Author's Note: Well, it's official. We're well past the halfway point on this little carnival ride. Hope you're enjoying it. I had hoped I could wrap this up around 7 chapters. It would have been oh so clever of me since 7 is a holy number. Yeah, I actually thought of that. Oh well.

We have a few chapters left to go before Dean's little adventure is over. Let me know what you think in the meantime. And thank you kindly for reading this far. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.


Chapter 7

Dean had only made a handful of visits to his mother's grave over the years. Probably less. It wasn't easy at the best of times but dropping out of thin air and landing at the cemetery gates didn't help matters any. As he staggered, still disoriented from flying Angel Airways, Cas stood silently waiting. His gaze narrowed.

"Give me some warning next time," Dean said, rubbing the ache in his temples.

"My apologies."

Dean bent over, hands on his knees, and glared at the angel. He knew insincerity when he heard it.

Castiel ignored him, eyes stretching over the still green expanse of the cemetery. "I should retrieve the ring alone."

"Like hell you will." Dean stepped in front of him before he could zip away. Not that he couldn't just go around him… "You don't even know where it is."

Cas had already proved that his angel mojo could home in on the rings if he got close enough but Dean wasn't about to let the angel finish the job without him. He'd started it and, dammit, he was going to finish it.

"We go together," Dean insisted, already heading off into the grid of headstones new and old. Some of them bore wilted flowers and trinkets from loved ones. Not far from the gate, they passed a fresh grave littered with army men and toy cars. Dean's eyes flicked to the dates on the headstone. The boy buried beneath the earth there had only been eight. Younger than Ben. Dean hesitated before he stepped carefully around the fresh turned earth. Behind him, Cas watched without comment. He'd noted the tilt of Dean's head and the sudden stiffening of his spine as he walked on.

The other rings jangled in Dean's pocket, trying to come together in the confined space but unable because the set was incomplete. Pretty funny really. Only part of a whole. Just like Dean.

No chirping birds broke the early morning stillness as they walked. It was downright eerie, something Dean should have been used to. Eerie was his whole life. He ran towards the bumps in the night and the monsters under the bed. He sought them out. Or at least he used to. He smiled ruefully and drew up short, attention captured by the granite headstone only a few steps ahead of them.

He hadn't expected to be so disturbed by it. He'd seen the grave before. Hell, he'd been on hands and knees digging in the dirt when he'd buried the ring there only a few months ago. A backwards mockery of his own dig to freedom. But here he was again. Everything always seemed to come back to this same place. His mother's body wasn't there. Her soul didn't linger in the air around him. But it still amounted to the same thing. Everything started with his mother and it seemed to end in the ground.

"It's there." Dean pointed a finger and Cas's eyes followed.

Cas gave a curt nod, took a step forward. Then he paused. His head tilted a fraction. "Someone's coming."

Dean searched the grounds but didn't see a thing. "Care to be a bit more specific?"

Castiel's face compressed into a tight look of concentration.

Dean barely saw the widening of the angel's eyes before he was shoved face first into the grass. "What the hell, Cas?" he barked, rolling out of the way in time to avoid getting trampled beneath angel feet. Company had arrived in a silent flutter of wings.

Beside him, Cas and another bookworm looking angel were locked together, blades out. Cas had his sword aimed at the other's throat, was trying to force it forward that extra inch, teeth gritted. He didn't even seem to notice the second angel circling his right side.

"Cas, look out!" Dean was on his feet and moving as the words left his throat. Repossessed angel sword tight in one fist, Dean advanced on the second angel. She disappeared like a ghost, winking out of existence in one spot and reappearing a few steps to the side. She smirked.

Cas's struggle with the bookworm ended in a violent flare up. Dean turned in time to see the bookworm drop to the ground, stabbed through the neck with a look of terminal surprise on his borrowed face. Cas straightened, adjusting his grip on the sword in his hand. He barely glanced at Dean before shifting his attention to the other angel.

Dean might have been relieved if a third angel hadn't decided to crash the party a moment later. He appeared out of nowhere, standing squarely on Mary's grave. Dean and Cas spotted him at the same time. He was dressed in well worn jeans and a v-neck argyle sweater with an equally nerdy button down layered beneath. Dean stood for a moment, unsure of what he was seeing. It was only the second vessel Dean had ever seen without the customary suit. But the guy hadn't been there a moment before and there was a certain intensity to his eyes that Dean had come to expect from the angelic assholes.

Cas was not confused in the least. He moved to attack but not quite quick enough. V-neck Sweater punched down with one hand, straight into Mary's grave. His fist split the earth as if it were water and pulled back, shaking the loose soil from his sleeve. Enclosed in his hand was the makeshift bag holding Pestilence's ring.

"What have we here?" V-neck held up the little bag triumphantly.

Cas took another careful step forward but the female angel blocked their path, her sword out and shining in the orange glow of sunrise. "Give us the other rings," she said, tossing a stray wisp of brown hair from her face. The rest was coiled tightly at the back of her head. Her deep brown pantsuit really cemented the holy librarian look.

"Sorry, sweetheart," Dean said, sliding sideways, hoping to distract her from Cas's approach.

It didn't work.

She only had eyes for Cas, totally disregarding Dean. He was a little offended, couldn't resist snapping his fingers at her. "Hey. Over here. He doesn't have what you're looking for."

"Dean." Castiel's voice was sharp.

Dean gave a quick jerk of his head in V-neck's direction and took another step to the side.

"Give me the rings, human." The holy librarian raised her blade just a little higher, obviously aiming for intimidation and his jugular while she was at it. Her eyes slid over his body and, if it wouldn't have given him away, Dean would have put a hand over the rings still sleeping in his pocket. Maybe he should have let Cas carry them after all.

"You didn't even say please."

The words had barely left his lips when she disappeared again. Dean knew the moment the rings were gone, torn from his pocket with angelic speed. Her blade grazed his chest but there was no time to defend himself. He was already falling backwards, yanked to the ground for the second time. Then Castiel was in front of him. He knocked the holy librarian back with an open palm to the chest. She stumbled, catching herself almost immediately. It happened so fast that Dean's head spun.

He scrambled back to his feet, dizzy from trying to track angel speed that he couldn't hope to match. He clung to the blade in his hand anyway. It was the most he could do as the holy librarian circled around them again, still standing between them and V-neck.

"We have what we came for," she said. Dean didn't need to see the rings in her fist to know that she had them. She looked pointedly at Castiel. "You've failed."

Cas growled, low and dangerous, in the back of his throat. If they hadn't been on the same side, Dean might have been scared of the look Cas turned on him. As it was, it still tore a little gasp of surprise from him when he met Cas's hard blue gaze. His intention was clear. Dean tripped backwards trying to get out of range of the hand stretching towards him. Not fast enough. Cas pressed two fingers to Dean's forehead and the world spun like a merry-go-round on acid.

Dean stumbled, trying to catch himself on a tombstone that wasn't there anymore. He looked around with blurred eyes.

Cas had dropped him on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. If he hadn't been there just the day before, Dean might not have recognized the stretch of dry grass and gravel shoulder. He'd been dumped outside of Pontiac again. If he started walking now, he could get back to his grave before the sun made it all the way into the sky. Assuming he wanted to, which he didn't.

Dean tossed his head back and screamed at the candy colored sky. "Cas! Dammit, Cas!" He knew damn well why Cas had zapped him out of there. He was a liability. It stung but there was no denying it. He'd nearly gotten himself killed all over again. And he'd lost the rings. "Son of a bitch!"

Maybe it was reckless, downright stupid, to go into a fight he knew he couldn't win. A part of him understood that. But a larger, darker part didn't fucking care. It was his fight. He'd earned it.

A tiny voice that sounded suspiciously like Sam reminded him that he'd promised to live a normal apple pie life. Normal people drink beer and watch football on Sundays. They don't fight angels. Getting yourself killed will not bring your brother back, commented a second matter-of-fact voice. Dean told it to shut its pie hole. He wasn't talking to that voice right now. Dick.

Dean turned in a circle on the side of the road, unable to stop the rumble coming from deep in his throat. Frustrated. Angry. But he wouldn't call Cas again. The angel knew where he'd dropped Dean. He had to.

He hurled the angel sword at the ground. It speared the grass like a silver javelin, sticking at an angle but refusing to fall over. Dean walked after it, muttering to himself, fists clenched, and headed towards town. He wasn't about the to stand around waiting in the middle of nowhere, hoping that Cas remembered to come save him. Hoping that Cas survived to come save him.