Disclaimer: The usual I own ...blah, blah, blah

A/N thanks to those who have reviewed so far and thank you for not flaming me if you don't like the idea of her and Dean hopefully this chapter will explain why she and Dean are together in this existence.

"So, Bobby, how's the yard and the dogs," Anna asked as she passed the potatoes. "Has that big bitch of yours had another litter?"

Bobby stopped for a second and looked at the girl in front of him. With her false memories of him as the eccentric uncle who lived in an old yard with dogs, shut off from the world, who she visited a handful of times before he introduced her to the son of an old customer, who at that moment was scavenging parts to rebuild an old junker as he didn't have the cash to hand to buy a car that didn't have "personality."

"No, not yet," Bobby answered as he took the bowl out of her hand.

"Shame, really," she said mournfully.

"No!" Dean said firmly, causing her to look at him. "We are not getting a dog right now."

"I'm not suggesting," Anna started to say. "Okay not right now, but I'm stuck here all day while you are out and it would keep me company."

"Have you seen this place? Anna, a dog? I can't go to the chief and say I have got to go home because my girlfriend called to say that she can't find the damn thing and she is convinced she can hear something scratching in the wall."

"Dean, don't exaggerate," she said calmingly, causing Dean to raise an eyebrow, "Fine, then, I'll just have to go out and find someone else to snuggle up to on the couch while my so called boyfriend is out all night long."

"You mean when I'm working?" Dean asked.

"You say that, but somehow I don't believe you." Anna retorted sarcastically.

"I'll tell RJ you are being mean to me!" Dean replied.

"Yeah, like that will work," Anna said with a smile.

"Get a dog later, then, when the house is further along?" Castiel said as he pushed the food around his plate.

"In a few months maybe, but a dog is a big commitment that I'm not sure I'm ready for," Dean admitted causing Anna and Bobby to look at him.

"A dog is a big commitment, that you aren't sure you are ready for?" Anna asked.

"What?" Dean asked. "Well, it is."

"He's really happy isn't he?" Bobby said as he settled on the couch.

"Yes," Castiel replied.

"And they think your name is Jimmy?"

Castiel nodded his response. "Yes, an old friend from the camp that Dean used to go to as a child."

"Right," Bobby muttered. "Can see that now, John Winchester letting his boys go to camp."

"Hi was wondering if you could help me," Sam said to the barman as he pulled out a picture. "Have you seen this man?" Sam asked, pointing at Bobby.

"Why do you want to know?" the barkeep asked.

Sam sighed; it had been a while since he had to do this.

"I'm an associate with Cartman, Broflovskvi and Marsh," Sam started to say. "I'm trying to track this guy down. His sister in Ohio is trying to track him down to deal with what is in his mother's will."

"Is there a finder's fee?" the barkeep asked.

"I can't really discuss that unless you have information," Sam replied.

"What about a cut about pointing in the right direction?" the barkeep asked.

Sam thought for a moment, "If the direction gets me where I want to go."

The barkeep took a breath. "I don't know why I am doing this – especially seeing how he'll get most of the cash."

"Can you get to the point?" Sam asked.

"Don't know the guy you are looking for, but the other guy in the picture you'll find at the firehouse down the block."

Sam took a moment before looking at the picture of Bobby and Dean. He swallowed his fear. "The firehouse down the block?"

"So you wiped their memories, sort of?" Bobby replied as he sat across from Castiel in a small diner near the firehouse.

Castiel nodded. "Yes, although some were given newly formed to ground him, but the major events of his life are still there. However, the remembrances of the supernatural elements of his or Anna's lives were amended. His father leaving to go on a hunt is remembered as his father starting another one of a series of short term jobs that he couldn't hold down after the death of Dean's mother."

Bobby clenched his jaw. "John might have been a bastard but that is cold to say that he screwed up his boys lives because he was a drunk who kept getting canned."

"It is not ideal," Castiel admitted. "But until other memories become re-assimilated, it was the only way."

"Other memories?"

"Ones that let them more fully understand their situation," Castiel said. "Although this process will be done in a way that they can still find peace, but this will take time."

"Why?" Bobby asked.

"Falling in the manner they were allowed meant Dean was allowed to keep part of his grace," Castiel explained. "The part of him given to him from the host, though it will take time to settle in its new form and hopefully he will never be fully aware of its presence within him. By the time he understands more fully what really happened, it should not create conflict within him."

"Then why do it? Why not take it all when you let him go?"

"Its presence within him prevents him being vulnerable to attack. The same can be said for Anna, though to a much lesser extent."

"Really?" Bobby asked. "It wasn't that, once you gave him the power of an Archangel, Dean was a little less co-operative in letting it all go because he didn't trust you bastards?"

Castiel didn't reply.

"You guys kicked off that cloud because he was ruffling those stuck-up feathers up there, didn't he?" Bobby asked.

Castiel bowed his head. "Dean's methods during the battle, though effective, created tensions in some quarters."

"Sounds like him – kicked some stuck-up Angel ass to make sure the job got done, didn't he?"

"That is one way to describe it," Castiel replied, though Bobby could have sworn that he saw a smirk cross the angel's face for a split second.

"And what does it mean when you say hopefully he'll never be fully aware of it? What exactly does that mean?" Bobby asked. "At some point is Dean going to burst into flames and take out everything in a ten mile radius? He was barely containing the power you saddled him with when he dropped Sam off at my place and that was when he knew what he was doing."

Castiel bowed his head. "No demon would be foolish enough to risk invoking even the shadow of the being that Dean became."

"He became?" Bobby spat out angrily. "That you and the rest of you manipulated him into becoming? Cleaning up your mess – you could have stopped Sam at any time. You could have found out what he had been doing so we could have helped him before it got as far as it did. You could have taken out Ruby at any time without breaking a sweat and you didn't. Instead you left it to Dean, expected him to stop Sam without all the facts. Then you turned him into your lighting rod and made him hunt down his brother. And don't you damn well say it wasn't Sam in the end you asked him to go after. I know it was the devil himself, but you told me yourself, Dean had to hack into the damn vessel that he'd fashioned himself in to – a vessel that looked like Sam, talked like Sam and damn well knew every thought that Sam Winchester ever had up until the moment that last seal was broken. So don't tell me that you didn't turn Dean into a walking nuclear bomb whose only purpose was to hunt down his own brother."

Castiel bowed his head as Bobby vented some of the rage and confusion that he had held back for so long.

"Now you're telling me that you have left a bit of that in him, and I'm guessing that was just in case a demon decides to take some stupid pills."

Castiel sighed. "In a way, yes, that is true."

"And Anna? Is she going to hulk out, too? Is Wichita going to have two bombs going off if some of Lilith's playmates want to get some payback?"

"No, especially not now," Castiel said. "Anna's circumstances are more fluid. The outcome is not clear."

"Not clear? Jesus, who is running things up there to let things get this far?" Bobby replied. "And don't give me your crap about giving them peace."

Castiel bowed his head, "When they fell at first, leaving them together was deemed a good idea. They would have someone in the same situation for support though they would not fully understand why they were there for each other."

"Dean would have been fine on his own. He would have found his feet, and maybe a way back to his brother, his family," Bobby stated coldly before looking at the mournful expression on Castiel's face. "You hoped that they'd stick together like this?"

Castiel cocked his head to the side, "If it is what this new life leads them to then, so be it. The battle, so much suffering in ways I cannot describe. If they have now found a way to be truly happy then can you argue with it?"

"Still don't make what you did to them right," Bobby replied.

"And…" Castiel started to say. "Anna first fell because she wished to experience the same emotions as humans."

"And feelings sure run deep in Dean, even if he needs someone to tell him he's feeling them most of the time." Bobby took a long look at Castiel before he took off his cap and ran a hand through his hair. "Oh shit, it was your idea wasn't it? The whole couple thing was your idea? Why? Is it…Jesus, you're in love aren't you. Is it her, did you do it for her or is it him?"

Castiel cocked his head, "Of course I love them, both of them. They are part of my father's creation. They fought bravely and they deserve peace and contentment."

"But pairing them off like this because you knew they'd look out for each other. Because you can't seem to make up your mind," Bobby said with a sigh. "Boy, angel or not, you are a class one eejit."

Castiel knotted his brow, "I do not understand what you are saying, Bobby Singer."

"You wouldn't would you," Bobby replied as he shook his head, "And what about Sam?"

"Sam Winchester's path is not my concern," Castiel replied.

"The boy needs to put things right with Dean," Bobby reasoned. "He won't be whole until he does. Dean can't ever become whole without it."

Castiel cocked his head to the side. "Do you really think that is a good idea at the moment? As you stated, Dean sent a being who wore his brother's visage back to its prison."

Bobby took a breath. "You saying that Dean seeing Sam could bring the Archangel out of him?"

"In time a meeting may be a possibility. However, if Sam faces his brother at the present time, I cannot be certain of the outcome."

"Dean'll come out fighting, if he thinks there's a possibility of a threat, you know that," Bobby retorted. "He's still a Winchester. That is what they do. That boy will protect what he's got."

Castiel nodded. "That seems to be a family trait."

Sam stood on the sidewalk watching the firehouse. At first he hadn't been sure if he was hallucinating or there was just some poor schmuck that looked like his brother. Whoever he was, he seemed to have an easy rapport with the guys he was working with. Though after he had learned the guy's name, there was no denying it was really his brother. Dean Campbell. Campbell – their mom's name.

In a way it was appropriate. For all of Dean's blustering attempts to become the copy of their father, it was their mother Dean took after. Sam knew it, in the back of his mind had always felt it to be true. The stories of his mother's personality seemed to gel with his brother's, especially after Dean had told him what he had seen, that she was a hunter in her own right even though she may have not liked the life.

Dean is, was and always will be the son of Mary Campbell, happy go lucky on the outside, wanting to live life, but sad inside, playing things close to the chest, willing to put themselves on the line to protect those around them, and for all Sam's attempts to deny it, he had proven to himself and the whole world he was the carbon copy of the single minded obsessive who couldn't see how his actions affected others until it was too late. Although he had to admit he had long surpassed John Winchester's league.

He stood there, not sure how to breathe as he watched Dean Campbell go about his daily business until, after five minutes, he turned and simply walked away.

"So given time Dean and everything within the county line might be able to cope with seeing Sam, but you aren't sure when that will be," Bobby said as he scratched his head. "And what about Sam in the meantime?"

"I have said Sam Winchester's life is his own," Castiel said.

The house was rickety, the front yard needing a little tending to. There was an old car in the drive, a 1960's Mustang that looked as if it was in the process of being rebuilt.

Sam took it all in. It hadn't taken long to get the address, but was this where his brother lived? Was this what the angels had abandoned him too? Dean had saved them all. Surely he deserved more than this. Surely he deserved more than suburbia.

On the rotted porch step, he noted the scratching – a ward against demonic activity, though it's rendering looked as if it had be placed there absentmindedly, as if the person who placed it hadn't realised they were dong it.

Sam brushed his hand over it. Had Dean sat on that step, knife in hand, scratching at the rotted board as he watched the world go by, leaving a barrier to protect himself without realising he was doing it? Sam smiled. He hoped so as it would mean that part of the Dean he knew might still exist . But did that mean Dean had chose this; chose to live here, not to get in contact with him, to move on without his brother.

The lock on the back door had been easy to pick, though Sam wasn't sure what he was doing, maybe just wanting to see that Dean was okay, and from what he could see in the house, he was.

"Oh, my god!" A plate shattered behind him as he looked around the kitchen.

Sam turned around to see her panicked face. "Anna?"

"Please, please take what you want," she said, backing away before she stopped cold, her face paling even more.

"Anna, it's okay. It's me," Sam said as he slowly approached her. Then he noted the way she was holding herself, shielding the swell of her belly. "Oh, my god! You're pregnant."

"You. It's you," Anna stated.

Sam swallowed. "Sam. It's Sam, I swear. I'm better now. I'm not like that anymore."

She didn't answer him. Instead she took a step back.

Even though he could see how scared she was, he gave her a shy smile. "Is it? The baby? Is it Dean's?"

"You stay away! You leave my baby alone!" she screamed, grabbing a knife from the work top. The next thing Sam knew, the world went white.