When you go in for a suicide mission, you're supposed to die. You plan to go out in a blaze of glory-not that there was any grandeur left in this world, but he could pretend-and you burn all of your bridges behind you because there's no chance of coming back.

You're not supposed to survive.

So what the hell was Cas doing standing here, surrounded by dead Croatoans, still breathing? He wasn't unscathed, of course, but he wasn't dead. He wasn't even infected.

When you walk into a room knowing you're going to die, it makes it difficult to know how to walk back out. He could wash the blood and gunpowder off of his hands, bandage the scratches, and keep going if he wanted to. He just wasn't sure if he did.

The halls were silent now. He used to find silence so comforting, back when all they had to face was the occasional demon or belligerent angel. These days, silence just meant fear. He said his goodbyes to Risa before he left, grabbing what was left of her ammunition but leaving the knife in her hand. She'd want that, even in Heaven.

Was there still a Heaven?

Did it matter?

It felt strange to be walking past the bodies he and Risa had left in their wake. He couldn't place the feeling at first, but it came to him as he went. The drugs may have given him an echo of his old power, but this, this was the closest he'd felt to angelic in a long time. The creations of Hell lay slain and broken underfoot, and he walked tall. For a second, he even thought he heard the rustle of his wings behind him.

Wishful thinking, of course. It was just the wind through the leaves.

He saw the body from across the courtyard and knew it had to be Dean. His pace quickened slightly as Cas walked over to him, but he didn't run. Whatever it was that happened here had already come to its close.

He went for the Colt first, pulling the cylinder to the side to see what it held. Five rounds, just as it had when they'd left. He made to drop it back where it had fallen, but after a moment's thought, he tucked it into his belt and turned his attention to Dean. He couldn't help but think that this was probably the most peaceful Dean had looked in years. His frown even chased him through sleep.

Cas stooped down, placing two fingers on Dean's neck to check for a pulse. It used to be that he would have just known if he was alive, but a lot had changed since those days.

Though the flesh was still warm, no life beat beneath his fingertips. The passion that had coursed through Dean's veins for so long had ceased.

Time stopped.

Cas had no idea how long he stayed there, on his knees next to Dean's body. He knelt the way he knew people used to pray, but there was no one left to hear those words, so he stayed silent.

It really was all over now.

He didn't stay to watch Chuck's face change from shocked to grieving, didn't stay to help him struggle with how he'd have to break the news to the rest of the camp. Cas headed back to his cabin-blissfully empty; there were things that mindless sex could help you work through, but this was not one of them-and sat silent on the floor, eyes closed, memories washing over him in a wave.

The table was upturned, lying sideways on the floor, the maps and blueprints normally arranged carefully on its surface scattered across the cabin. Dean stood at the center of the chaos, pouring glass after glass of whiskey. It had been a long time since Cas last saw him drink like this. He walked forward, placing a hand on Dean's shoulder, but he shrugged the touch away. Cas stepped back, but he didn't leave. This wasn't the first time Dean had failed to get the information he sought, but that was probably at the heart of the problem. He didn't know how many more setbacks Dean could take.

"We've got news from Detroit," Chuck said, looking down at his clipboard. There were only a few words written on the top page; Cas thought he just wanted to avoid meeting their eyes.

"What happened?" Dean asked.

"Well, the city's gone. Wiped out."

"Another piece of good news, then," Dean said, just the slightest hint of bitterness in his voice.

"There's more." Chuck didn't continue until Dean looked at him. He recognized that tone. "Sam was there."

"And?"

"We lost him. I'm sorry."

Dean licked his lips, a hand running through his hair as he looked around the room for anything that could take the sting out of the truth. His hands trembling, he reached for a bottle and poured himself a drink. "Did he go down fighting?" he asked, raising the glass.

"Dean, he didn't die there. He...he said yes."

Dean froze with the glass at his lips. Chuck jumped as he slammed it down onto the table, still untouched, and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

"I don't really know what I expected," Chuck said, putting the hand that didn't hold the clipboard in his pocket. "Call me when he comes back. We're going to need a plan, and fast."

Cas nodded, but he wasn't looking at Chuck. He was staring at the door Dean had walked through, not even knowing for sure that he would be coming back.

Dean had always driven too fast for comfort, but Cas had never seen him drive like this before. The Impala certainly had her charms, but now that Dean sat behind the wheel of a sturdy Jeep with almost certainly no chance of running into another vehicle on the road, he drove without any kind of fear. Cas didn't think his foot ever touched the brake.

But when Bobby calls for help, you go.

There were no sounds of gunfire when they approached, and for a moment, Cas thought they'd beaten the military here. ("Military" they were still called, as if they were anything more than mindless killing machines armed with assault rifles. They cleared the streets of Croats, sure, but they also took down anyone and anything that wasn't one of them. Something they had in common with their prey. They'd had their eyes on Dean's allies for months.)

Now that Cas was human, it was easier to lie to himself. It was simple to choose not to see the tire treads in the mud in front of the house, as characteristic as they were. It was night, it was dark, they could be anything. Anything at all.

The door with the prints of standard-issue boots stamped onto it in dirt, that was harder to explain away. The broken lock, even more so. But he kept doing it, and so did Dean, judging from the way he yelled Bobby's name as he stepped through the doorway, gun raised. As if there was still a chance of seeing Bobby alive.

When Cas walked in, Dean was alone, standing over Bobby's body. Cas didn't say anything about the blood dripping from the knuckles of Dean's right hand, but there was a hole in the wall he suspected hadn't been there a minute before.

He watched as Dean picked Bobby's body up in a fireman's lift and headed back toward the car. Dean's men looked questioningly at him as he walked past, so he gave them an order. "Take what we need. Everything. We're not coming back here."

He faced demon after demon after demon, and still Dean was able to put a smile on his face when he needed to, when he needed to convince his family that he was still the same man he used to be. But Dean was battered and bruised in ways he didn't know how to recover from, and Cas didn't know how to help.

Castiel looked into Dean's eyes for the first time, seeing this righteous man in need of salvation, this desperate man in need of hope, and knew that here, there was goodness.

These days Cas looks into Dean's eyes and sees nothing. And now he can't even do that.

He had time enough for one last taste of the old heaven's high, he thought. That sensation of strength, of energy, of walking painless through the camp for a while; it was nice. Lately, it was all he had.

The first time, it had taken two pills to bring on a high. Now he takes six in the morning and more throughout the day. Cas emptied the bottle into his hand, capsules falling to the floor in his carelessness, and tipped his head back. He swallowed as many pills as he could in one go and threw in a few more just to be sure. "That ought to do it," he said softly to the empty room.

When you hit the end, you burn your bridges behind you because there's nothing left to come back to.

He closes his eyes, and the lights go out.