1990

Dean fell asleep, hating Latin adverbs, adjectives, verbs, nouns, prepositions, pretty much the entire language. He also hated English. He wanted to do things, build stuff, do nothing at all, but the schooling never stopped, and it drove him crazy.

He longed for the sticky Kansas heat of summer, yellowed out days, and bike trips across the prairie. He wanted to get out and explore the backroads, dirt paths, hiking trails trundled across Smith County until he finally could escape. Just everything.

They were two weeks away from vacation and already scraped up, black eyed, and bloody kneed. He'd managed to weasel out of class early, and shimmied up the nearest cottonwood. He'd brought his Latin textbook up with him, somehow convincing himself that he was actually going to study.

But he just rolled his eyes shut, dropped it. The book fluttered ten feet to a thump, exploded apart. Pages feathered everywhere.

Twenty minutes later, Dean's shadow finally arrived, breathless, instantly mourning the book's death. His little brother picked it up, trying to put the gritty pages back in order.

Dean crawled down, slipped out onto the lowest branch, and flipped backwards. He hung upside down by his knees, watching his brother try to do emergency surgery on the murdered book. "Guess what I heard?" he finally asked, blood rushing to his ears.

"What?" Sam asked, still unhappy at the loss.

Dean ignored the tone, too infatuated with the rumor. "I heard from Matthew that there's an angel around here."

"Really?" Sam's voice twittered up, eyes boggling.

""You really are that gullible, Sammy," Dean declared, grinned when his brother gave him a sour look. "But, yeah. His Great-Uncle Wilbur saw the library being built and then when they moved the angel inside it. Some guy just taken inside and never seen again."

"Why?" Sam questioned. "Whys jail an angel in the archives?"

"I dunno. Maybe it was... Satan?" Dean laughed at the Church Lady impression.

"It must have been an accident, Dean," the younger brother declared judiciously. "We should free it."

Dean went silent, unsure where to go from there, then decided to actually ponder it. "Yeah, maybe," he flipped himself off the branch.

Missed the landing, and whomped hard onto his back. "If it really even is an angel," he stood up after a minute, brushed the dust, cottonwood puffs, and grass stains from his body. "It could be pretending, Sammy."

Dean had honestly forgotten about that afternoon with Sam. He'd had to explain the book's demise during dinner and been summarily grounded. He had things to do, and then he was suddenly stuck doing extra homework on top of having more drills in the morning. He secretly liked the marine stuff his dad threw at him, but being ground was a valid enough reasion not to like something.

As he was flipping his pencil up and down, Dean heard his brother padding down the hallway. Smirking, Dean got up, deciding that being grounded was being grounded no matter what he did. "Where are you going?" Dean hissed quietly against the night gloom, flicked his brother's ear anyway.

"To free the angel," Sam replied, rubbing his cartiledge. "Like you said we should."

"Maybe," Dean countered. "maybe we should talk to him first. See if he's really an angel."

"Dean," Sam looked at his brother, his own body going numb.

And then Dean saw it too. Felt the same need to free the angel that Sam had. Finally followed him down into the archives.

They went together, down past the bookshelves, entered a room full of microfiche and old photographs. Sam clipped on the lights as Dean leaned down under the bottom shelf, and clicked a switch. The shelving unit ground open, stopped halfway.

The boys pushed it fully open, felt it before they saw it.

A teenaged boy kneeled before them in supplication. A ring of fire encircling his form.

"Dear ones," his voice fluttered gently as his eyes opened, flashing gold and silver.

Sam slid behind Dean, suddenly nervous.

"I have been praying for this day, Children. I am.. much relieved that you have finally heard me."

Dean apologized, not sure why. "I'm sorry... we didn't know."

"It is of no concern," the teenager smiled patiently. "I have learned much during this time."

Dean nodded, agreed. "Sammy, go find some water," pushed his brother to move. The two stood in silence as Sam finally returned with a full Flintstone's jelly jar and handed it over.

Looking at the cartoons, Dean rolled his eyes, and positioned Sam back out of the way. Stepped forward-

"Dean!"

Dean looked up.

John and two otherm men raced toward him. "Stop, Dean!"

He looked back at his father, the angel, then returned to the circle of fire, dowsed the flame.

The circle sputtered, died.

Light and sound immediately filled the room, so brightly refracted that they felt it pierce their skin. Eyelids still full of haloed coronas as a flutter of feathers echoed off the walls.

The boy emerged from his prison, stepping delicately over smoldering ash and smoke.

Everyone froze.

The angel turned to the boys, smiled sadly. "Dean, Samuel, we still have much to discuss. But later." He stated, looking weary and dazed. "I need to return to Heaven immediately, and reward Willem for his aid. Much has been done against him, but I merely wish to leave in peace and without malice. I expect great things from you two," He looked down at the boys. "One day, soon, we shall be reunited."

The angel disappeared finally, leaving the adults and children alone in the smoke and flickering lights.