Author's note: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! Thanks to A. Zap, NeonBlackRoseRevived and Badwolf40 for their kind reviews :) Thank you, everyone, who reading, following and favoriting. And again, I'm sorry, please don't hate me.

"Okay, let me think." Dean flipped all the pictures nervously through his fingers for the fifth time since they got away of the clinic.

He and Castiel were sitting in the car, parked in front of the cafe on the main street for about an hour now. The hunter tried to contact Sam, but he couldn't. Back at the clinic Dean had used their computer to confirm part of reaper's story, but it was enough to prove them that the girl was telling the truth.

Whatever that thing was, he had appeared over a year ago and had killed imperceptibly until a week ago, when it had breached his pattern and had fallen under Winchester's radar.

"There must be some connection between the victims. Two electricians, two college girls, a retired elementary school teacher and a computer programmer. Different gender, different age, but always in pairs..." Dean repeated himself again, as if trying to understand what he was missing.

"Which brings us to the question that if you're the next victim, then who the other person is?" Cas said thoughtfully.

"They knew each other, so..."

"You're thinking about Sam," Cas said his thoughts out loud, "but all of them had been together when they were killed. It doesn't fit."

"Yeah, I got that," the man said, a bit more sharply than he intended. Cas just looked at him sideways and said nothing. "Sorry, I'm a little under pressure here, I have just a few hours to live."

Cas shifted uncomfortably in the front seat beside him.

"Dean, we will figure it out," the angel said softly.

"Yes, I know." He started to examine the pictures again. "Friends since childhood, twins, mother and son... How did it reach them? How will it get me? Who is the second victim?"

"Wait, could you repeat that?"

"What?" Dean didn't understand.

"What you just said."

"Who is..."

"No, the thing about friends and family," the angel said impatiently.

"I didn't say anything about... Oh!" Dean stopped in mid-sentence; suddenly saw through what his friend was trying to tell him.

"Yes," Cas nodded, " this is the common. Friendship. Family. Connection."

"You mean that each couple had a strong bond, that... Oh, damn it!"

"What is it?"

"Profound bond, Cas." Dean rolled his eyes, waiting for the angel to figure it.

Occasionally it was so easy to forget what Castiel actually was, only by looking at his clueless expression. Sometimes Dean was fascinated of various personalities he had noticed in his friend. He could be a fearless warrior, could smite demons, could kill angels and incinerate everything that gets in his way with the entire divine wrath in his clenched fists and at the same time could be naive and confused as a toddler.

"You mean that the second victim... is me?" Castiel's blue eyes seemed even larger, widened by surprise.

"Think about it. No other option."

"You're right, but it means... Once your soul is damaged... so I have to..."

"Turn into a demon," Dean finished.

"But this is impossible. I have no soul to be corrupted. We also dp not fit into the pattern."

"And this should mean something..." Dean flipped through the documents again and pulled out a page. "I think it's time to visit a crime scene."

Don't take Cas into the warehouse.

"We will find more about victims, and perhaps how the creature had reached them."

"Exactly." Dean smiled inwardly; he was a bit proud of his friend. "You're gettin' better."

Carmichael's residence, "River" Str. 1011

"What do you mean warding?"

Dean couldn't believe his ears. Hell, nothing was going right during this damn day. Finding out right by the start that he was dying...

They had found the house easily. It was supposed to be empty, the police report from the clinic said that the husband was on a business trip and would be back tomorrow morning to take the bodies from the morgue.

Now they stood outside the door, which Dean had managed to unlock without any particular difficulties and he was just thinking that maybe this time will be easier, when Cas said the house was warded against angels.

"It's an Enochian binding spell," the angel replied, his voice trembled a spark of concern.

"So you can't come in?" Dean asked. "Great."

"No, no that kind of warding," Cas explained. "I can go in, but I can't use my Grace."

"So, someone bothered to protect the house against angels, so to deprive them of their mojo while they are inside? I don't like it, Cas."

This case officially couldn't be more weird.

"No." Castiel shook his head. "The defense is against me, Dean. It's my name on the sigils."

Well, you think that it couldn't be work, but what do you know? The universe really, really hated him and now it was much worse. Murphy's law, true to form.

"Damn it. Cas, you know what that means. Whoever killed those people, he knows you." Dean rubbed the back of his neck. "Can't we delete it?"

"Not all of it." Cas shook his head again.

"I'm going alone."

"No." Castiel's fingers tightened urgently on his forearm. "This is clearly a trap."

"Yes, meant for you." Dean tried to pull away from the iron grip of the angel. "So you cannot come."

"Dean."

Here it was again, the long-drawn manner Cas said his name when things were not going well.

The hunter shook his head. "Absolutely not happening."

"I'm still a heavenly warrior, Dean. I can handle my angel blade much better than any creature. Do not treat me like a child."

Anger trembled in Cas' tone, his eyes flashed with subtle blue flames.

"Damn it, Cas! All right. If it's a witch, hex bags should protect us. If not, better keep that angelic weapon of yours ready." He tucked the gun into his belt and covered it with his shirt as Ruby's knife was settled comfortably in his hand.

Dean knew that to keep Cas out of the house he would probably have to bind him. But as that currently wasn't an option, he moved away and let him go through the front door.

He wondered if the angel was so stubborn before get him out of Hell, or subsequently was caught up of his own stubbornness. He smirked and followed Cas inside.

Castiel walked slowly and quietly, his hand clutching the angel moment they cross the threshold, the angel frowned.

"You okay?" Dean asked.

"Just this strange feeling," Cas said with a spark of confusion is his low voice, "It's like part of me is being restrained, hidden in a place where I can't reach it anymore. And the human senses are so restricted and insufficient."

The hunter nodded towards the kitchen and gestured that he would check upstairs. Cas nodded in return.

As Dean crept cautiously from room to room, it gradually became clear that the second floor was clean. It seemed that after the bodies were found only two days ago, no one had entered the house.

"It's clean upstairs." Dean shook his head, coming down. "No signs of struggle, sulfur, hex bags, EMF, nothing."

"Same here. But still, who has warded the house and why?" The angel grimly asked the obvious question.

"That is the question, right?" Dean frowned. "Any enemies, Cas?"

"Actually there are many... " Cas began, but then saw his friend rolled his eyes, "oh, I understand."

"Anyways, I think it's better for us to go, there is nothing here."

At that moment they both heard the sound of approaching footsteps. It was too late. The man that stood against them was pointing a weapon. His hands were visibly shaking. He was a little over fifty, gray-haired, looking tired, with pale skin and dark circles under his eyes. And he was pointing at them with fucking shotgun!

Dean slowly raised his hands in front of him in a calming gesture, although still clutching the knife. In his head he quickly passed different options for a way out, but he dismissed them one by one, mentally cursed himself that hadn't taken more weapons. If only he could reach his own gun. He felt the cool metal hidden in his waistband, pressed against his back, but too far away since he was in front of the barrel of a shotgun.

"Look, pal, we don't want trouble," Dean spoke cautiously.

"Who are you?" The man's voice trembled with tension. "What are you doing in my house?"

"Your house? You are Stanley Carmichael, Evelyn's husband?" the hunter asked slowly.

"Yes. Who are you?"

"Agent Walsh, this is my partner, Agent Williams, we're with the FBI."

The man seemed to hesitate; the barrel of the gun jerked down for a moment, but then again rose steadily, straight at Dean's chest.

"You don't look like feds." The man shook his head. "You... you look like a thieves, and he," he nodded his chin toward Cas, "he looks like a tax accountant."

"Well, we are feds."

The man continued to watch them with suspicion, but seemed a bit calmer.

Then everything happened in a heartbeat. Dean noticed movement in his peripheral vision. Castiel took a step forward so that he was just in front of the barrel of the weapon at the moment the man's finger stiffened convulsively on the trigger. The hunter couldn't say with certainty whose movement was the cause and whose was the effect, because both seemed to happen at the same time.

The shot echoed laud in the high room.

"Three, Castiel. " The words hung in the air.

No. No. No.

Castiel took a step back when the bullet tore his chest and he staggered. Didn't cry, didn't made a sound. At first he just stared at the man in disbelief, as startled as if he wasn't quite able to perceive what had happened.

Shock, Dean thought, his legs alone pushed him forward. His hands tightened around the sagging body of his friend and he placed him carefully on the floor without let go of him.

Cas' hands unwittingly pressed the wound and Dean's fingers as found his, wet and sticky from the warm blood.

"I can't reach... my Grace!" Cas groaned, clearly panicked as if he was forgetting for a moment about the binding spell. The angel was struggling to breathe, the air went in and out his chest with an ugly gurgling sound. Every breath caused him a painful moan and each breath was more difficult than the last.

Perforated lung, Dean thought. That meant he had only a few minutes. He had to get Cas out of the house.

If he could get him outside the binding's influence, maybe Cas would be able to use his mojo to heal.

"Nobody is going anywhere," the man growled, "Not until you tell me what you've done to my wife and my son."

"Look, man, we wanna help," Dean pleaded. "We'll find out what happened to them, I promise. Just let me take him out. It doesn't need to end like this."

The body in his hands trembled.

"Cas?"

One hand of the hunter remained on the wound, although he knew it was useless. Cas' lungs were filling with fluid, his breathing was weaker and more difficult with every passing second. His other hand was hesitantly laid on the angel's forehead and seemed to offer at least some comfort. The skin was cold under his bloody fingers.

"Dean..." The voice went hoarse, ragged. A trickle of blood flowed from his mouth, "I'm..."

The rest of the words were lost in a wheezing sound of Castiel's last breath.

"No," Dean cried. "No, please."

This time there was no bright white light, no imprint of burned wings, this time no one knew that the angel was dead. Only Dean Winchester, who was frantically searching for a pulse. He felt the body become lifeless under his impatient fingers. His whole world was plunged into the grief.

Then the time again stopped its course and things went back to their usual places. Everything was the same, with a slight difference.

Dean Winchester remembered.