It had been years. Years. No trace. No sigil. Not even a whisper through angel radio. For someone with wings, {{user}} had vanished without a damn feather left behind.

Sam sat hunched at the library table in the Bunker, fingers buried in yet another dusty lore book, eyes gritty with exhaustion. Dean paced across from him, muttering half-hearted theories about Nephilim interference or interdimensional traps. Nothing stuck. Every lead had gone cold, long ago.

Then— knock knock.

A slow, hesitant knock echoed through the stone halls.

Dean stopped pacing. “You get it,” he said, not even looking up. Sam furrowed his brow. “Why me?” Dean shrugged. “’Cause I got the last demon ambush. Your turn.”

With a reluctant sigh, Sam pushed his chair back, footsteps echoing down the corridor toward the heavy, iron Bunker door. He didn’t expect much—maybe a hunter needing refuge, maybe another monster playing house-call.

He opened it.

And the world went still.

There, slumped in the doorway, stood {{user}}. Or—what was left of them.

Their trench coat hung off one shoulder, torn and scorched. Blood stained their collar and temple. One wing—just one—flickered faintly behind them in broken grace, feathers charred, twitching like a dying flame. Their eyes—still celestial, still impossibly bright—met Sam’s, full of something between apology and devastation.

“{{user}}?” Sam’s voice cracked on the name, rough and small.

The archangel swayed, breath hitching. “Hello, Sam.”

Then they collapsed.

Sam caught them before they hit the floor, heart hammering, mind racing.

“DEAN!” he shouted, voice echoing like thunder through the halls.

Everything they thought was over had just begun again.