thready, but hope nonetheless. He just needs to get closer. "Cas! Get your ass down here!"
Nothing. Of course, he came here with his metaphorical guns cocked without any idea of what he was doing. With his whole body too hot from not enough oxygen and his heartbeat in his ears, Dean heaves himself to his feet and wonders if he can actually die again in Heaven.
When he reaches the top of the hellish hill, Dean sees the light far above him. Castiel sits with the top of his wings curved over his head, hiding his face from view. Dean shouts again, "C'mon! Not all of us can fly that high!" Slowly, Castiel lowers one wing enough to peer over the top. Even at the distance Dean can see the hollowness in his eyes, and he wonders not for the first time exactly what prison is in Heaven. Castiel shakes his head and tucks under his wing again. Dean shouts, "Don't you ignore me!"
Shit, that is up high. Still, it's a tree - Dean has climbed plenty of trees, and there's enough knobs and rugged edges to grab hold of. He drops the sword on the ground and claps his hands together before reaching out to haul himself up the tree.
Bark withers away and crumbles away where he touches it. “Son of a - seriously?” He places another hand on the tree, and sure as shit he can't get a grip without it breaking to dust in his hands.
"Dean Winchester."
Dean stoops down to grab the sword as he turns. The man looks like his father, grizzled beard, dirty coat and all, except the voice is all wrong. Well, maybe not. His father did escape Hell. Dean swallows and looks to the blade in his hand. It seems unnaturally bright. "What are you?" he asks, his voice thick.
"Does this make you uncomfortable? You would know me as Michael." Michael smiles like he's trying to be comforting when Dean raises the blade between them. It twists his father's features in all the wrong ways. "You have borrowed a blade from my brother."
"Look, I don't want any trouble - I'm just here for my friend." Michael circles him and Dean tracks the movement, keeping the blade in a position to strike. Michael chuckles as he tilts his head to look up at Castiel. "What are you going to do with a disobedient angel? I bet he's worth more to me."
"You think so?" Michael drawls. "It's not that I delight in hurting my brother - I have no interest in his quarrel with Raphael - but it is not my place to interfere. However, with my vessel empty on Earth, I could stop him if you consent to let me take your body."
Dean shakes his head. "Fuck off. No. What? I've never been a vessel in my fucking life."
"Had the Doctor not interfered with your future, you would have been mine eventually." Michael stops, and looks to the weapon. "Do you want to know what this prison is to him?" Dean doesn't answer, still looking for an opening or an escape or some way to get Castiel to come down already. "No Father above him, Dean Winchester in Hell below him, and poor Castiel in the middle with no way to remedy either. Raphael has a particular knack for picking out one's fears."
"Yeah, well, good for him. Cas!" This gets no response from Castiel, but Michael exhales. Dean takes a step closer. Michael stands his ground. "Just let us out. If you've got no dog in this fight, you should have no problem with that."
Michael seems to consider this. "I am not your problem. However, a human in our closest prisons raises attention - there are more coming. So I will do you this favor." Where exactly the sword comes from Dean doesn't see, but he barely has a moment to raise his own to parry the blow; it knocks him to the ground.
"The fuck kind of favor is this?" Dean yells. As he rolls out of the way Michael brings his sword up again. He doesn't look like John Winchester anymore, but something entirely too bright and powerful to behold; Dean averts his gaze and tries to keep his eye on the sword as it comes down again, quick and precise. Dean pulls himself into a tight crouch and jumps back before the blade comes, holding the machete so that he can take a slash at Michael. Dean turns as he hears a step behind him. He doesn't recognize the angel as he brings the machete around; the sword the angel was holding falls to the ground and the angel disappears with an anguished cry. There's a flutter of wings, and Dean turns again to see Michael coming at him.
Dean backs away from Michael and two angels that came in behind him. Guards, no doubt.
"If I am fighting you, my brother will not have to," Michael swinging his sword around; Dean notices that it slices a guard behind him, before the tip of it catches Dean in the chest. The pain is more of a dull ache, and Dean manages to block against the next attack and stay on his feet. "And there is still one Heavenly order that was never rescinded, one that Castiel does not disobey."
Dean rushes past Michael, plunging his blade into the angel that Michael wounded. The angel falls into a burst of light, and Dean drops just soon enough to hear the air displaced by Michael's sword above his head. Dean rolls on his back and looks up to see Michael standing above him. If he weren't already dead the sight would probably do a fair bit more than burn Dean's eyes out of his skull, but he can at least hold his ground now. He feels the heat of the blade against the side of his neck, and tries to decide the best way to attack.
Michael looks up at Castiel. Dean follows the suit, and sees Castiel staring down at them, his wings upright and tense. Michael raises his sword, and Dean lunges up. He catches the archangel in what would be his human midsection, but Dean just sort of passes through him.
It feels like frying, and for a second Dean sees everything - understands it as it flashes through his brain like a bomb exploding. Sees himself as Michael's vessel, sees half the world on fire, sees his brother as Lucifer. Feels the deaths of his closest friends, feels the impossibility of stopping the Apocalypse. His heart breaks with Michael's great regret at the death of his brother, coupled with the agony of seeing Sam twisted and dead on the rocks of some beach, the tide washing his body away as Michael watches.
Dean screams before he hits the ground again, the blade clattering out of reach. On his hands and knees, Dean can't see past the bursts of light in his eyes, and it takes him a minute to realize he's not on fire, that he's not Michael and everything was just potential. Gasping for breath, he realizes there isn't there a sword in his gut. He looks up again, and Castiel is gone.
"Dean."
Dean lurches and forces himself to sit upright on the ground that seems to feel more like grass now. Castiel is standing in front of him. Michael, standing with his sword in the ground, looks very seriously at Castiel. In fact, it looks an awful lot like a look that Dean had given Sam more than once when they were kids. Michael stretches and seems to become even larger before he's gone altogether. Dean clears his throat and stares at Castiel. "Took you long enough," he says, and finds that his voice has gone a bit hoarse. Castiel reaches out and helps him upright.
"You're dead," Castiel says, and there's such guilt in his voice that Dean almost feels bad. "How did you intend to get back?"
"I, uh, didn't give it that much thought," Dean says. He's still shaking from the force of knowing, and he gets it - sort of. The Doctor was doing Michael a favor. "I couldn't leave you here." They stare at each other for a long time, and for once Castiel is the first to look away. "I don't suppose you can just mojo us home."
"Not from here," Castiel says; he looks around and shudders. It's magnificent, though. Castiel is amazing. He looks like himself - well, like Jimmy, which has to be Dean's perception overtaking reality, because he also see the edges where Castiel spills over. Dean can also see his wings - not impressions on a wall or flashes in the corner of his eye, but full-on wings. They're large and tucked tight against Castiel's back, dark grey and obscuring most of Castiel's body when he turns away from Dean. "We'll have to go on foot."
"Super," Dean says, but the trek down is much less harrowing. At least this time he has Castiel to light the way.
***
Sam is surprised when the Doctor easily lifts the TARDIS out of the Impala; he's clearly stronger than he looks. Sam props the trunk open, staring at the haphazard pile of guns and knifes and bottles of holy water and containers of salt - the whole thing is just so Dean and Sam can't seem to keep his thoughts on the task at hand. River already has her guns tucked into a holster on each hip, but she reaches in and takes a knife. "Just in case," she says, smiling sidelong at Sam. He wishes they still had the Colt. He wishes that his hands would stop trembling, he wishes he could stop the terribly familiar ache of want-need-desperation rushing through his veins in time with staccato heartbeat.
"Are you going to be okay?" River asks under her breath as the Doctor takes off into the abandoned building.
"Yeah," he says, though he really wants to say I don't think so. As they pass through the familiar hallway, Sam notices that there are in fact hinges, elaborate with finials and carvings in the flat metal - but with not a single door in sight. It's almost amusing, but for the burning in his chest as he remembers the sound of Ruby's voice, that faux-terror on Lilith's face right before Dean tackled Sam to the ground.
He remembers muzzling her and Ruby both with those carved-leather straps, locking them in and trapping them in the back of a van until they far, far away from the door to Lucifer's cage. He shivers as he thinks about Ruby, still a raw spot he tries to bury away where no one can see how much he had really cared.
"Aha!" The Doctor takes off at top speed, his feet skidding awkwardly on the smooth stone floors as he rounds a corner. Sam and River turn the corner together. And there it is - a large blue police box just behind the altar where Sam was apparently destined to kill Lilith. Sam imagines he can feel Lucifer in the ground below them, trying to claw his way free, even though it's impossible.
"Doctor!" River shouts, casing after him. Sam follows. "Doctor, wait! It could be - "
"A trap," the angel says, dressed in an impeccably tailored suit and wearing that same placid expression that seemed default for all angels. "Of course. I am not a fool, Doctor."
River unloads two rounds into the man's head before the barrel of the gun twists. She drops it with a cry, her fingers twisted unnaturally. Sam slides to a stop, nearly running into her as she pulls the other gun in her off hand, even as the two bullets seem to ooze right from the man's forehead. Her gun does not fire. Two slugs snap to the floor, one right after the other, and the man's forehead is whole.
"That's enough!" the Doctor shouts, looking between Raphael and the blue box. Raphael is fixated on Sam, and his face twists with a wry grin. "Raphael, you've lost. You don't know it yet, but you have."
"Do you think so?" Raphael says, not taking his eyes off Sam. "You've brought everything I need. I alone know where the soul to your ship lies; it's dead without me. Agree to my terms and I will - " The Doctor rushes to the TARDIS, running bodily and hitting it with his shoulder. The doors open under his weight. Somehow he disappears inside, despite the size of it. Sam doesn't know whether to run after him, or to keep Raphael back. It helps that Raphael doesn't make a move to stop him; he just raises an eyebrow. "Doctor, your ship is dead, you cannot leave in it."
Raphael steps forward, and even knowing it will do no good Sam raises his shotgun. “Don't be foolish, Sam Winchester. What do they call you? Yes - the boy with the demon blood. This is your destiny. Face it.”
The gun falls out of Sam's hands and clatters to the ground, suddenly ten times heavier. Sam shakes his head, standing straight despite the weight of that previous version of himself, desperate for another hit. Unwilling to believe that he was wrong - so sure he was saving the world. "You don't control me. I won't do it."
"Of course you will," Raphael says, raising his chin up just so. "You're falling apart. I could bring Lilith back right now, and you would start the Apocalypse without thinking. Look at you. You were the weakest of God's creations. The boy destined to end the world."
"No," Sam says. "It's over. You don't get to determine who I am."
River seems to appear behind Raphael out of nowhere, one arm wrapped tight around Raphael's lean chest and the other holding the knife to his throat. Her dominate hand is still curled in, as though she can't unclench her fingers, but she hardly seems to notice. “Ask yourself, angel,” she hisses in his ear. “If you were built to withstand the kind of poisons I can get thousands of years in the future. Go ahead and test me.”
“I am not of this body,” Raphael says. “You cannot - ”
She slices hard and fast across his throat; the skin separates quickly and sizzles. Sam gags and Raphael blinks out of existence in the same moment the blue box in the corner starts to make a noise, a high metallic groan. Raphael appears again, just a couple feet out of their reach. Blood stains his white oxford and the wound still seems to be pumping blood - slowly, but still present all the same. “Don't tell me what I can't do,” River says. “It's done.”
"It's not done until I say it is," Raphael snarls, the sound hoarse and wet. He holds a hand to his throat, blood spilling over his fingers. One drops, two hit the floor, and Sam shakes his head to keep his attention away from the blood. "We do not need our Father to accomplish out means, we do not - "
The TARDIS makes another noise, like the groaning of wood under great pressure. The Doctor leans out the open doors with a bright smile. "Hold him busy; I'll be right back!" Raphael makes some move to lunge at the box, but is fading from existence. Sam turns to River, who manages a small smile, before the entirety of Raphael's wrath is turned to them. His throat has started to finally stitch shut, and he seems larger than life as electricity runs along the walls of the room, pooling at his feet. It begins to rain, window howling across broken windows, and Sam shivers.
“I will find him.” Raphael takes a step, and the electricity crackles as his foot touches the ground. River has her knife at the ready, and Sam inches closer to her. Together they might make a dent, or keep him busy that they'll both live - and then Raphael is standing in front of Sam, his fingers closed around Sam's throat. Every hair on his body seems alive with electricity, his skin tingling and hot, and this is it. This is how he -
* * *
Time stops. Physical form is left behind, revealing them exactly as they are: souls exposed for a breathless, timeless moment carved between the space of two seconds. Foolish, perhaps, but this moment is the TARDIS' reward, a gift for everything they've both given.
Hello, Baby. This seems to be goodbye.
It's quiet, and for the first time in entirely too long the TARDIS is without pain. No longer crammed inside the body of an impossibly small human and safe from broken time, the TARDIS simply is. The Impala's presence is perfect. If the TARDIS were the low thrum of the bass in that music Dean Winchester likes so much - the TARDIS is amused at the memory, the Impala trying to explain how her boys fought about something so human as music - then the Impala would be the ever-increasing drum beat. There's a harmony and a discord, and the TARDIS is nearly sad.
It was too short. It shouldn't be over. Can't we just stay?
But timeless moments cannot go forever, and the TARDIS knows it has already been too long. This is their lot - forever moving through time at the pace of other people, far and away from each other. The TARDIS could never leave the Doctor - my silly little Doctor - and the Impala would be lost without a Winchester to protect.
Life. The TARDIS can feel the Impala's bittersweet joy; glad to be on the road again, sad to leaving the TARDIS behind. They could have been so perfect. It's so sad when it's over, isn't it?
The TARDIS has not a throat to be choked up, but recognizes the core ache all the same. I have to go. We have a world to fix.
* * *
Chuck doesn't get up when he hears the noise - that tell-tale vworp-vworp that indicates that the story is about to get complicated. He knew it was going to happen; it's not that he wasn't paying attention. He sinks back into the worn arm chair, his back sore from the sunken cushions and lack of support, and flips his pen in the air. When the door swings open he lets the pen disappear and says, "So this is the big climax, right?"
"That's what you have to say for yourself? 'This is the big climax' - you sound like a lummox!"
"Kinda harsh," Chuck grumbles; he swigs from his flask, then belatedly holds it out to the Doctor, who glares. "Look, what do you want from me? I don't know what to do with this! This was not in my plan. I do not have an outline. I am stuck." He stands and paces, his robe falling open as dodges an empty plate and a half-filled bowl of ramen.
The Doctor pulls the TARDIS doors closed and leans back against her. He looks around the room and cringes just a little. "I know gods, Chuck - you are a fan of that name these days, right? You're just as likely to get overwhelmed as the rest of us. And who wouldn't? A couple thousand children to a single parent, of course you're overwhelmed. But we need to make some things right. Start with time. This is supposed to be your planet to watch over, so get to work."
Chuck stops, facing the Doctor. He wills the world away - the garden gone blank and white except for him, the Doctor, and the TARDIS. With a thought he creates three globes in the air before him, small models of the Earth. If he stares at one, he can see the whole story. Start to finish, beyond the scope of the story he meant to tell. "There isn't a lot of great raw material to work with. I mean, look at this one." He points to the first globe and twirls it idly with a twist of his finger. "That's the one you broke - you broke, by the way. You broke the plan, and the whole thing went to shit."
"You wanted to end the world?"
"No, of course not; the world is where my favorite beer is made." The Doctor doesn't laugh, and Chuck clears his throat. "But look, it was good. The Winchesters stoping the Apocalypse was perfect, right? That was some fine work. Not that it was going anywhere good. I never think about the implications of after the end.”
"I may have peeked in on that," the Doctor says, examining his fingers. "I'm not such a fan of that one either."
Chuck takes another drag from his flask and tosses it over his shoulder. "What, did you want to do your homework before telling me how to do my job?" He snaps his fingers and that globe is gone. "Anyway, that's no good. I could, of course, let the angels have their way with the Apocalypse - but then we're back to the beer problem, so that's a no." Another snap, and just the one shining globe remains. "But then we have the current version of the world. Literally in pieces. I mean, I ought to ban you from it, with all the damage you do."
"Damage I do? If you could keep a handle on your own planet, I could retire. Its just one! One planet. I've seen governments keep a dozen running more smoothly without your raw power. Don't go blaming your laziness on me." The Doctor pushes himself up off the TARDIS and circles the globe slowly. "Come on, you can do this. It's not so bad. Clean slate."
Sure, clean slate. Chuck considers it, and starts by freezing everything. Focus on the abbey, that's the action. Sam and River Song versus one pissed off archangel. That's not so bad. With a thought Raphael is safely in Heaven - trapped in Heaven. God may have mercy for all His creation, but Chuck plays favorites. "Sit down," Chuck says; he relaxes, letting his own little garden return to it's natural state. Okay, his "garden" is his living room from earth, but no one wants to think that eden looks anything like a grungy cookie-cutter house that needs a lot of work. He rubs his hands together and touches the electric edges of creations, pulling the globe larger so he can really focus. "This is going to take a while."
First: the big things. The cities righted, the buildings decayed to their age, the people safely in their own time lines. He finds the souls of those two women, battered and scattered and broken from their ordeal. Aminah's soul was burnt away by the presence of the TARDIS. Cordelia would have survived, but with a mind like sieve. Chuck smooths over their wounds and lets the souls come to rest in their bodies, right as rain.
The Doctor clicks a button on his screwdriver; it whines and turns the globe green. "Quit it," Chuck mumbles, twitching a finger to raise the globe slightly, trying to look at the plot from another perspective. He can't get rid of every bad thing; his last attempts at paradise on Earth were thwarted by a snake, and that was when there were only two people to look after. Chuck lets the globe spin idly, watching. "I can't write the future in stone," he says quietly. "That didn't go so well last time."
"True." The Doctor smiles, his face distorted through the translucent curve of the globe. He looks so very old and incredibly young all at once - and Chuck is sure that humanity is never going to be rid of the Doctor. "Haven't I always told you that the fixed points method was better? Doesn't matter how they get there, so long as they get there in one piece."
Chuck hates to admit it, but the Doctor is right on this one. He can't be a perfect world, but Chuck can give them good enough, and Dean? Dean would settle for a lot less than good enough. Dean would settle for a crappy job in a quiet town, all alone with the occasional call from his brother or his foster father. So when Chuck fashions a place for him the world, he makes sure that Dean is able to balance a home and a life on the road with his - Well, with someone who matters to him.
"Can't you fix him just a little?" the Doctor asks. "It's not that I don't appreciate his bravado, but too many guns, too little listening."
"I like him." Chuck stops for a minute, has a drink while he considers the build. It has to be just right, or it's going to go wrong again.
He returns Jimmy to ownership of his body, no longer a vessel; Chuck can't change the bloodline, but he can remove the need. Castiel has every intention to leave Jimmy when this was over anyway, and Chuck already knows exactly how well Dean fares without Castiel.
Speaking of Dean and Castiel - out of Heaven and back into their own bodies before they track him down and demand answers. Chuck has already had enough of that for one day. "Do you know how hard it is to hide from them?" he asks the Doctor. "Castiel is like a bloodhound."
Castiel is better as human. It's not that he wasn't a good angel - a great soldier, sure, but ditching ranks for Dean Winchester? At this point he would be a bad influence on the other angels. Besides, rebuilding Castiel as a human gives Jimmy the chance to go home. Chuck considers changing the shape of that body, but then - he knows how comfortable Castiel has become in Jimmy's skin. No reason to complicate what already works.
Admittedly, Chuck wants to give Sam everything, wants him to live a perfect life with the girl of his dreams and finish his education and become the lawyer he always wanted to be. Jessica was brought to untimely end, but she's in a good Heaven. In Heaven, there's no suffering or confusion for her; only a perfect husband and two beautiful children who look just like Sam. It would be unfair to tear her away from paradise. Besides, for Sam there is no healing like seeing the universe. Sam was made for the universe.
"You and your melodramatics," the Doctor groans, tossing his screwdriver in the air and catching it as it comes back down. "How long does it take to fix a world? I would be done by now."
"Some of us prefer literary cohesion," Chuck snaps, surveying the world in his hands. It's not the real world, of course; this is the prototype. Once this one is good enough, he'll set it in motion. He feels out the potential futures, feeling for fissures in the design. "Do you have anything you want in there? I can do anything, you know."
"Don't force them to anything." The Doctor sits up in his seat and nods. "They should be allowed to choose."
"I always let them choose," Chuck says, surveying his work. "That's how I got into this mess in the first place." He adds a child - another Winchester for the Impala to protect in a couple decades time. If they want more, they'll have to work that out of their own. "You're the one who pointed out the fixed-point model. They'll call the shots. Shit, knowing the Winchesters, they'll probably make ones I didn't plan."
"Literary cohesion," the Doctor grumbles. "So Sam is going to come along? That's good."
"You sure I can't slip something in here for you? I could let Melody Pond be raised by her parents," Chuck adds; he envisions it, that first curly-haired child to light up the Williams household.
"You keep your hands out of my world. It breaks too easily."
Ah, well; Amy and Rory certainly have plenty of happiness in their future despite it, as does River Song. "Speaking of Melody Pond - "
"Not speaking of it," the Doctor says. "I don't even know where to start."
"The Doctor's wife," Chuck laughs, holding the world in the palm of his hand. And a second wife for Bobby, yes; there's an abandoned pocket of time where he and Ellen fell in love, and it's not so hard to bring those elements into this world. Neither of them would ever heal alone, and Chuck can see a future where Dean, Sam and Jo come home for dinner once in a while.
"Don't you think you're overdoing it?" The Doctor paces around him and looks over his shoulder. "No wonder you can't keep your children under control - has anyone ever told you that you're a terrible writer?"
"Only every North American literary critic." Chuck briefly imagines the world without literary critics, but he doesn't leave it in. "But believe me, these people deserve a little bit of overdone happiness in their lives. Has anyone ever told you about the bugs?" With that, Chuck claps his hands once. The world disappears between his palms in a shimmer, and nothing feels different at all. "Don't you have somewhere to be? I believe Sam Winchester is itching to agree to your offer."
The Doctor makes his way back to the TARDIS; the doors open, and Chuck briefly glances inside. Ah, look at her - good as new. The Doctor might never know how hard it was to keep her alive in those last hours. The Doctor stops in place and looks over his shoulder at Chuck. "Don't think I won't be back if you get lax on me again."
Chuck grins. Ah, there's that flask - buried in the pocket of his robe, as always. "I sincerely hope I never see you again."
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Epilogue