- Third-person point of view -

Lilly gasped for breath between tears. "I don't know Cas – I don't know what to believe, who to believe. He has shown me twisted things before, do you remember?"

"I remember," the angel spoke over the phone as his eyes were focused on a pair of green ones. 

"I don't know what to do–"

"You'll be okay, we'll figure this out. Sam will track your cellphone and th–"

"Cas?" Lilly sounded worried, "C – I can't hear – Cas? Are y–" 

"Lilly?" The angel followed in her footsteps as the feeling pulled him under. Reaching for the brothers, he held the device out to them, like a toddler would ask their parents for help opening a packet of dino crackers.  Sam was quick to put the phone on speaker as Lilly came through, letter by letter; corrupted by static. 

"Lilly? It's the signal–" Sam explained but didn't improve on the situation. "Where are you? What do you see around you?" 

"Dese – t" The girl on the other side of the line got cut off mid-word, but Dean seemed to have caught what she said. 

"A desert? He dragged her to a desert?" Clenching his fists he got up to pace around. "Lilly? can't you open a portal? Come back to us?" 

No response. 

"Lilly?" 

"Weak–" The word left the speaker before the connection cut off, followed by long static that pushed the oldest Winchester over the edge. Wrapping his right hand around the phone he tore it from his brother's grasp, to throw it to the motel floor. 

"Dammit!" he fumed as he rubbed his eyes with both hands. "What is it with this damn chick? Get's shot in the head, survives. Get's stabbed, survives. Goes to hell, and comes back stronger than she was before?" Dean's rant somehow made a sheen of a smile appear on the angel's lips. "What are you grinning at?" the Winchester spat. 

"Remember the nineteenth of August, the day she decided to head for Los Angeles?"

Dean stayed quiet, the only response he gave being a gnarly look. 

"Do you recall what I called her that day?" Castiel asked as the smile became more apparent now, no longer ashamed of it. The feeling going through the celestial being made its way over to Sam as a comforting cloud. 

"Selcouth." The youngest Winchester smiled as he bend over to grab the phone from the ground. "Now I hope for you this thing still works, otherwise there's no damn way we're gonna track her." He spoke to his brother in a degrading way. 

- 𝘊𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘭'𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸 –

An hour passed, and every second that ticked by caused another curse word to flow out of Sam as he tried everything to track Lilly's phone, but with no success. 

"So Satan is tech-savvy now?" Dean asked sarcastically as he assumed the devil was behind making their life even harder than it already was. He most likely was, and who knew what else he had sabotaged. It was clear to me from the second I lay my eyes on him; Lucifer was powerful. Wich sounded stupid even inside my own head. He was an Archangel, of course, he was powerful. Yet this was different. Something or someone had been helping him. 

"So you're telling me someone is juicing up satan himself?" Dean asked as I made my worries known. 

"Why would anyone do that?" Sam wondered who had turned his attention from the device for a minute. 

"He has more followers than we could ever count. Wouldn't surprise me if angels are helping him out as well. Not everyone agrees with God's will." Mentioning my Father caused a chuckle to escape Dean who by now sat on the foot end of his bed. 

"I don't always agree with His will, doesn't mean I'm out there supporting Lucifer," he explained and was right on many aspects.  After a small moment of silence, Dean continued to speak. "All I know is that I'm not leaving this place unless Lilly is sitting in the backseat going back to Lebanon along with us. We'll call some more hunters. Figure out where he, or she is." 

He wanted to find Lucifer in hopes we would find Lilly that way, yet my gut said he was nowhere near her. 

Something in me was brewing, I had left it from the first second I made contact with those chocolate eyes at Bobby's. Perhaps it was hope. A second chance at protecting what I failed to do so before. My eyes lowered to the carpeted floor as I realized I had failed once more. The very thing in me that was brewing no longer had hope linked to it. Realization. Lilly didn't need protection. She needed support. Someone stable to push her through the horrors of reality.

Lilly-Mae just maybe was meant to fall for eternity, until the turning point where she picked herself up from the ground. Maybe it was hope I felt. Hope that one day that woman would stand before me, stronger than I could ever be. 

"Cas?" Sam's voice sounded as he handed me a cup of coffee, "You alright?" he wondered, causing my eye to fly up. Warm light shone through the blinds. It had turned morning, yet it felt like only ten minutes had passed. 

"Yeah–" I replied as I accepted the coffee. My eyes wandered the room after, met with Dean who was still covered by his bedsheets. 

"I know you're worried," Sam said as he went to sit across from me, a somber smile on his face. "We all are," he continued before taking a sip of his coffee. "But tiring yourself out won't do any good trying to find her," 

"I know– I was just lost in my–"

"Own thoughts?" he finished my sentence and I nodded quietly. "It's been eight hours, we'll try calling her again soon. Besides, Bobby should arrive any minute now."

"Bobby?" I asked.

"Yeah, we called him last night, remember? Asked for backup." I blankly stared a few seconds too long before answering, concerning the youngest brother slightly. Right as he went to ask about it, two knocks sounded on the door, causing Dean to pull his gun from under his pillow in panic. "It's probably Bobby," Sam reassured him while letting the man enter the room. No warm welcome this time as he seemed furious. 

"You idjits!" he roared while slamming a cardboard box down on the table, followed by a piece of paper. "I leave her with you dumbasses for two damn days and Lucifer has his hands on her!" he raged while seemingly trying not to put his hands around our necks. 

"Bobby, we couldn't –" the old man cut Dean off.

"Don't you say you couldn't do anything about it. Three months she spent under my roof. Not a single demon or angel came knocking. You three come along and she's doomed!" He reached for the piece of paper and handed it to Sam. "And this is for y'all to pay, got a damn speeding ticket on my way here," he mumbled in annoyance. Dean got up from his bed rather quickly as now anger started to build up in him as well.

"Don't you dare put this on us. Do you think it was our intention? Do you really think we wanted this? I'm not sure if you're aware but we too are knee-high in crap!" As if the Winchester's emotions were climbing a ladder, they kept rising until Sam decided to step in. 

"Dean, enough! This isn't helping us, or Lilly!" His brother's words caused him to chuckle. 

"Lilly isn't doomed because of us, we are doomed because of her –" Dean spat before turning his back, heading for the bathroom. I wanted to say something, confront his foul words but couldn't. Because something deep inside me agreed. Making eye contact with Sam I knew he felt the same, and even Bobby looked defeated by his own thoughts. 

Just as quickly as Dean disappeared, he reappeared when his phone that lay on his nightstand went off. Sam was first to reach it after he threw himself on ht bed, stomach first. 

"Dean?" Lilly's voice sounded over the static speaker. 

"Yeah, I'm here sweetheart, we're all here," he comforted her. "You alright?" 

"Kinda, I managed to sleep some at night although it was very cold. Are there scorpions and like, dangerous snakes here?" There was a certain strangeness to her voice that any of us had never heard before. The looks being shared made it clear to me that I wasn't the only one that had caught it. Sam was the one to answer her question. 

"There's kinda a lot of things that would wanna kill you there, but try not to think too much about it, Lilly. You'll be fine." 

"Did you find me yet? I hope you guys are close already," she spoke with a smile that was probably very wide considering we could hear it over the phone.

"About that," Dean started, "We're pretty sure Lucifer messed with your phone. We can't find your location." It stayed quiet for a second until a nervous laugh broke through. 

"Typical," she laughed, "Did Sam try to track or did you?" she asked Dean in doubt. 

"It was me," Sam replied, causing a more extended silence this time. 

"Well–" she chuckled, yet sounded defeated. "I'll just keep walking. I'll find people eventually."

"We've contacted almost everyone we know, sweetheart. Baby could approach you any minute, you just have to keep going, okay?" Dean said as he briefly looked over at me. 

"Okay," Lilly sounded quiet, and that's when Bobby made his presence known to her.

"Lilly, you have to put water as your priority, you understand? Try to find food and don't eat anything you don't know. If you find a safe place to shelter, you stay there, you hear me? We'll come to you, you don't have to come to us. Water, food, shelter."

"Water, food, shelter," she repeated his words, "I understand, sir." 

The phone cut off after that, making the fear of not knowing if she was okay, return. Breakfast happened quickly, my eyes glued to the cellphone in hopes of positive news. Lunch appeared alongside the overwhelming feeling of being powerless. Before I knew it take-away made its way into my sight as the sun had once more disappeared. Waiting is all we could do. Driving off endlessly in hopes of coming across Lilly was plain-up stupid. Yet, that's what I wanted to do. Anything but sit, wait and put my faith in other people to do the job I was incapable of doing. The dark loop my mind was trapped in got broken when Dean shoved one of the Chinese take-away boxes my way. 

"Eat up," he said coldly. 

"I'm an angel –" I barely managed the words. 

"Just eat –"

"If she manages to survive without food, so can I," I explained while moving the food away from me. 

As the moon took over and the world around me went to sleep, Bobby sat down next to me. The word authorities had flown around the room during the day but Bobby seemed to be serious. 

"I'm unsure if contacting the police is a smart idea." 

"They have eyes where we don't," he tried to convince me. 

"Lilly-Mae doesn't belong in this universe, remember? What if they don't find her birth certificate? Perhaps they will think she's not legal, send her somewhere we will never be able to reach her." 

"I doubt that'll happen, Cas." 

"Then Lucifer will get involved and he does not care if humanity is aware of the supernatural. Let this war stay between us. No need to doom the rest of the world. Besides, Lilly would –" 

"Be furious if she found out, I know," Bobby chuckled briefly as he took a sip of his beer. As Bobby went asleep for the night, I was convinced the worst had passed, but the day after proved me wrong. We tried calling many times, letting the phone ring to voicemail every time again, yet nothing. No long beep, which meant that the device was not broken or out of battery, Sam had told me. She must have lost connection. There was no other explanation. Then when the clock had stuck passed one at night, Dean's phone rang shaking the brothers and Bobby awake brutally. 

"Lilly?" I answered, desperate to hear her voice. 

"Cas?" Lilly came through silently while I put the phone on speaker. "Cas –" she repeated my name before whispering the next words so silently it was hard to understand. "I can feel them staring –" she breathed causing discomfort to roll over me and the others. 

"What–?" The words left my mouth almost with the same decibels. 

"How are you?" She wondered her voice sounding more normal than before yet it caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end. 

"I'm alright – we're alright. Doesn't matter how it is going here, what about you? Remember what you talked with Bobby about the other day?" It stayed quiet for a couple of seconds after that.

"Yeah – I haven't found anything to drink but I did find some insects and stuff –" she seemingly turned away from the phone as she went quiet again. Not for long, a couple of seconds before: "I rather not think about that again," she said with certain disgust trailing after her words. "It's not that what I'm worried about, though," she started, "I've got forty percent battery left, I can't touch the flash on the phone any longer for guidance at night." She was scared. That was the reason behind the strangeness in her voice. "I can't keep calling for much longer-" 

"Only in emergencies," Dean replied but his expression told a whole other story. Every second of her being stuck in the middle of a desert was an emergency. What if she called in need of urgent care? Nothing would change. She would still be surrounded by nothing but helpless creatures. We wouldn't be able to find her, nor would we be able to help.

"I'll call tomorrow when I can – but for now, I'm turning off the phone." 

"Lilly –" I interrupted, not agreeing to her plan but it was too late. 

"I love you guys," she spoke before hanging up, leaving the room in complete silence for what felt like hours. 

Sleep was no longer an option that night and when the brothers had just returned from grabbing breakfast the next morning, another surprise presented itself. 

"I've got the feeling you boys are in need of supernatural help." Crowley's voice sounded out of the blue as he stood in the kitchen, going through some cabinets. Being used to it at that point, Dean gave a salty response. 

"I'd rather jump off a bridge than ask anything from you."

"That's the thing," The demon started, "You don't have to ask, because I'm offering." His words caused Sam to laugh.

"Well, I'd rather jump off a bridge than let you near Lilly." 

"She'll die." Crowley snarked, "You want her blood on those abnormally large hands of yours?" The bickering between the king of Hell and the brothers went on for a while after that, until Bobby decided to interfere. 

"What is it you want in return?" he wondered, showing interest in his offer, but knowing all too well it would be a two-way street. 

"Lucifer has my mother, surprise, surprise." A sour smile appeared on his face. "He's using her to power up his vessel." Looks were shared after that until Dean replied. 

"Since when do you give a damn about your mother?" 

"I don't," he replied, "but the fact is that she's making him more powerful –" His words caused another chuckle to escape from Sam, more sarcastic this time. 

"So you wouldn't care if she died?" 

"That's why I'm here. I'll bring you, Lilly, if you put a bullet through her brain from a safe distance so no one knows what happened." 

"Wow –" Dean exhaled the word. Even I was fooled for a good second that he was asking us to rescue her from Lucifer's hands. I should have known better, knowing their past of trying to end each other.

"So you'll have all your demons looking for Lilly – and once they find her, they will return her – if we kill your mother?" I joined the conversation, questioning his intentions. I didn't know how to feel about those abominations looking for her. It surely went in against Lucifer's way and I was more than aware that he had a large following. One that existed out of demons that kneeled to Crowley only so they could stab him in the back when the opportunity showed itself. The King of Hell gave a simple nod as a reply while pouring out a glass of liquor he had found in the kitchen.

"What about Lucifer? Doesn't he want your throne?"

"Surprisingly, I don't think so, no –" Crowley said before taking a whiff of the alcohol in his glass. 

"Fine –" Dean sighed in agreement with his offer. "But if something goes different, in any way, you're dead," he threatened. 

"You offend me, Squirrel, by thinking I would do such a thing – but what's even more offensive is this liquor," he said while placing the glass down, to afterward disappear. The rest of the day we heard nothing from Lilly. Having put my faith into something unfaithful made me only more worried than before. 

That night, when the brothers were already fast asleep, I decided to try my luck one more time calling Lilly. No long beep this time. The phone went over and I made my way out of the room not to wake anyone. 

"Dean?" her voice sounded, it was like a dagger to the heart hearing her say his name. The way it left her mouth, filled with hope that would be shattered the second I spoke, telling her we still hadn't found her. 

"It's me, Lilly –" I replied. "The brothers and Bobby are asleep."

"Oh –" The single expression left her, followed by silence for a brief moment, her heavy breath the only thing filling my ears until she spoke again.

"So you're coming to get me. Your powers are back?" she asked but sounded rather convinced about her own words. 

"No Lilly, unfortunately not." Her mentioning my powers made me wonder about hers. "Have you regenerated enough to create a rift yet?" I asked with a spark of hope.

"A rift?" she asked. 

"Yes – a portal, like you've done before?"

"Oh –" she said, making the hope I felt even more prominent. "Like the thing that I fell through when I lost my life?" she asked, and finding my words was hard after that. 

"You –" I mumbled, "you haven't lost your life, Lilly. You are very much so alive."

"Breathing, yes," she started, "But I'm not so sure I'm still alive."

"I know you have lost a great deal. Your only family. But so have I and I was lucky enough to find a new family. Perhaps an even better one. Here with the brothers and you, Lilly-Mae Mooney. You're part of my family now." She stayed silent after that. Only a sniffle sounded until something seemed to shift.

"I'll never see you again, will I?" she asked, defeat finally hitting her. 

"Of course, you will, silly. We are two eternal creatures until something strong enough proves otherwise. Our paths will cross again." I tried to calm her down, but without success as her mind was corrupted by fear.

"Would you consider Lucifer strong enough?" she asked and lying had no use because it was a rhetorical question.  

"Yes – he is. But–" I started trying to give her hope, "he has had the chance to kill you on multiple occasions now and hasn't.

"You know all too well that his mercy is much worse than his wrath." Static flooded out of the speaker after that – and for a slip second, Lilly's deafening scream came through before the line got cut off. Not a second later I burst into the motel room, now screaming myself as fear pulled me under. Pure uncontrollable panic that the devil might have changed his mind about sparing her life. 

- Lilly-Mae's point of view -

Why did he spare my life? Hazy images flashed before my eyes as I remembered why he had brought me to the desert. Flashes of my so-called past that Lucifer forced me to believe. Separation would cleanse my mind and it had but in all the wrong ways. I wanted to speak up, but when I looked down at the device in my hands that helped me connect with the past, all I saw was a dark screen, on it a symbol of an empty battery flashing. The phone was dead, and an agony-filled scream left my body, bringing me to my knees. The phone dropped to the sand. The now pitch-black screen reflected the moon back to me like a sick joke of how I got there, to begin with.  I had no idea how I was supposed to fight against someone that had nothing to lose. 

"Get back on your feet, Lilly. There are wicked souls out there that would pay good money to see you fall." A strong accent sounded that I recognized all too well. 

"Crowley?" I asked with a voice filled with hope while wiping the tears off my face. Looking up I saw him stand before me and I never thought the next thing could happen; joy flowed through me when looking at his stupid grin. "You've found me?" I asked but didn't give him time to give the obvious response. Instead, I repeated what I had asked, this time laughing through the words while wrapping my arms around him.

"Are you feeling alright?" he wondered, "last time you came at me with that speed it was to kill me." He was right, I was acting delusional and took a step back, looking him in the eyes. 

"I guess I forgot how to be me," I laughed, but deep down those words leaving my mouth hit me harder than expected. 

"I assume you'd like to go back to the brothers? To your angel?" Crowley asked and I gave him a simple nod of the head. "Well then, I'd be happy to bring you back to them, deliver you all wrapped in bubble wrap with a bow on top." My heart started beating faster now as I knew the words leaving him were maybe intertwined with ill intentions. I knew the king of hell all too well. It was never simple with him. He had plans and genius ideas, he would go distances to get them fulfilled but only by using the hands of a desperate other. 

"I'm not going to help you take over the world." The king opened his mouth to speak but I didn't give him the chance. "No, not even if you try to bribe me with cookies." I chuckled nervously. 

"I'm here to help, but also propose another option, perhaps a better one."

"I'm listening," I said hesitantly. 

"Lucifer is after you and won't let you alone until you fully surrender yourself to him. You have a passed with him, darling. But I'm sure he has made you more than aware of that."

"Those lies?" I mocked, skeptical that he trusted all that nonsense. 

"Call them whatever you want, he believes it and it's going to make him go lengths he has never gone before." He looked around for a bit, perhaps finding his words before speaking again, "You left hell and you forgot to lock the cage behind you."

"And?"

"Darling, he's Satan." He was right, and just like that, I was on my knees once more. That other option he was talking about – that was just a way to cover up where this was going. Guilt-tripping. He had every right to do so. 

"Now I'll explain to you how this is going to go, what exactly I have in mind and it'll be a joy working together." My eyes were fixated right in front of me, glued to his shiny black shoes that were slowly getting buried by sand. "First off." No longer glued to his shoes, instead, I stared directly into his eyes which had turned a deep red color. A long piece of paper rolled down until hitting the sand. I was right, he was here with nothing but ill intentions. 

"You want me to sign a contract?" I asked while collecting myself. "I'm not sure I have a soul to offer you, Crowley."

"I'm not interested in that Lego set, I've other plans but I need your word. Not because it's a DIY at the moment, you can't get dragged back to hell." 

Ink flowed rather quickly after that. The guilt in my body was so high I didn't spend a single thought about putting my name at the bottom of that six feet long paper. I let Lucifer lose, Crowley wanted me to fix it and so it would be. At that point, I would have done anything to reunite with the boys. Handing his pen back over, I met those eyes once more and my own ran over with hope and excitement. 

"Pleasure doing business with you, Lilly. Goodbye –"

"Wait!" I screamed the word. "You said you'd bring me back home!"

"I said I could and offered you another way. You chose option B, love."

"You can't leave me here!" I shrieked while throwing myself at his feet.

"I can, and I will. No one is coming to save you, Lilly. Get up." 

Just like that, the tight grasp I had around his legs disappeared alongside him. My body crawled in on itself as I once more was all alone in the darkness with my own thoughts. Although that changed rather quickly as those eyes around me turned their attention back to me. They were there. I could feel them staring. 

- 𝘊𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘭'𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸 –

 The next day seemed endless and when Crowley had appeared to tell us he had done everything in his power to find Lilly and had failed, it only slowed down even more. Defeat started seeping in when the moon showed itself for the fifth time.

"Maybe we should try finding Rowena–" Sam suggested in an attempt to take our mind off the loss. His brother didn't agree.

"I told you, I'm not leaving this motel unless Lilly is sitting on the backseat with trenchcoat over there," he huffed angry while loosely pointing at me.

"Dean–" Sam started and I was already aware of where it was heading. "It's time to start looking for other solutions, okay? Lucifer obviously knows where Mooney is, he dropped her in that dessert to begin with. Rowena is with him, do I really have to explain this?"

"He's right, boy," Bobby joined the conversation while standing up, obviously prepared to start moving. "If we can't find Lilly, we'll find him and beat the literal devil out of him. He'll talk." Bobby's words caused the oldest brother to laugh but that wasn't well received. 

"We're gonna torture satan into giving us info? I'm sorry but have you forgotten we're talking about Lucifer here?" I fully understood what he meant, especially knowing I was useless in every way. But he forgot one important factor. Rowena. She would want nothing but see him burned to the ground. 

Dean didn't speak another word until we arrived in the bunker.

"Happy?" he mocked, knowing we all had the same thing on our minds, Lilly had to be here. We were supposed to bring her home but were unsuccessful once more. We didn't spend much time at the place, however, just picked what we thought we needed and returned to Baby. Crowley had a location he had gotten from a trusted source – how trustworthy that was, was up for debate but we were all out of options. Tention in the car was high.

"Try again," Dean mumbled in annoyance, handing his phone to his brother once more. It had been more than twenty-four hours since we last heard from Mooney. That deafening scream still echoing in my skull. The phone went to voicemail right away, letting us know the device was turned off or was somehow destroyed. 

Five more calls happened before we arrived at the given location. The next hours went strangely fast and were rather strange as Lucifer's hideout was completely empty. No demons nor angels were to be found. No smell of sulfur was even to detect. He had definitely been there and just like with his vessel hunt, left not a single crumb behind for us to pick up on. 

With Rowena by our side, heading back to the bunker was the best move. The Witch was badly hurt, but nothing she wouldn't survive. She would be grateful for saving her from his cruel hands. 

"Where's your fourth?" she asked as her somber eyes met mine. Something in me said that she knew all too well what was going on with Lilly. 

"Can you find her?" I asked as she went to sit down in the study. My voice sounded different to my own ears. Like a thought, that managed to make its way out of my mouth, into my ears. 

"I'm sure I can, but first –" she said while raising her arms, revealing deep cuts that had started to infect badly. I grew impatient as Dean took care of Rowena, making eye contact with same more often than not as he told me to calm down. Time mattered. In fact, it was so important that once her wounds were disinfected I opened my mouth to speak, but was met with those hazel eyes once more.  They kept me silent and having had enough of the pacing on the hardwood, I headed for the kitchen instead. A glass of water would do her good, I thought as I made the turn to enter. It took opening three different cabinets before I located the glasses and took one to fill with tap water. Seeing the liquid gush out made me think about how thirsty Lilly must have been at the moment. The noise of flowing water filled my ears as I zoned out once more. That scream of hers hit me unexpectedly once more causing me to squint in what I assumed was pain. Weakness overcame me, realizing how human I had become. Not only did I feel, but now I started to understand. With my eyes still glued on the glass that was now overflowing, a thought raced through me. Was it Lilly? Was I solely weakened or perhaps she –

"Cas!" I heard Dean roar from the study, causing me to drop the glass and start running. 

"Yes?" I yelled back in hopes to get more info before arriving. Rushing through the halls I came to a stop in the crow's nest. Met with Dean who stood before me, on his face a wide smile, in his other hand his phone. Heat radiated inside me as hope grew large. "Yes?" I repeated as my eyes quickly jumped to Sam who stood behind his brother, the exact same expression on his face. 

"It's Lilly," Dean started as he took a couple of steps forward, handing the cellphone to me, "We've found her," he said proudly.