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-Four-

Dirty Birds Aren't Allowed Recollection

Storm grimaced in response to the pain, raising her bleeding index finger eye-level, watching the small dot of scarlet substance slip out from the thin, tiny wound. She glanced down at the piece of paper that had committed the crime, watching the drop of blood fall heavily down from the tip of her finger onto the paper. She surveyed the page absorbing the blood, the explosion of red against the contrast of white spreading like veins.

Storm curled her legs against her body as she sat on the moth-eaten couch, punching the pillow that she leaned back on which emitted a soft cloud of dust. As she sucked her bleeding finger, she gazed around at the piles of yellowing papers and leather-bound books which were giving off a vague musty odor which was oddly reminded Storm of home. Along the wall were several different home phones all with different tape labels, such as FED Marshall, FBI, CDC, Police, and Health Debt. Whoever the man was that lived here, Bobby, was certainly no kindly old uncle who watched football on TV or had evening barbeque's every Friday.

The lights were dim but she was still able to make out the heading on the page of the open book that sat on her lap. The droplet of blood that had almost completely sunk in the paper now was very close to the calligraphic 'C' of the name 'Castiel'. Beneath it was a list and brief history that was all very biblical and didn't sate the thirst of knowledge Storm had for the angel. He was the angel of Thursday, understanding, temperance, new changes, and travel which of course did nothing in explaining the strange moment they had shared when meeting eye-contact.

It wasn't particularly as if she had ever met him before,(at least she didn't think so)but who could she have been prior three years ago to be important enough to be involved with angels? She hadn't forgotten the flashing vision of that field with a taste of serenity that filled her up like drink, which was just as familiar as Castiel, though in completely different ways. The field felt as if it was a piece of whatever life she used to live, as for Castiel—well, there wasn't enough to go on to be sure, but in some odd way she knew him before. Again, not as if they had ever talked, but more so . . . more so . . .

Storm was at a loss.

Her whole hand was planted over her forehead in attempt to harness the migraine-ish headache that had been on and off ever since they left Ruby's safe house nearly twelve hours ago. She couldn't 'hear' anything, but it felt as if someone was driving a drill between her eyebrows, making reading anymore on Castiel all but impossible.

There was a creak of footsteps on the basement stairs and a distraction materialized in the shape of Sam, shuffling through several papers in his hand and glancing from them to look at Storm who had sat up a little straighter.

"Hey," he said. "Feeling anymore awake?"

She had slept the entire drive here in the back of the Impala up until she was being prodded awake by Sam who had smiled a little and pointed out the small dribble of drool on the side of her mouth.

"Yes, I am, thank you. How's Anna?"

"In Bobby's panic room downstairs with Dean, but I think she's okay. Still a little shaken up about her parents, but that's understandable. The walls are drenched in salt so no demon is getting to her."

"Has she been able to explain how she knew those symbols would take care of the angels?"

"No, she said she just—knew," he said with a small shrug. He pursed his lips, eyes scanning over Storm's face with apparent worry stitching onto his expression. "You look a little pale." He moved forward, raising his hand but hesitating the moment he made a gesture as if to raise it to her forehead. She didn't move or say anything, but she didn't drop their gaze either and he took this as an 'okay' to proceed. His hand swept aside her bangs, resting gently on her forehead. He withdrew suddenly. "A little warm."

"I haven't had anything but green tea and Cheetos in the past few twenty-four hours," she admitted with a timid smile. Sam raised his eyebrows a little with a distracted chuckle.

"Oh, well, uh, I'm sure Bobby has something," he said timidly, straightening his spine self-consciously.

"Where's this Bobby?" Storm asked as she got to her feet, her stance more solid seeing as her knees weren't as shaky anymore.

"Not sure, actually. Dean's on the phone with him now. I wanted to go over these papers with him," he said, throwing the file onto the table with a slight nod down at it. Storm recognized it as the one she had taken from the hospital at which she had given to the brothers in attempt to help them with researching Anna.

He opened the fridge and squinted down at all the contents, as if hoping leftover food would miraculously appear so as to avoid cooking. The easiest thing he could find was eggs and bacon which he held up for Storm's examination, mutely asking for approval.

"Sure," she nodded.

"So you're not a vegetarian?" he asked.

"Nope."

He nodded absently, turning on the stove as he heard Storm sit down at the table, a sound occurring as if she were drumming her nails on the surface of it. As he poured an overdose of olive oil into the pan that still had residue of cooked eggs, she asked, "What else did her file say?"

"Nothing light," he said with a small glance at her over his shoulder. "Um, when she was about—two and a half she got freaked out whenever her dad came close, said something along the lines that he wasn't her real father and that he was going to kill her."

He imagined Storm's eyebrows were raised when she spoke next, "That's—pretty extreme for only being two."

Sam flinched back his hand as a droplet of boiling oil flew out of the pan and attacked him. As he sucked his thumb, he didn't realize Storm had gotten out of her chair to stand beside him, staring down into the pan.

"Well, she saw a kid's shrink and after that, she grew up normally," he explained with a slight shrug.

"Sam Winchester, do you know how to cook?"

His lips tugged upward in a guilty smile as he looked at her. "Uh, I'm trying to act like I can. Is it working?"

"The eggs are burning."

Sam looked down into the pan. Indeed, thick tendrils of smoke were rising from the mess of easy over eggs, the broken yolks bubbling softly in the pile of fizzing oil. When he tried to chisel them out with the spatula, they stubbornly stuck to the surface of the pan, despite the generous amount of oil.

"Uh, sorry. I kind of live on a daily diet of diner food. My culinary skills aren't up to boot," said Sam.

Murmuring swearwords darkly under his breath, he at last gathered the eggs onto a saucer and looked down at them in defeat as he faced Storm who was grinning ear to ear.

"Well, uh, they started as over easy. I hope you like scrambled dosed in about a cup of olive oil."

"My favorite."

"No, really you don't have to eat it. They'll probably do more bad to you than good."

"Gimme. I'm preparing my stomach for Sam Winchester's Specially Made Eggs."

Sam did little to fight his grin. "Alright. Let me at least cook the bacon first."

He was a little more fortunate when it came to cooking the bacon, perhaps because he had followed Storm's advice in turning down the temperature. As they sat down at the table, he watched doubtfully as she stabbed the burnt eggs into her mouth, her expression thoughtful as she chewed slowly.

"So, tell me; do they suck?" he said, leaning back in his chair with a light chuckle.

"Y'know," she said, pointing her fork importantly at him, "the cup of olive oil I just ingested almost gives it a very nature-y effect on my taste buds. I can taste the olives on the vines they were picked from."

Sam actually burst out laughing. "Right. Okay. You should definitely give me a 'Chef of the Year' award." He eyed her skeptically as she took another bite. "Seriously, though."

"Seriously, though; they are really bad."

He chuckled softly again but before he could say anything Dean entered the kitchen, snapping his cell phone shut and sniffing the air hopefully.

"Hey, dude," said Sam, gathering the papers in his hands again, "where's Bobby?"

"Uh, the Dominican," he said, eying the bacon that Storm had not yet touched and only granting Sam half a glance. "He says we break anything, we buy it. Hey," he added to Storm, and she didn't miss the lowered tone he used on her. Evidently he had not completely forgiven her for hot wiring the Impala.

"Hi," she said.

"If I could just . . . ?" He was making timid movements toward her plate and nodding down at her food with what he evidently assumed to be a charming smile and Sam rolled his eyes.

"No. This was made specially for me," said Storm, inching her plate away from Dean who's face fell, apparently not expecting the rejection. Sam contained a laugh behind his fingers but automatically straightened his expression as his brother looked at him.

"So he's working a case?" Sam asked airily.

"God, I hope so. Otherwise he's at hedonism in a banana hammock and a trucker cap," said Dean.

Sam stared up at him, grimacing. "Now that's seared into my brain."

"I want to meet this Bobby," said Storm who, amazingly, had finished the entire meal with a smile.

"He'd sure have a hay-day makin' fun of you for your hair and that your name is Storm," said Dean, and then directing at Sam, "So find anythin' new about Anna?"

Sam explained everything he had just said to Storm and Dean basically had the same reaction.

"Alright—so everythin' was normal up until now," said Dean who was now leaning his elbows on the back of one of the dining room chairs. "So what's she hiding?"

"Why don't you just ask me to my face?"

Ruby and Anna had joined the others in the kitchen. Dean shifted on an irritable expression, saying to Ruby, "Nice job watchin' her."

"I'm watching her."

Sam's fingers folded the corners of Anna's file, his eyes unintentionally wavering in Storm's general area, but he made himself look at Anna. "No, you're right, Anna. Is there anything you want to tell us?"

"About what?"

"Well, the angels said you were guilty of something. Why would they say that?"

Anna pulled one of the table chairs toward her, leaning the flat of her palms on the back of it while staring down at Sam defiantly. "You tell me. Tell me why my life has been leveled—why my parents are dead. I don't know, I swear. I would give anything to know."

"Okay then," said Sam after a short pause, meeting Dean's eye. "Then let's find out."

"How?" she said.

"Pamela. She's, uh, sort of a psychic that we know."

"So we have her swing the wonky pendulum and hopefully that'll get you to remember?" said Dean, standing up straighter. His eyes were on Storm. "This could go both ways."

"Hypnosis never worked on me," said Storm. "I just ended up having seizures and one bad headache."

"Okay, yeah, but that was done by the white-coat doctors who didn't major specifically in black mojo," countered Dean. "And I don't mean to state the obvious or anything, but, uh . . . Castiel and Uri seemed to take an interest in you. Think you might be willing to try and figure out why that is?"

"Keyword: try," said Storm. "Yes, I'll try. I'll do anything I can to remember who or what I was before."

"Alright," said Sam after a short pause, bringing out his phone. "I'll make the call."

.

Storm had never met a psychic before, but the way this particular one entered the threshold made it seem as though she owned the place. The black sunglasses indicated her poor sight and Dean was leading her by the arm and into the basement where the others were waiting.

"We're here!" Dean called.

"Pamela, hey!" said Sam as the two reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Sam?" said Pamela. "Sam is that you?"

"Right here."

"Oh. Know how I can tell?" Storm's eyebrows shot upward in unadulterated amusement as Pamela suddenly groped Sam's rear. "This perky little ass of yours. Could bounce a nickel off that thing. Of course I know it's you, grumpy. Same way I know that's a demon," she nodded at Ruby, "and that poor girl's Anna, and that you've been eying my rack."

"Uh . . ."

Sam made an embarrassed fidgeting motion along with an airy chuckle that did not quite disguise the small flush in his face as he glanced at Storm who was doing nothing to conceal her face-splitting grin.

"I like her," said Storm.

Pamela's head tilted in her direction, her smile suffering to some degree.

"Are you sick?" she asked.

Storm considered the woman. "No."

"Terminal illnesses, anything like that?"

"Nothing but memory loss."

"No, your energy field is way off, like trying to fit a square into a circle. Who are you, kid?"

"Storm."

"Yeah, you're the one Dean told me about on the way here. White-haired, doll-like, amnesiac girl."

"Your Native American name," put in Dean.

Storm couldn't shake off the feeling that Pamela was uncomfortable around her.

"We'll be doing some work together," she told Storm, and then turned to Anna, "Anna, how are you doing, sweetie? I'm Pamela."

"Hi," said Anna nervously.

"Dean told me what's goin' on and I'm excited to help."

"Oh, well, that's nice of you."

"Not really. Any chance I can dick over an angel, I'm taking it."

"Why?"

"They stole something from me." Pamela removed the sunglasses where the misty white orbs that were her eyes still managed to have some friendly crinkle as she smiled. "Demon-y, I know, but they're just plastic. Good for business. Makes me look extra-psychic, don't you think? Now, how about you tell me what your deal is, hmm? Don't you worry. But, listen," she added to Storm's general direction, "I don't like the vibe I'm getting from you—I feel like I could flick my finger at you and your soul'll be ripped from your body, so I don't feel comfortable meddling with your head with hypnosis. Hope you don't take offense."

"I don't."

They soon transcended upstairs into the living room where Anna assumed a laying position on the couch Storm was sitting at earlier. Pamela started with counting down from five, telling Anna she was going to enter a very deep sleep.

"Your father—what's his name?" Pamela asked in a soothing tone, as if she were speaking to an infant on the brink of sleep.

"Rick Milton."

Storm watched Anna's eyes rolling behind her heavy eyelids.

"Alright, but I want you to look further back—when you were very young. Just a couple years old."

"I don't want to."

"It'll be okay, Anna. Just one look—that's all we need."

"No."

The silent tone in which she spoke sounded as dangerous as someone reloading a shotgun. Storm was uneasy, aware of the vague flicker of the lamp to her right.

"What's your dad's name? Your real dad? Why is he angry with you?"

"No!" Anna screamed in a way that suggested she didn't have enough air in her lungs. She choked out the next few 'no's' in the same strangled cries, "No, no, no!"

The atmosphere in the room had risen to a panic as Anna's chest lurched forward as if she was about to have some kind of fit.

"Anna, calm down. No!" Pamela suddenly added to Dean who moved to run by her side to calm her down, but was thrown across the room by what seemed by an invisible slingshot.

Storm, who had been in the crossfire of Dean's body, accepted the elder brother's helping hand and he brought her to her feet.

Sam was in a confusion on who to ask who was alright; Storm and Dean, or Anna who was still screaming, "He's gonna kill me!"

"Wake, Anna," Pamela ordered firmly. "Wake in one, two, three, four, five . . ." There was a silence in which Anna's eyes shot open, showing no sign that she had just been screaming for what seemed her life. She lifted herself into an upright sitting position as the others surrounded her with baited breath. "Anna . . . Anna, you alright?" Pamela asked.

"Thank you, Pamela. I remember now."

"Remember what?" said Sam.

"Who I am."

Dean, who was wearing an intense frown, said to her with a little jerk of his head, "I'll bite. Who are you?"

"I'm an angel."

Storm didn't expect it, but she felt more than one pair of eyes on her, as if she had been the one to say the words. It took a minute for Anna's statement to penetrate Storm's expression and when it did, all she could manage was for her two eyebrows to deepen into a frown.

"An angel," she repeated, but not questioningly, moreover that she was echoing the truth of her words.

"Don't be afraid," said Anna, getting to her feet and meeting Storm's eyes directly, as if the reassurance was intended mostly for her. "I'm not like the others."

"I don't find that very reassuring," said Ruby who had doidled back in the living room doorway.

"Neither do I," said Pamela, reaching her hand vaguely in the air in search for Dean who helped her to her feet.

Storm was only partly listening; Anna was still looking at her with a searching look, and she wasn't sure if the uncertainty in her face made her feel better or not. Sam noticed the moment between the two.

"Anna . . . you said before that you felt like you knew Storm, and well, you kinda both have your ears directed heavenward . . . could Storm . . . ?"

The question was vague, hanging lighter than snow in the air, and yet it made the rock of confirmation drop so heavily into Storm's chest that her gaze fell from the weight of it. Storm examined her fingertips where her thin nails were longer than others on some fingers, to a simple silver ring with a green stone embedded in it on her middle finger. She had gotten the thing at a dusty gift shop that was two blocks from her apartment. The fat man behind the counter with the missing-toothed smile had taken favor to her and offered her the little ring from his own collection for only three-fifty.

Storm didn't know why she was thinking of this now, and suddenly felt a little foolish.

When she felt brave enough to lift her head again, there was not one eye that wasn't on either her or Anna. Storm was looking at Dean for some reason, maybe because she was unsure of where his priorities lie. She could at least trust that fact that Sam would not pull a gun to her head even if somehow Anna eventually confirmed his obscure question. But Dean looked as uncertain as she felt, his hand suspended just over his mouth until he wiped it down and shook his head to no one in particular.

"No," said Anna eventually, and the one word was like ripping the yellow ribbon at the end of a tiresome, intense race. Storm hardly moved, but her lips parted to take in the breath that stung her dried lips, yet Anna spoke over her, "No, you're not an angel."

Anna's answer only did more to add to the whirlpool of uncertainty that swam through Storm's head, but again before she could say anything, Sam said, "You don't know what?"

"I have no idea. I can remember and place every angel's face out there, and you're not one of them. I can't tell if you're human."

I can't tell if you're human. The only thing this sentence suggested to Storm was the possibility of her being not human, and if she was not human or angel, what was she?

She had never been so infuriated with her amnesia, never so angry that her mind didn't work as the others did and couldn't just think back to even confirm her own species. Was there anything truly over the past three years that had indicated the blood in her veins wasn't human, though? Aside from hearing voices, her odd sleeping pattern and—and making a man explode in the back of an alleyway . . .

Storm lost her own mental argument.

"I don't think Pamela's hypnosis will work any better on you, though," Anna continued but succeeded little in taking Storm away from her thoughts. "You have this—wall that blocks out everything, even familiarity with small things. You could have been any person before."

Storm didn't ask how she knew this, perhaps because she herself already knew it. She was wondering whether or not she would have preferred Anna to tell her that she was an angel; it would have been better than this dark abyss of precariousness that settled within her. There was only one thing she cared about now, whether or not she didn't like what she would find; to remember.

"Okay, but putting all this aside," said Dean to Anna, slicing through the icy silence that seemed to exist only for Storm, "you seemed to be on first tabs with Castiel and Uriel. You know them?"

"We were sorta in the same foxhole," answered Anna, at last taking her probing eyes from Storm to look at Dean.

"You worked for them?" asked Sam.

"Try the other way around."

"Well look at you," said Dean with raised eyebrows.

"But now they want to kill you?" asked Pamela.

"Orders are orders. I'm sure I have a death sentence on my head," said Anna.

"Why is that?" asked Storm.

"I disobeyed—which, for us, is about the worst thing you can do. I fell."

Fell.

Sam saw Storm's body, limp as a rag-doll, fall through the tree branches and land before his car. Lightning as white as Storm's hair had illuminated the whole thing, and with his arms folded, he glanced sideways at her.

If not an angel . . . what?

"Meaning?" pressed Dean.

"She fell to earth, became human," confirmed Pamela and Sam was distracted for a moment.

"Wait a minute . . . I don't understand," he said. "So, angels can just become human?"

"It kind of hurts. Try cutting your kidney out with a butter knife," said Anna. "That kind of hurts. I ripped out my grace."

"Come again?" said Dean.

Storm's focus was beginning to waver in and out from the conversation. There was an ache just above her right brow and she massaged it, waves of exhaustion gnarling into her like tree roots. Anna was saying something about her mother, how she couldn't get pregnant and had her instead when she 'fell'.

"Storm?" Sam's voice was the one that stood out from Storm's pain and she looked up, already predicting his question.

"I'm fine."

"I know you would think I'd have answers, Storm," said Anna, her voice less welcoming than the latter. "I'm sorry. Who you are, where you come from—you don't stand out in my mind."

"I understand." But Storm didn't understand. She didn't understand why when emotions raised high that all of the light bulbs in the room exploded, why she heard voices, and how she had made a man's innards rip from beneath his skin and paint the alley walls with his blood.

"I don't think any of you understand how royally screwed we all are," said Ruby unexpectedly.

"She's right. Heaven wants me dead," said Anna.

"And Hell just wants you. And now that you've got light-bulb killer tagging along, you're only doing more to parch their thirst to find you, and that's gonna happen sooner or later."

"I know. Which means I have to find my grace."

"You can do that?" said Dean.

"If I can find it."

"So, what, you're just gonna take some divine bong hit and shazam, you're Roma Downey?"

"Something like that."

"Alright, I like this plan. So where's this grace of yours?"

"Lost track. I was falling about ten-thousand miles per hour at the time."

Sam's eyes suddenly sparked with recognition. "Wait, you mean falling, like literally? Like a comet or meteor?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"Alright, bear with me . . ."

In a matter of minutes, Sam and the others were surrounded by various books and magazines and even some newspaper articles. Sam was flipping through an article that was so aged that the white paper was fading into yellow and the pages turned with unease.

"Here, in '85 a meteorite vanished in the sky in northwestern Ohio. It was sighted nine months before Anna was born, and she was born in that part of Ohio."

"You're pretty buff for a nerd," snorted Ruby and for some reason, her and Storm made eye-contact.

"Look," sighed Sam, "I think it was Anna here, and same time—another meteorite in Kentucky."

"And that's her grace?" asked Ruby.

"Might be." And then he spoke to Anna, "Also, if you 'fell' in 1985, it would explain why you wouldn't have any idea who or what Storm is, because you turned human before I found her on the highway."

"You're gonna have to tell me that story again," said Dean. "Hey, maybe if Anna gets back her angel mojo she'll be able to tell more about Storm."

"Sam Winchester." Storm gave the ends of Sam's left fingers a gentle pull and a he did a double take. He looked into her dark green eyes where a few of her white hairs were messily getting in the way of, as if she had just stepped off of a motorcycle. When he did not reply immediately, she repeated his name in a strange mingle of soft firmness, "Sam Winchester."

"What's up?"

"I need to ask you something."

The second pull she gave to his fingers implied that she wanted to see him alone. His eyes did a sort of waver above the others' heads before he straightened up, cleared his throat, and followed Storm into the kitchen where she wasted no time in meeting his gaze with her intense one.

"What's on your mind?" he asked.

"I was on a road in the middle of a thunderstorm when you found me," she said as if it was necessary to remind him. "The day after was the birth of my new mind and personality. You have to tell me everything about that night, everything about the condition of my body when you found me. Anything you can think of. Anything."

Sam surveyed Storm tentatively. Vaguely in the back of his mind he had expected Storm to ask this of him these past few days, yet he knew she was searching for the specific details, and the details were the things he could not recall after such a long stretch of time.

"I—I don't know, Storm," he said, hoping to sound more sincere than hopeless.

"You found me in the road," she repeated, her expression unfazed by his answer. "Was I there when you were driving?"

"I—" But yes, he did know that, but the answer had hidden in the back of his mind for years. "You fell."

"Fell?"

"When I was driving down the road it looked like you—fell from the sky. I wouldn't have even noticed you if lightning hadn't struck at the exact same time you landed on the road. It wasn't like any meteorite."

He could tell that even if this hardly answered any questions she had, it at least satisfied her to some degree.

"Falling from the sky makes it seem like a fallen angel, but—if Anna doesn't think so . . . Do you remember anything else?"

The next thing that came to mind was that Storm had been completely naked, but he was reluctant to admit this to her, even if her nudity was the last thing on his mind when he saw her lying in that road. His silence intensified her questioning gaze.

"Your pulse was skyrocketing," he said, hoping the change of subject would drain away the flush in his cheeks. "And, uh, . . ."

It was the tweet from a morning bird outside that finally reminded Sam of the strangest occurrence that had happened that night.

"You had this—this, uh, bird in your hands," he continued, assuming Storm would show signs of astonishment at his words, but she surprised him with maintaining her frown and remaining mute. "Weird, huh?"

"What kind of bird?"

Once that the story was rolling, Sam's memory was suddenly persevering and there was little pause before his next words, "A dove, I think."

Sam's eyebrows were narrowing, the whole strangeness of the condition in which he had found her seeming raw all over again. He wanted to ask the question he knew was inane at this point; 'You don't remember anything?'

"Does that mean anything to you?" he asked instead.

"I don't know much about doves other than they represent love, peace, and hope; those kind of things. If you're religious, the Holy Spirit. Why I would be holding one, I have no idea."

Sam could hear the anxiety in her voice she was trying to hide and he tried to think of something to say, but he didn't know where to begin. Her grim smile indicated she knew he was looking for consoling words and also that they were not needed.

"Is that all you can think of?" she asked.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Yeah, I think so."

"Thank you, Sam."

Sam laughed; he couldn't help it. He had given her no information that could lead to the answers she obviously wanted, and yet the way she thanked him, even the way her eyes glimmered with the same sincerity her tone exhaled, she made it appear as though he had been a great asset. He didn't feel he deserved her genuineness and would have almost preferred her to be irritated with him for his lack of helpfulness.

"For what?" He was unable to restrain his voice from a skeptic snort. "I didn't exactly give you a five-pointer map."

"No, you didn't. In fact, I'm more confused than I was before." And at his bemused look, she added, "I just appreciate your willingness to help. You don't hesitate in helping when you can, and I find this admirable."

She wasn't smiling, but something about her tone, maybe it was the sincerity again, that made Sam feel unable to come up with an appropriate response. He wondered if his silence would offend her, but what was she expecting him to reply with? 'Thanks' was juvenile, and all at once he was suddenly self-aware of the impression he might be leaving upon Storm.

"Do you think that Castiel and the other knew what I was?" Storm asked as if there hadn't been a pause, saving Sam from his moment of indecisiveness. He leaped at the chance at the new direction the conversation was taking.

"I was sort of sleeping the sleep of unconsciousness," he said with a smile that spread too easily across his face, and hurt when he tried to fight it. She returned it knowingly.

"I think they do. Why would they know and not Anna? What if they're the only ones that can tell me what I am?" She wasn't hysteric, but her placid pitch wavered slightly. "Seeking them out would be a poor decision, wouldn't it?"

Sam realized she was half-joking, one half full of common sense at the fact that she had witnessed what the angels were really like, the other full of desperation to figure out the truth.

He chuckled, imagining what it would feel like if the only people who knew the truth of your existence were people like Castiel and Uriel. "Yeah, I think so," he got out, still with that dry laugh that felt like chalk on his tongue.

"Hmm," she hummed, sitting timidly in the dining chair she had sat in earlier, her fingers spread out in front of her and looking down at them as if counting all ten. "Guess I'll have to think of something else should a reunion with our feather-butt friends not come anytime soon."

This time Sam didn't want to fight the smile his lips were making of their own volition. "And are you glad that you're not part of the feather-butt family tree?"

"Glad, yes, but confused all the same. I don't think I would make a very good angel. I have a hard enough time not burning my toast in the morning."

"Because the two are entirely related."

"Absolutely."

Sam placed his thumbs in his pockets, glancing toward the living room, assuming he would meet Dean's eyes. The pair that replaced his were Ruby's and she was staring at him in a way he could not place. Perhaps anger? He looked back at Storm.

"We'll figure out something. Maybe what Dean said was right; maybe if we find Anna's grace, she'll be able to tell who you are."

'Who' you are, not 'what'. His choice of words alone spoke kindness.

"Maybe you could even convince Pamela to give a whirl with the hypnosis," he added as an afterthought.

"Maybe," she said, but he could tell she was humoring him. She got to her feet, meeting his gaze steadily and puffing out a sigh that ruffled her bangs. "I don't know. I don't think psychics and I click, but there was one thing she was spot on with."

Sam's eyebrows creased upward questioningly. "Oh yeah? What's that?"

"You know how to wear a pair of jeans like no guy I've ever met."

Storm left the room to join the others and Sam had to wait a full three minutes for his blush and grin to die down before he followed her.