...Dean...

The stuttering rain slipped down the windshield of the Impala. It was an irritating rain that had started by spitting just enough drizzle to make pockmarks on the dust on the glass kicked up by the car roaring down the unpaved road. Not enough to even warrant intermittent wipers, but enough to make driving difficult as the muddy droplets of water splintered the lights from the headlights into splashes of brightness. Now it was picking up, the drizzle gaining power.

As Dean pulled into the weed covered driveway of the small cabin, a sudden gust of wind swirled the first dead leaves of the season around the car. A few plastered themselves against the glass with soft plops that he could hear when he turned off the engine.

Silence.

He grabbed the bag of groceries and got out of the car, running an absently affectionate hand across Baby's frame before flicking on his flashlight and heading to the door of the cabin. He dropped the bag on the old, half-rotting logs that served as a front stoop and dug in his jeans pocket for the key. He put the key into the lock, then stopped and leaned his forehead wearily against the door. The wind spattered him in the face with icy rain.

"Follow the checklist, Dean," he told the dark forest surrounding him. Then he turned the key, opened the door, picked up the groceries, and walked in.

Cold.

Dark.

Silent.

Lonely.

"Home sweet home," he muttered, and kicked the door shut behind him.

First things first. He dropped the bag and the still-lit flashlight on the table in the small kitchen area, grabbed a kerosene lantern from the counter, shook it to be sure it had fuel, then lit it. The dim flame slowly grew until it threw light across the kitchen.

He reached into the bag and pulled out the bottle of whiskey and a box of artist's pastels. He had learned, through trial and error, that the pastels were quicker to use and more easily controlled when making wards – fiddly angel sigils were sensitive to the slightest errors, and spray paint had an unfortunate tendency to drip. He began work on the warding. Between each sigil, he took a slug of whiskey.

Fire next.

He crouched down by the fireplace, grabbed kindling, and stared blankly for a moment at the empty grate. Then, clenching his jaw, he laid the kindling carefully, as if it were precious, lit a match, and held it up to the kindling until it burned his fingers. He dropped the match, cursing softly. Luckily, the kindling had caught. He tilted the bottle to his lips and felt the cheap liquor burn its way down his throat. When the kindling was going well, he placed a log on, then stood up, leaned against the side of the mantle, and stared at the flames.

Red. Blue. White.

Crowley's blood drips from the First Blade, pooling on the floor next to his body. Cas stands resolute before him, angel blade in hand, guarding the door. "I can't let you do this, Dean," he says softly. Dean feints with the Blade. Cas blocks, easily. Dean's panicked internal chant of STOP SAMMY STOP SAMMY STOP SAMMY blends with the raging KILL KILL KILL from the Mark, overwhelming him. He growls, "Out of my way, dammit, Cas!" and swings, precisely, with the Blade. A line of vivid red blood and blue-white Grace follows the edge of the Blade down Cas's arm, and he can see bone peeking through the flesh. Then: he grabs Cas's sword arm, pushing it up and away, strength fueled by the Mark. Cas grimaces in pain as he twists the wrist and the angel blade clatters to the floor. His arm arcs overhead, then plunges towards Cas's open chest. STOP SAMMY STOP SAMMY STOP SAMMY and the urgent heartbeat KILL KILL KILL are joined by a mental scream of NOOOOOO! as the Blade sinks deep into Cas's body. Blood pours out, Grace shining around the Blade. Cas sinks to his knees. The Blade rises again and plunges into the flesh again. Cas's mouth rounds in a soft, surprised, "Oh!" and his brilliant blue eyes fill with shock, horror, betrayal. The final, gut-wrenching flash of light pours from Cas's eyes and mouth. His own heart shatters into a thousand, thousand tiny pieces.

Dean slammed his fist against the stone mantlepiece to stop the flashback. Then again and again and again.

"SHIT!" he screamed at the pain, and shook his hand, blood from the scraped skin spattering his shirt.

"Okay. Okay," he panted, recovering, pushing the memory away. "Light. Wards. Heat. Charlie next." Remember the checklist.

He circled the main room of the cabin, peering at the screen of the cheap cellphone, searching for the spot with the best signal. Amazingly, the kitchen table was in a sweet spot. He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, rummaging in the grocery bag for the second whiskey bottle.

Charlie answered on the second ring. "Dean!"

Dean leaned the now-open throat of the bottle against his forehead, rubbing it back and forth. "Charlie…" It was always a relief to actually hear her voice, to realize she was – against all the odds – still alive.

"I've got a new phone. I'll call you back in a minute." She hung up. He blinked at the phone in his hand. Dammit. That phone number had lasted – what? A week? Two, at most. That meant he probably needed a new one, too. He drank from the bottle, waiting for the phone to ring. When it rang, he stabbed at the answer button urgently, absurdly fearful that if he didn't answer immediately, someone – angel, demon, Lucifer himself – would get her.

"Charlie – !"

"Dean! Whew, that was close!"

"Do I need to move again?" The thought exhausted him.

"Oh - no, no, the house is okay, Dean. I think. Which one is it? Number six, right?"

He pulled out the list from his pocket and squinted at it. "Yup." When they had realized that things – serious, deadly things – were tracking them down, he and Charlie had set up two lists, one with ID numbers and coordinates, that he had, and one with ID numbers, order numbers, and number of days, that was in Charlie's care. Charlie had randomized the second list, both in order and in number of days. Then she had lectured him about how "random" really wasn't, in the computer world, and chattered about Bayesian algorithms, seeds for random walks, and hashing strategies until his head was spinning and he begged her to stop. Then they had made a similar pair of lists of safe houses for her. It seemed to have worked, though the time he had had only two days at one cabin before moving to the next had drained him.

"How are you doing, Dean?" The concern in her voice warmed him, made him realize that not everyone was gone.

~~"Everybody dies!" Metatron chuckled happily.~~

Dean winced at the memory. He took a drink. "Fine. I'm fine, Charlie." He frowned at the wall. Lying. Again. He couldn't – wouldn't – tell her about the flashbacks.

"No, you're not. Are you drinking?"

"What if I am?" he shot back hoarsely, stung. "Is it any wonder?"

There was a silence, then Charlie sighed. "I just…worry about you, Dean. Well, I worry about myself, too, of course! But I haven't lost my best friend, my brother, my home…well, yes, lost my home, too, I suppose, but…" Her voice trailed off. She was so afraid of poking at that wound, he could hear it, could feel it, and it brought out the awkward in her. So of course, he had to reassure her.

"I'm fine, kiddo. We'll do it. We'll find a way…we always do…"

We always do when "we" is "Sam and me", his traitorous mind reminded him.

"Dean, have you thought about trying the dream root tea again?"

He sighed. "We've been over that, Charlie. Over and over again. It only works if you're close, physically, to the person. And we can't do that. If we're close enough to him, we're way too close to Lucifer." He gritted his teeth at the thought.

"I know, I know. I was just…hoping…maybe you'd thought of something."

"Nope. I've got nothing," Dean said wearily.

"I've got nothing, either," Charlie responded sadly. There was a pause, then she went on, obviously thinking out loud, "What we need is…is - we need a - a 'professional occult researcher'," and he could hear the quotation marks around the title in her voice. "To - to - do deep research while we're running around trying to keep alive."

Dean barked out a cynical laugh. "Might as well wish for the moon and stars while we're at it. We might have better luck with that."

"It's worth looking into!" Charlie sounded offended. Then she chattered on, her native optimism burning right back. "In fact, I think I'll give it a try. It's better than just hanging on, like we're doing now. And it'll give me a break from stomping out Croatoan research labs."

Dean grunted. Killing committed, enthusiastic, duped medical researchers who were being used by Lucifer wasn't his idea of a good time, but that's what they were doing. In between ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and assorted odd monsters, that is. It's what the entire Hunter community was doing – trying to stay a step ahead of Lucifer. Thank God he didn't have the Horsemen this time; they had apparently stayed curled up in fetal balls after their last go-round. Except for Death, of course. But Death was an enigma, always was.

"You'll have to find your own hobby, though! I think this one is better assigned to me."

"Yeah, well. Sammy was our 'professional occult researcher'. Good luck finding another one." Dean took another gulp of whiskey.

"Um. Okay! That's what I'll do! So. You have thirteen days at this house before you have to move onto number…" He could hear paper rustling on her end of the line. "Twenty-two." He looked at his list. Twenty-two was five states away from number six, his current location. "Check in with me every couple of days, remember! And, Dean…"

"Hmmm?" His voice was getting slurred. It took a lot of liquor to get him to this point these days.

"Take care of yourself. Don't hole up in the cabin like a - like a - a wounded badger! Go out. Take walks. Find a job to do. Just…you matter. To us. To me."

"I'm touched," he said sardonically, raising an eyebrow.

"Well. You do. So there. Bye, bitch!"

"Bye, yourself."

The call ended. Dean sat for a few minutes longer, listening to the singing silence growing louder and louder. Finally:

"Fuck this shit. Time for bed." He staggered up and headed for the covered sofa. He eyed it dubiously, wondering if he could just sleep on top of the dusty old sheet, then sighed, braced himself for the inevitable, and yanked the dust cover off in one swift move. A cloud of dust filled the air, and he covered his eyes with one arm, coughing and sneezing and waving away the dust with the other. And…

~~Dark. The air is filled with fine, gritty dust that sifts into his eyes, his nose, under his clothes, in his hair. He coughs, then coughs again, then doubles up in a spasm of coughing, whooping, gasping for air. He rips at his shirt in a panic, quickly tearing off a piece to tie around his jaw to try and act as a filter. "Sam? Sammy!" he calls out wildly. No answer. There are sounds of shifting material around him. He reaches out blindly, hitting something a mere foot above his head. He feels around, looks around, slitting his eyes so he can keep the grit and dust from them. Over there! Not light, exactly, just 'less dark'. He inches his way towards the 'less dark' and begins carefully digging, gently moving smaller pieces of debris to one side or the other, and scooping handfuls of dust away. He slides under a large, tilted chunk, recognizing the mosaic tiling of the entryway to the bunker. 'Less dark' is slowly becoming 'visibly lighter', and his eyes are adjusting. Finally, after what seems like hours, days, years of slow, careful movements, when he reaches out again in between two drunkenly leaning beams, the air feels…lighter. When he snakes his head out between the same beams, he can tell he has finally dug his way out. Panting, he wedges the rest of his body through the small opening, scraping skin and joints and ripping his clothes, until he is all the way out. He slowly, agonizingly straightens up, squinting his eyes against the dusty twilight of the outside world, peering through the hanging, lingering dusty haze at what had been the Men of Letters bunker. Bunker no more. Now a twisted, bent, broken maze of beams and girders and brick and glass, blasted beyond recognition, covered with almost six inches of fine dust and millions of shreds of paper. He scans the pile of rubble with horrified eyes. "Sammy?! SAMMY?!" But still…no answer.~~

The memory faded.

"Damn!" he growled to himself and slumped onto the sofa. No Sam. No Cas. No Bobby or Ellen or Jo or Rufus. He punched a musty-smelling cushion from the sofa into something vaguely resembling a pillow, shook out the dusty sheet again, took one last swig from the bottle he had carried, without realizing it, to the sofa, and laid down, pulling the sheet over him.

"Dean…" It was Cas's voice.

Dean winced. "Stop it!" he whispered angrily to himself. "Stop with the bloody memories, idiot!"

"Dean." The memory voice got louder, and Dean twisted his head into the pillow, willing the memory away, fearful of the flashback to come.

"DEAN!" It was loud, close, and a hand shook his shoulder, gently at first, then more urgently. Dean slowly turned over, opening his eyes.

Not a memory.

NOT A MEMORY!

"Cas…?" he asked, his heart pounding with a rush of sudden, unexpected wild joy.