Author's Notes: O.M.G. SUPERNATURAL RETURNS THIS FRIDAY!

Ok, I'm done. LOL

Anywho, AGAIN I meant for this chapter to be longer but this story just will not cooperate with me! Still, a bit longer than last chapter and shit finally gets explained a bit. Next chapter will stick exclusively with Dean and co. and will be filled with fun action/adventure. Very much looking forward to that.

So some people have been asking, and since not everyone has an account its hard to answer them personally so I'll just do it here, how much longer this story will be. The answer: probably around 7-10 chapters in total. I don't want much more than that because that's just too friggin' long. We're about at the half-way mark now.

People seem to be liking Aries and Milo so I'm very happy about that, writing OCs with other TV characters is always a bit tricky as many of you probably know.

This title is a reference to the song Help Me, by Alkaline Trio. It's a good listen and has a cool tune. I was inspired by the line; Here you find me in between/Heaven and Hell my dear/Where nothing's as it seems.

Chapter Rating: T (Curse words)

Disclaimer: I do not actually own the SPN characters or their universe...which is a damn shame. I do own, however, my OCs. Don't steal and don't sue.

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In Between Heaven and Hell

Dean sat in an empty white room. It was large, but not endless, with the walls boxing him in. He sat and waited, although he wasn't sure for what. Something? Someone? He was just...waiting.

There was a click and Dean turned his head sharply; to his right was a door. That should be open, was what popped into his mind first. Dean slowly pushed himself to his feet and walked over, placing his hand on the knob. Something was behind here...

He turned the handle and pushed. Then pulled. Nothing, it was locked. The door wasn't even rattling, it just stood completely still, like it was actually part of the wall. Dean threw his shoulder against it but that only caused him slight pain. Whatever was behind this door was cut off to him now, he couldn't reach it.

"Damn." Dean pushed away and turned back to the room, "You shouldn't be empty!" he yelled.

~"This isn't working, bring him out of it."~

There was a snap and Dean felt something yank him hard and he sat up with a jolt. Milo and Aries kneeling over him.

"Unsuccessful, I take it?" Milo asked.

"Yeah." Dean nodded and rubbed his head.

"Was it just endless white?" Aries asked.

"Well, it was a white room—"

"Oh! That's good then." Milo interrupted.

"And how's that?" Dean glared.

"A room means you've retained your shell," Milo tried to explain, gesturing quickly with his hands, "That explains your personality, your knowledge of basic things; you're probably a lot like how you were before you died. It's like seeing a picture of a finished puzzle, but you don't have any of the pieces to that puzzle, you just know what it looks like completed."

"So..." Dean tried, "because my soul has a 'room'..."

"You've retained your basic essence that makes you—uh—you." Aries finished. Dean was still confused but it made a little bit of sense. Basically the take-home message was that he was himself, even without his memory.

"So there wasn't anything in that room?" Milo asked, "This is just so rare for a soul to do this on its own. No, screw rare—this has never happened before!" Dean scratched the scar on his arm, it tingled sometimes, which felt a little disconcerting. Milo had placed his hand on it and then given Dean a mental whammy, sending him into his "soul" to see what could have left it there.

"Well, there was a door." Dean said, "But it was locked, though—like, it didn't even budge."

Both Aries and Milo stared at him.

"Shit." Aries breathed as Milo just gaped.

"Ok, what?" Dean ground out.

"Y-you..." Milo stuttered, "JUST WHO THE HELL WERE YOU!" Dean jumped back in alarm as Milo practically exploded. Aries tried to calm him down.

"Dean, doorways in a soul usually mean one thing," she started, "that you were connected to someone; tied to them at the most profound level."

"What?" Dean's eyes grew wide.

"Humans don't usually make that kind of connection." Milo said, still looking a bit flustered, "That's more along the lines of supernatural creatures."

"So, I'm not human?" Dean asked weakly.

"No you are," Milo said quickly, "But whatever made that hand print onto your soul, was not."

"Which explains a lot." Aries sighed. At Dean's look of doubt she continued, "Whatever made that mark, gave you a part of themselves, and probably took a piece of you—"

"They took of piece of me?"

"—and even though your memory was wiped out by...whatever, that other person, or thing, let you hang on to enough of yourself that this happened. Your soul still remembers its basic form, and even kept up the overall personality."

"And that's what the door is—was?" Dean asked.

"It was what connected you two." Milo confirmed, "Before you died, it was probably open constantly. Or, if it was closed, it was like a normal door that could still be opened if one so chose."

"But now it won't move at all."

"Because the connection was severed." Aries said grimly, "Dean, what ever happened to you—whatever killed you, tried to cut everything from you. That connection let you keep just enough so that you weren't a blank slate but it's dead now. The link was completely severed."

Dean let that information sink in.

"And in all honesty, this place isn't helping." Milo shrugged, pushing up his glasses a bit, "This place isn't exactly on a map of the world, or even the supernatural planes. Apart from Earth, between Heaven and Hell. First, you'd have to know it was here, then you'd need to be allowed to get in."

"What?" Dean asked and Aries sighed, glaring at Milo before turning to Dean.

"Usually even death can't sever a connection within the soul, but even if whatever killed you hadn't ripped everything away, your mate would still be cut off from you. Nothing can sense us here in this realm except Death himself."

"Oh," Dean nodded then paused, "wait—my mate?" He looked at the two other Reapers incredulously, "Mate?" he tried again.

"Dude, what else do you know that can create such a profound bond?" Aries deadpanned.

"It's even possible in humans, y'know." Milo supplied, "Called soul mates, so who knows; maybe you had a wife or a girlfriend?" Dean thought about it for a second, his heart plummeting. What if he had had a wife? And now he was dead and she was alone. God...

"Be open-minded Milo," Aries chided, "What if he had a boyfriend?" Dean's head snapped up, "Or if it was a supernatural beastie?"

"Dude!" Dean yelled, blushing now.

"Guess it could've been a hot demon chick," Milo nodded, "or some type of goddess, or a vampire lady—"

"Maybe an angel."

"—yeah, or an angel in a hot chick's body."

"Milo, why do you keep going to hot girls?" Aries asked suddenly and Milo paused, his face becoming as red as Dean's.

"Yeah, man. Compensating for something?" Dean jabbed, paying the other man back for making him blush.

"Uh—um," Milo floundered for a second before snapping, "Hey! We should get going on teaching Dean about his new job! That's what you're both here for, now get to it!" Aries and Dean chuckled for a second before the girl nodded.

"But he's right Dean, there's nothing that can be done about your memory now. It may return, or it may not."

"Yeah..." Dean sighed. Talk about a rough day, "Guess we should get started then."

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Chuck's place still looked exactly the same from the last time Sam had been here. Seriously, it looked like nothing had changed. Liquor bottles were littered everything, and any remaining flat spaces had piles of papers on them.

"Still writing, I see." the hunter commented.

"Oh! Uh, yeah." Chuck said as he glanced around nervously, scratching the back of his head, "You know, when I can. They've slowed down a bit since—uh..."

"Since what?" Sam frowned.

"Since, y'know," the prophet gestured vaguely and seemed a little upset, "since Dean."

"Oh." Sam said quietly. Right.

"But you still get your visions?" Castiel asked sharply.

"Yeah, of course!" Chuck answered, "They never stopped, not even after the apocalypse. I've just kept writing. They've actually started publishing my books again," he said and gave a large grin, "The fans really seem to like your character, Castiel—"

"Fascinating." Castiel cut in, not looking the slightest bit interested, "but that does not matter."

"What he means," Sam said quickly as he saw Chuck deflate a little the angel's harsh words, "is that we were wondering if you had any visions of what direction we need to go."

"You mean with your mission from Death?" the author asked and Sam nodded, "I might have something." And he turned to where his table that served as a desk was, rummaging through the papers, "It's been pretty intense recently, a lot of stuff's been going down. And shit just doesn't make sense anymore—ah! Here it is." He pulled out what looked like a small notebook, "Author's notes." he explained and started thumbing through the pages.

"Wait," Sam said, "you said a lot of things are happening but Cas and I haven't done that much...are you—are you saying you see more than just what I do now?"

"Yeah, for awhile now." Chuck replied, still focused on his notebook, "Ever since Dean died it was like my visions switched into God-mode or something. I'll see certain scenes, but it'll be from like this omnipotent view, a-and I'll know things suddenly. It doesn't happen very often." he said quickly, "But when it does I write it all down in here because after a little while it'll all just kinda trickle away."

Sam looked over to Castiel who was wearing a disbelieving frown.

"There we go!" Chuck exclaimed as he reached a certain page, "I thought this might be important to you guys if you ever came around. It's about Dean—"

"What?" Castiel was next to the Chuck in a second, the smaller man squeaking in surprise.

"Uh-uh, yeah!" the prophet continued an octave higher and the angel bared down on him. It would have been funny except that Sam was desperate to know what the information was too, "See, that was the first time the God-vision thing happened. I saw you two go into that barn but it wasn't like my usual dreams. I knew things before you found them out: like I knew Castiel was going to show up—which on a side note, Dean saw you for the first time in a barn, right? Because it was very poetic in a narrativ—"

"CHUCK!" Sam yelled, because Castiel looked stricken as the prophet brought up painful memories.

"Right, sorry." the man replied and continued in a more serious voice, "Thing was, I saw exactly what they were trying to do in that barn. Those comatose victims in the hospital Sam, the ones that you and Dean read about, those were the failures."

"Excuse me?"

"Those people's souls were still stuck inside their bodies because what the demons were attempting to do is extremely tricky and very dangerous, but potentially able to grant enormous power."

"Something with the souls, right?" Sam's voice wavered. He knew he wasn't going to like what he heard next.

"Yeah." Chuck said slowly and looked to Castiel, "Imagine, if you could, having a completely blank soul. Fully formed but completely empty, and you were able to put anything you desired into it."

"No." Castiel all but growled, "That's impossible, even a human infant's soul is not blank."

"But if you could erase everything from a person..."

"What you're saying," Sam said, something ugly curling in his stomach, "is that they were taking people's soul and erasing them?"

"Creating blank slates which anything could be put onto." Chuck nodded, "Do you know the street value that possesses in the underworld—on any of the supernatural planes? Souls can be forged into powerful weapons, and if you can craft one to fight only for you—if you could make an army out of that, you couldn't be stopped."

"D-Dean's soul?" Castiel said softly and Sam's heart nearly stopped beating as his mind came to a conclusion. No, no, no no no.

"I'm not sure." Chuck answered and hung his head, "Those demons were attempting to create blank souls, but they had yet to succeed at that point. The thing is, you guys killed the summoner so when the spell went through, Dean's soul had nowhere to go."

"But I would have felt him if he were still there." Castiel's voice left room for no doubt.

"Not necessarily," Chuck said quickly, "the bond you guys had would have been completely severed by that spell." Sam saw the color drain out of Castiel's face.

"B-but I would have sensed a soul." It came out weakly though and Sam felt like he wanted to throw up.

"I can only assume Dean's soul just sorta...disappeared." Chuck shrugged, "I woke up right when he died, after that it's just guesswork."

There was a flutter of wings and Castiel had disappeared.

"Sorry Sam," Chuck said miserably, "but it seemed like something you should know."

"No, no, thanks Chuck. It's...it's what we needed." Sam said, "It explains a lot. Erasing people's minds; who've thought?"

"It's deeper than erasing memories." Chuck warned him, "You can still retain who you were without you memories, but erasing a soul is effectively killing whomever the person used to be while leaving the soul perfectly intact. You basically end up with a being who has limitless potential."

"But if there has always been a way to do this, then why is it just starting now?"

"That's just it Sam, there hasn't always been a way." Chuck said, "In the aftermath of the apocalypse one of the Devil's books went missing. He didn't write this book, and no one knows where he got it from, but someone made copies of it and inside it showed how to do this." A memory hit Sam as he suddenly remembered that book he had seen in the barn with Dean, that had been one of the books!

"Why didn't the Devil use it then?" he asked.

"Lucifer never wanted to control people," Chuck said, "he just wanted to destroy humanity. But this is probably the same book that let him control the four horsemen, including Death, which is no mean feat."

"That's why!" Sam cried, "That explains why Death is worried about all this, he wants that book destroyed!"

"Or wants a copy, who knows." Chuck said, "But my vision last night? It showed you confronting another pack of demons who have one of those books. Snag one of those and maybe Death will talk to you." That got Sam's attention.

"Where at?" he asked.

"Princeton, New Jersey." There, he had a destination now.

"Thanks Chuck." Sam said gratefully as he turn to leave, "And, uh, sorry about Cas."

"He's at Bobby's now." Chuck whispered and Sam stopped, "He goes there a lot more than you think—"

"—to Dean's grave." Sam closed his eyes.

"Yeah."

"Hey Chuck?" the young man asked, his voice suddenly horse.

"What?"

"Do you know what Castiel keeps repeating when he sings? I think it's the same song, over and over."

"It's not a song, Sam, it's a prayer. Castiel let's his Grace bleed out a bit when he says it so it sounds like a song." Chuck explained, "It's why angels in the bible appear to sing a lot."

"He's praying for Dean?"

"Praying to Dean. The words he keeps repeating are a phrase, roughly translated it says: my faith."

"His faith?" Sam asked as he turned to the author, who looked at him with heartbroken eyes, like the pain was his own.

"Faith for an angel is the same as love to a human."

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To Be Continued...

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A/N: I'm sorry I keep hurting you Cas. T_T

...but you are Dean's supernatural beastie. HEHE.

So what type of kickass Reaper training do you wanna see Dean do? Feedback is LOVED. And if you give a good idea and I use it, I'll credit you at the end of the next chapter!