Black clouds continued to gather en mass around them as the Impala finally came free from the mud, and Dean gunned it.

What the Darkness was going to do, he had no idea, and he was certain Sam didn't either. But if he had a chance of not finding out, he was definitely taking it.

So he stomped on the gas pedal until his Baby was barrelling through the fence that was keeping them from the main road.

Once on it, Sam yelled for him to swerve out of the way of an oncoming truck that was unable to see them through the thick, dark air that was crackling at the edges with faint streaks of lightning.

He ran straight into a tree and cursed his luck that they were now back to square one on their desperate quest to outrun primordial evil.

If that was even possible.

Though, he figured, stranger things had happened.

He had just killed Death, after all.

"Fuck."

Dean scrubbed his hand down his face.

The last hour was kind of a messy blur.

The Mark was gone. But so was Death.

And now this. He didn't know what to do with this.

But, unsurprisingly, the world was not interested in helping him solve his problems.

It was interested in giving him more.

Purplish grey demon smoke filled the car as Crowley, with a limp Cas tucked under his arm, appeared in the back seat.

One look at Cas made Dean wince. He was unconscious, for some unknown reason, and there was blood crusting under his eyes.

No longer held beneath the sway of the Mark, Dean remembered viscerally that the last thing he had said to Cas was that he would kill him if he didn't stop trying to save him.

Well, perhaps not in so many words, but the meaning had been pretty clear.

After what had happened...

And now... this...

"Moose, squirrel," Crowley leveled his gaze to each of them in the rearview mirror, glaring significantly at Sam. "Fix. The. Problem."

And with that, he was gone.

Dean puzzled, briefly, over Crowley's unusually short visit before letting his gaze fall back to Cas, then before he even knew what he was doing, the car was in park, and he was climbing over the seat. "Sammy, get us out of here."

"Yeah," Sam said as he slid across the bench. "Is he...okay?"

"No clue," Dean said before beginning to check Cas' vital signs, uncertain of their relevance. He was breathing steadily, his heart was beating, if a little erratically, and aside from the blood on his eyes, there was no outward sign of further injury.

Dean shook at his shoulder and repeated his name, with increasing concern, to no response.

Then keeping one hand on Cas' shoulder he looked up at Sam. "You know anything about this?"

Sam shook his head. "Last I knew, he was working with Rowena on the spell, but Rowena was the one casting it. It shouldn't have done anything to him."

"Yeah, well, sure as hell doesn't look like that's what went down, Sam," Dean growled. He wasn't sure if he was mad at Sam, himself, or the whole situation but he had this bad habit of venting his frustrations on the closest target. And unfortunately for Sam, that was Sam. "So you know anything about this, you damn well better say something right now. Because we're not doing this secret bullshit. Because look around us, and tell me where it got us. Evil - frigging evil from the frigging beginning of time."

He dove, hastily, back over the seat to grab a flask of holy water out of the glove box. Then he tugged off his overshirt, poured water on the sleeve, and started dabbing the blood from Cas' eyes.

Cas flinched against the feel of the fabric, but his eyes remained firmly closed.

"I have no idea what happened to Cas. He was helping Rowena. Crowley wasn't even there. That's all I know. That's the truth, Dean. I swear."

He glanced back at Cas, grimaced, and added, "Sorry, but I really don't know anything."

"Great," Dean muttered. "That's great."

He stared helplessly out the passenger side window at the mounting black then turned back to Cas' inexplicably immobile form, feeling utterly and completely powerless.

With no direct course of action presented to him to keep it at bay, the tidal wave of guilt and grief, that the Mark had done its best to hold back, flooded relentlessly onto the shore and mixed with his current frustrations.

"I don't...I don't know what to do, Sam. I don't. I don't know what this..." he waved vaguely at the sky "is or what or, even if, we can do anything about it. And if we can't, it's...it's on us. All of it. On me for getting that damn tramp stamp in the first place, and you for deciding that saving me from my own damn mistake was more important than the rest of the whole goddamn world."

His eyes were beginning to blur too much to focus on his ministrations to Cas. He stopped, wiped at his eyes, and asked, "Do we...do we even save people anymore, Sammy? Or do we only care about each other? Is that all we do now?"

Sam's face fell and his lips twisted into a frustrated grimace. "Dean, I had to save you. I had to. You've been there for me every time I screwed up, every time I needed saving. I couldn't not do the same for you."

"I get that, Sammy. I do. Believe me. Really... but..." Dean crumpled his shirt into a ball before throwing it on the seat. "We've...we've got to start looking out for someone other than number one. We do. We can't let anyone else end up like Charlie. Like Kevin. I mean...we keep putting the people, the people we... love... in danger. The, uh ...people...we should be protecting. And we, uh, we've got to start somewhere."

His hand found its way to Cas' cheek and rested there.

"With Cas?" Sam asked gently.

"Yeah," Dean nodded. "With Cas. He's, well, he's all the family we've got left, really..."

Sam started to say something about Jody and, possibly, Claire but Dean wasn't really listening.

His hand cupped Cas' chin even as he shook his head and wiped at his eyes, trying to distance himself from the weight and meaning of his words, thankful that Sam had, mostly, chosen not to comment on them.

They drove another ten miles down the steadily darkening state route before Dean asked, "So... you got any bright ideas?"

Sam chewed at his lip. "You think, maybe, the other angels could help?"

"Those dicks?"

"You got a better idea?"

"Other than calling Crowley back?" Dean shook his head. "No. Could kill two birds with one stone with the feathered assholes, though, I guess. Might know something about the frigging Darkness. Might know what's wrong with Sleeping Beauty here," Dean scrubbed at his face. "Okay. Let's find that damn playground."

Sam's grip on the steering wheel tightened as his frown deepened. "I have a few things to tell you first, and you're really not going to like any of them."

"Well, Sam, I don't like much of anything right now," Dean said. "So hit me."