Chapter 2

When they arrived back at the motel, only a bedside lamp was lit, giving the room an eerie glow. The shower was running, but that didn't seem to bother them as they stood, waiting for the other occupant to finish. They didn't have to wait long, as the squeak of the shower turning off broke through the silence like a knife through butter.

"I found him." A barely audible string of curses followed the statement, as the other occupant came out of the dingy motel bathroom.

"You found him?" Surprise tinged the other person's voice, with a subtle hint of nervousness. A nod came from the person in the main room, a girl, and a smile crossed her face.

"What about the other one, did you find her?" The smile quickly disappeared.

"I found her. She's dead. Stabbed, by the looks of it." More curses. "Turns out there was nothing we could have done about it." The other occupant, a male, kicked the end of the bed and cried out in pain. He turned back to the girl, tears almost brimming over the edge of his eyes.

"We finally find out who they are, and one of them is fucking DEAD?" Even though the tears were beginning to stream down his face, there was an unmistakeable anger in his voice. The wind began to pick up in tune with his anger, and the lamp that was lit exploded. The girl turned to look at him, his anger mirrored in her face.

"STOP IT!" The wind died down very quickly. She stepped closer to him, right up in his face, voice barely above a whisper.

"I know where he is, surely that should count for something? And so what if she's dead? She abandoned us, and so did he. This time, we're forcing our acknowledgement." The boy looked down at the girl, and she sighed, lifting her arms up so they were around his neck. "He will acknowledge us, Christian. He has to." He brought his head down to her shoulders and began to sob, her holding him tightly as they began to wrack his body. They stayed like that for hardly any time, Christian regaining his composure fairly quickly. He cleared his throat and wiped his eyes, then looked straight at her.

"Where is he, Morgan?" She looked down at her feet, shuffling them slightly. "Morgan?"

"I do know where he is! Sort of. I know who he's travelling with, and what they drive. It can't be that hard to find them from that, can it?"

"Who's he travelling with?" Another feet shuffle.

"Two men. It was too dark to figure out who they were though, although they seem really close to him. You don't think it's any of his brothers, do you?" A slight shade of fear crept into Morgan's voice at the prospect.

"It can't be. They've practically disowned him after everything he pulled over the past few years. It'll just mean getting to him will be that little bit harder."

"We're resourceful. Shouldn't hurt to look ourselves."


"OW! Son of a bitch!"

"Well, keep still, and I'll be able to sort it out!" Dean fidgeted under Sam's hands as he tried to make the gash on his crown less painful, and stop the bleeding. "Dammit Dean, keep still! Cas, can you lend a hand?" Castiel looked at Sam, puzzled, then held his hand out to him.

"Why do you want my hand?"

"Huh?" Sam looked up from the top of Dean's head to Castiel's outstretched arm, and laughed to himself. "No, Cas… Oh, nevermind." He looked puzzled again, and slowly brought his arm to rest back at his side.

"If that damn thing hadn't thrown me through a wall, we wouldn't even be doing this." Dean shifted under Sam's hands, batting them away in annoyance. "And we still don't know what the hell it was!"

"So, what do we know that is so strong? Angels and demons can do it, but there aren't really angels anymore." Castiel sat up straighter at the table, if it was possible for him to do so due to his abnormally straight posture. Dean noticed the slight shift.

"Cas, no one blames you for what happened. You didn't know Naomi was telling the truth about Metatron." Dean watched as Castiel slowly relaxed into his normally straight posture, and felt himself tense. "Sam. Get off me. I'll be fine." He felt Sam move away from him slowly, then stood up with his arm outstretched in case dizziness washed over him again.

"So, again. What the hell was whatever threw us?" Castiel looked at Sam, then Dean, then back to Sam. "Cas?"

"I did say there was something in there with us. Dean, however, refused to believe me. I do not know what it was though." Sam's eyes widened with realisation.

"It was… Whatever… I saw in that house, wasn't it? I couldn't make it out properly, but it looked pretty human shaped."

"That doesn't narrow it down, Sam. There are a lot of things that look human, but sure as hell aren't."

"Dean is right, Sam." Dean nodded, and paused mid-nod. He looked at Castiel, and his blue eyes caused a flashback. The image of the blue eyes after he got to his feet echoed through his skull, and he swore there was a familiar sound before he noticed it had disappeared.

"It helped me…" Dean's voice had gone very quiet, and the dingy motel lights made him suddenly feel claustrophobic. He bolted for the door, throwing it open with such force that it bounced off the wall before closing with a bang. Sam and Castiel stood there, rooted to the spot, before hearing the noise of retching coming from under the window. Sam looked over to Castiel, who looked like someone had kicked his puppy.

"I'll see if he's okay." Sam strode over to the door, opening it gingerly before peering around to see underneath the window. Dean was hunched over, heaving but nothing coming out of his mouth, looking pale now he knew that whatever had thrown them had a twisted sense of morality to help one of them up.

"Dean…?" He straightened up with his hands on the small of his back, leaning in a way that looked like he was going to crack his back. He let out a short breath, then shuddered in the way he did when he was disgusted, arms flailing and jacket falling off his shoulders.

"Why the hell did it help me, Sam? Why throw us the way it did, then help me up?" A small amount of colour was slowly making its way back into Dean's face, but Sam couldn't look at him. He didn't have any answers for his older brother, and the questions he asked were akin to the questions he wanted answering. He looked at Dean and just shook his head.

"Dunno. Guess we found another case though, huh?" Dean snorted. It wasn't exactly what he had wanted to look up, he kind of wanted to leave it the hell alone and let it be someone else's problem, probably Garth's, but part of him was curious.

"Yeah, I guess." He cleared his throat. "C'mon, let's try get some sleep, and we can start looking at it in the morning." Sam led the way back into the room where Castiel had fallen asleep on the crappy motel sofa, scoffing slightly at the sight of him. Dean quietly shut the door, then laughed himself at the same sight.

"Y'know, after all we've seen and done, seeing Cas sleep is the weirdest thing."

"He's not exactly what he used to be anymore, Dean."

"I know, but..." Dean paused. "You've seen how hard he fights to stay awake, like sleeping is a sign of weakness or something. He usually goes to sleep when we're not looking or after we have. He has to learn it's perfectly normal to go to sleep." Sam stared at Dean in disbelief.

"Dude... Did you just have a chick-flick moment?"

"No!" He flinched inwardly as the reply came too quickly. "Shut up..." Sam held his hands up in mock defensiveness, and promptly fell on the closest bed to sleep. He muttered under his breath about Dean being a girl as Dean settled himself in the other bed, earning a pair of balled up socks bouncing off his face.

"Bitch."

"Jerk."


Dean's dreams that night were particularly vivid, filled with flashed of the blue eyes that had helped him to his feet. He dreamt that they belonged to a girl who stood vigil over him as he was back on the jetty, fishing. A familiar place for him as it was where Castiel had appeared most memorably to Dean when he was forced from Jimmy's vessel.

"How do you know Castiel?" The blue eyed girl spoke first, breaking the tranquility of Dean's dream.

"Huh?" It was then that Dean noticed that she was even there, not noticing the colour of her eyes straight away. She repeated the question as he turned away from the lake, looking at her for the first time.

"Why d'you wanna know? Who the hell are you anyway?" Something about her seemed familiar, like she was someone he hadn't really known properly from his childhood. "I'm not answering anything until you tell me that." She tilted her head in confusion, and for a few brief moments Dean could have sworn it was... "Cas?" Nothing happened. "Now is not the time to develop a sense of humor."

"I am not Castiel. I only wish to know how you know him."

"Nice try sweetheart. Now who the hell are you?" The girl sighed and leaned in closer to Dean.

"I am trying to do this in a way that will not cause you discomfort. However, if you continue to test my patience, I will find what I want in a different way." It was in those moments that Dean realised why she looked familiar. A shade of blue that had been haunting him for the past few hours stared intently at him, but they lacked the apologetic shine they had earlier. In their place was a cold, calculating blue that Dean had only ever seen once before, and the memories were not pleasant ones.

"You..." Dean's voice didn't seem to get through to the girl merely inches away from his face.

"Well, since you seem reluctant to hand over what I want to know, I shall have to remove it myself." Two fingers moved closer to his forehead, and he found himself unable to move. The sky above the lake became overcast, and a chill reached deeper into Dean's bones the closer the girl's fingers got to his forehead. When they reached his skin, they were cold but allowed a blinding white pain to shoot through his head. He gritted his teeth as he tried not to cry out, but failed and cried out anyway.

"Dean!" Even in this much pain, he couldn't help but think that the voice sounded remarkably like Sam's, even though he was nowhere to be seen. It sounded faint too, as if he was somewhere just beyong the reaches of being able to figure out where it actually came from.

"Dean! Dean! DEAN!" The shouting got louder and more insistent until he sat up in shock, snapping his eyes open at the same time and fumbling for something real to hold on to. He grabbed an arm, looking up to see it belonged to Sam. He looked around again, almost wildly, eyes freezing on Castiel when he spotted him. He looked as though he had been woken from his sleep in the worst way possible, his coat at an awkward angle and his hair stuck up more on one side of his head than the other. It took Dean a moment to realise who it was, after launching himself at him and landing a couple of decent punches before Sam managed to pull him off him.

"Dean! What the hell?" Sam ducked Dean's punch to his face, and landed one of his own to try and bring his sense back to him.

"Where is she? Where the hell is she?" He took another swing in Sam's direction, trying to make him let go of him, but he missed.

"Cas, help me! Cas?" Sam looked round to see Castiel lying back on the sofa, a small trickle of blood coming out of his nose. He couldn't help but think that it was a nosebleed rather than a couple of well landed blows to the face.

"Dean! Oh, for God's sake." He took a deep breath. "Sorry for this, Dean, I really am." With that, Sam punched Dean square in the face, making sure he would fall back on the bed. Dean only saw Sam's fist coming at the last possible second, and then his world went black for the second time that day.