*Dean*

"Hi honey. I'm home." Janie shouted.

"I'm in here!" I shouted back. Janie is my wife and we've been married almost ten years now. I still feel empty without Cas by my side. It's like someone tore my heart out and stabbed it over and over and over again. Sounds stupid, but even 25 years later I still cry myself to sleep every night. He was my first true love, and I never got to tell him how I felt… feel!

I love Janie, but not even Janie compares to Castiel. Nobody compares to my angel.

Janie doesn't even know about Cas. I couldn't bring myself to talk about him. Every 26th of March I am too much of a mess to get out of bed. It kills me over and over again. It should have been me not him. It should never have been him…

"Are you okay Dean? You don't look too good! Do you want me to run you a bath?" Janie came over to me and put her fingers to my head to check my temperature. I felt cold, detached. Today it is 25 years exactly. I can't believe it has been that long. It seems only yesterday. I still keep the note he left me. It's in my sock drawer.

"Yes. A bath would be nice." I said looking down at the bracelet I bought him. It was returned to me after he – left. I found it under my pillow one day. I have treasured it ever since.

The note and the bracelet are the only solid things I have left of his. I have memories, but that's all they are, just memories.

I got into the bath, then got out after a while. I can't feel anything. Everything feels emotionless, distant. Like I'm not alive, not living.

"DEAN!" Castiel screamed.

"Cas?" No it can't have been Cas. I'm imagining him again.

"DEAN!" There it was again. I can't have imagined it twice!

"DEAN!" There was a sobbing sound coming from downstairs. It wasn't Castiel, I realised. It was Janie.

"Hold on Janie! I'M COMING!" I rushed downstairs to find a cloaked man stood over Janie. She was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, her blood. I watched from the doorway, frozen with fear. I've never been this scared before. Well, that's not true. Last time I was this scared it was because I never thought I would see my angel again.

I thought wrong. The cloaked man pulled his cloak off in one swift movement and turned to face me. It was him. The man from my dreams, my nightmares. It was Castiel.

"Cas? Is it really you?" I whispered.

"Yes. And I have come to collect from you that what was once mine."

"What are you talking about?" I remembered about Janie and kneeled by her side. "Janie talk to me! C'mon baby, talk to me!" I started crying. "Cas? Did you see who did this?"

"Yes."

"Who did it?"

"I did."

"Oh God. Why?"

"Your God won't help you now, Dean Winchester."

"What do you want?"

"Your life." In that last word, the true impact of why he was back dawned on me.

"You've come to collect from me that what was once yours. You sold your soul to save me. Now you want it back." I breathed.

"Yes." He looked barely human, well he wasn't human. But he looked unrecognisable, ghastly even. A mere shadow of his former self, a shadow of the man I loved.

I had to get Janie seen to otherwise she would die and I would never forgive myself. I voiced this.

"No. You won't forgive yourself. It will just add to the torment in Hell. Which is why the girl must die!"

"Please Cas. If you have even a tiny bit of humanity left in you, let me call her an ambulance. Then you can take me!"

"Sorry, no can do. See, I've had a lot of time to think whilst I was in Hell. You're too heroic! Too macho. If I kill this girl where she lay, you will be more torn up about it than if I kill you!"

"Why did you say you wanted my life then?"

"All in due time my boy. All in due time."

"Dean, help me." Janie rasped out. As the last few flickers of life left her eyes, I stood and reached for the cabinet. I drew out a gun. It wasn't just any old gun, it was Samuel Colt's gun. I pointed it at Castiel and shot him.

What happened next was a blur. Cas fell to the floor, dead and I reached for the phone to call an ambulance.

I realised it was no hope, not for Castiel who was now dead by my hands. Not for Janie, dead by Cas's hands, or for me who was also dead by my own hands. Don't think I killed myself, I didn't. it just felt like I did when I shot the only man that I loved and when he killed the only woman that I loved.

Honestly, I think I died 25 years ago when I didn't die…