A/N: So this is a three-part story in Dean's POV that was actually was born of another story I'm working on that's about the gang's trip to Camp Chitaqua, but it got totally out of control and I decided to make these scenes into their own story. The original story should be posted soon, but fear not-this one stands on its own. It just happens to be the story that got finished first. For other, less important author's notes about what I was thinking when I wrote these scenes, check the bottom of each chapter.

I'm pretty sure all of this has been done before, but I can't seem to get my head out of... what do you call it? Not tags for "The End," technically. I think I saw it called "Croatverse?" I am new to this particular fandom, so excuse my ignorance of the lingo.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. If I did, "The End" would have been its own season.

Good news—mortal Cas is still creepy.

He senses things that nobody else does. Or maybe he's just using senses that normal humans just don't ever exercise. Maybe he's got a bad sense of smell because he's not used to it, but he's really good at sensing depressing things like broken souls or, in this case, infected ones.

Right now, half the camp is staring at him. This particular half of the camp includes a woman with her arms wrapped around a ten-year-old kid. The kid has a cut on his arm, and we're all waiting for Cas to say something.

It takes a while to tell for sure, Cas is always reminding us. It doesn't make anybody any more patient.

"No, he's not infected," Cas finally says, and the kid's mother bursts into hysterics and hugs her son to her chest, leaking tears into his hair. Cas turns his back on them so that he can murmur to me, "His mother is freaking him the hell out, though."

With that, Cas stands back and lets me pat the mother and son on their shoulders, and I murmur stupid things like, "He's okay, you're okay, let's all calm down," until the crowd disperses and the mother has stopped crying long enough to loosen her vice grip on the kid. I ruffle his hair once before leaving, and he watches me with wide eyes as I turn to head toward my cabin.

I stop when I see Cas lingering a few yards away with his arms folded over his chest. He's standing there staring at the kid with deep frown, and his eyes catch mine when he notices that I'm looking his way. I walk over to him so that I can ask in a low voice, "Is the kid really okay?"

Cas lets out a slow breath through his nose. "He's not infected," he says again. "And his name is Ryan."

"Ryan," I repeat, watching the woman stroke her son's hair. I'm about to ask Cas if he knows the woman's name, too, but then something rustles to my right and I look over to find Cas striding away with an arm wrapped around his middle. He makes it behind the tool shed before he doubles over and vomits into a patch of grass.

And all I can think is, damn, what a waste of Vicodin.

I don't spend a lot of time in Cas's cabin. Not if I can help it. Right now, I can't help it.

"Cas, you swiped the last lighter, you son of a bitch," I greet as I barge into the cabin.

Cas is lying on his bed with his arms behind his head. He doesn't take his eyes off the ceiling when he replies, "Would it be more convenient for you if I removed the door all together?"

I ignore him, heading toward the dresser. The top drawer holds—I brace myself—socks. Okay.

"Hey," Cas says, and I hear him sitting up as I get to the third drawer. "Have you seen…?" He goes quiet.

"Who?" I mutter, sifting through Cas's t-shirts.

"Never mind."

I look up. Cas is propped up on one elbow, sending his vacant stare to the floorboards. "Who?" I ask again.

Cas scoots back until he's sitting against the wall with his legs stretched in front of him. "She's dead. Forgot."

He's talking about Olivia, I guess. We lost her last week. "Well are you too high to remember where you put the damn lighter?" I say, shoving the last drawer closed.

"You always want something, Dean."

That stops me, has me glancing at Cas again. I don't know if he's being particularly philosophical or if he's just stating the obvious. But it makes me guilty enough to pause in my search and sit down in the rocking chair near Cas's bed. "Well, you're no fun anymore," I quip.

Cas is looking at me, but I don't think he's comprehended what I just said. "Do you know what the biggest difference between angels and humans is?" he blurts.

I gape at him. "Angels" has been unofficially deemed a bad word at Camp Chitaqua, mostly for Cas's benefit.

Cas goes on with a wave of his hand when I don't answer. "Most people think it's the soul thing," he says. "But it's not. It's…" Cas looks up, and seems to get distracted by something I can't see. He drops his hand. "Maybe it is the soul thing."

"Uh huh," I say. "Could you just hand over the lighter already? Risa's going to be back with the truck soon, and I need—"

"Need." Cas chews on the word as his eyes find me again. "You know, Dean, when I was an angel—"

"Wow, you must be higher than a—"

"—when I was an angel," Cas goes on, "what I wanted and what I needed were one in the same."

I sigh and lean back. It is obvious that I am not getting that lighter any time soon. "Well maybe you just didn't want anything," I offer.

Cas leans his head back with a soft thud against the wall and laughs. It's a short exhale through a Cheshire grin. "I don't think I want anything now," he corrects me.

I don't know what to say. Cas folds his hands in his lap, and I think I see clarity worm its way into his stare for a second before his face goes blank again. Then he murmurs, helpfully, "Anyway, that's the difference."

I clear my throat. It's been a while since I tried this talking thing, but maybe… "Cas, you don't have to—" But as I speak Cas leans forward and reaches under the bed, pulling out a shoebox.

When Cas opens the box I catch sight of some folded sheets of paper, a few prescription bottles, and— "Is that a wedding band?"

Cas finds what he was looking for and puts the lid back on the box. "It was Jimmy's," he murmurs as he puts the box back under the bed. Then he holds his hand out to me. In his palm is a red lighter.

I reach out to take it, but, "That's not the lighter that went missing."

Cas scratches the back of his head with his free hand. "I know," he says. "I don't have it. You can take mine."

I take the lighter. Cas's clammy palm feels like melting ice. "Uh, thanks," I say, then, "Sorry."

Cas shrugs and leans back, closing his eyes. I am being effectively dismissed.

I quietly get up to leave, but as I open the door I can't help saying, "I'd be happy to grab a screwdriver and take this off the hinges for you."

Cas doesn't open his eyes, but he does tell me exactly what I can do with that screwdriver. I chuckle and leave, letting the door close behind me.

I wake up to the sound of a car that is not the Impala, and I'm worried until I remember—she's at camp, she's broken down, she's missing a door, she hasn't moved in months.

I lift my head away from the window, wincing when my hair sticks to the glass. Once I'm sitting up I can see the brown, dried blood crusted where my head was resting.

"You shouldn't have gone alone."

I look to my left, and there's Cas, eyes on the road. I didn't even think to wonder who was driving. I'm having trouble focusing. I should be able to see better than I am. It's not dark out, really. Should still be early afternoon—nobody leaves camp at night, not even me—but the spots in my vision are making it hard to tell for sure. I do manage to spot a water bottle in the cup holder, so I snag that and crack it open. After taking a sip I ask, "How long have I been…?" I don't know how to finish. Gone? Unconscious? Missing?

Cas props his elbow against his door so that he can rest his head on his fist. "I went looking for you an hour after you left," he says. "Found you and a dead Croat lying outside your truck ten miles out."

He doesn't ask what happened, which is just as well because I don't remember. I'm busy worrying about the truck, anyway. We can't afford to waste the vehicle, the full tank of gas. "Where's the truck now?" I ask.

Cas just looks at me. Deadpan. Where do you think it is, dumbass?

Sometimes I forget that Cas can't zap anymore. I forget, and I keep my mouth shut about it.

We're about ten minutes away from camp when Cas pulls over into the grass.

"What are you doing?" I ask. Cas just reaches past my feet to grab the first-aid kit that he must have stashed in the floorboard.

He pulls out some gauze and puts it into my hand. "Try to get some blood off your face," he tells me.

"Huh?" I reach up to look at my reflection in the rear-view mirror. "Oh, damn." The right side of my face is caked in reddish-brown blood that flakes off when I scratch at it. A though occurs to me. "Uh, I'm not… I mean the Croat wasn't…?" Am I a zombie, Cas?

Cas leans against his door again. "No," he says, but there's no way he could know so soon. I don't even know why I asked. "But no one is going to take our word for it."

Right. He knows what happens to people who come back to camp covered in blood. He's trying to save me from hours of nervous watching and ready rifles.

I use my sleeve to scratch most of the blood off of my cheek, then wet down the gauze to get at the blood in my hair. The gash runs from my ear to the base of my neck, but I can barely feel it. I'm too busy hoping that the blood I'm wiping away is only mine.

When I'm done I turn to Cas. "Am I pretty?" I ask, managing a half-grin.

Cas tilts his head in my direction, studying me. His eyes fix on a spot I missed below my ear, and he takes the gauze out of my hand. He tips my chin up so that he can scrub the rest of the blood away, and while he does it he says again, "You shouldn't go out alone."

I pull my chin out of his hand, and Cas goes back to his side of the truck, tossing the gauze out the window. "Nobody else wants to look for survivors anymore," I tell him.

Cas starts the truck and gets back onto the road. He doesn't say what I know he's thinking. Everybody else knows that we're the only ones left for miles. I know it, too, but that doesn't mean I can't look. Doesn't mean I shouldn't look.

Cas doesn't say any of this, even though he knows. He stares out the windshield with glazed eyes, and I wonder if he can even see the road. "Don't you pay any attention to the 'do not operate heavy machinery after taking this drug' warnings?" I quip.

Cas doesn't act like he heard me. I think about making him pull over so that I can drive, concussion be damned. But a minute later he speaks, and his voice is soft and even. "What will you do?" he asks. "When there's no one left for you to save?"

He's not expecting an answer, but the question irks me so much that I say, "The same thing you did, I guess."

It is a push too far, I know as soon as the words are out of my mouth. Cas presses his lips into a thin line and goes back to shutting up. Then we pull into the camp's gravel road, and I try to say, "Hey, I didn't—" But Cas is already slamming his door behind him.

He doesn't speak to me again for the rest of the day.

A/N: Who hates first-person POV? I understand, really, but I've been in kind of a first-person rut lately (sounds dirty, eh?) because I've been reading so much of it. And I've found that I tend to have a pretty good time in Dean's POV, so. Yeah. Anyway, if you want to know what happened to Dean and the Croat at the end, I'll have to admit that it would probably resemble that one scene from The Walking Dead when Laurie somehow manages to wreck a car with no other cars around anywhere ever. That's what was in my head, but if anybody already had an idea about what happened to Dean there, I'd love to hear about it. That's a good transition into groveling for reviews, don'tcha think? So, uh... Reviews. Do that. If you feel like it. I might suck at this groveling thing. Thank you for reading, at any rate.