Angel had gone to the wolves. He didn't see them as often as he did Mareka, though he'd given them names, mostly after characters from the Jungle Book. He'd told them that if it was they going to town, that the humans would put a stop to it. He didn't understand the Bagheera's response, but he took it to mean that either the message was received or that the wolves weren't going anywhere near the town. Either way, he had at least warned them to be careful. They'd follow his advice. He hoped it would be enough to protect them.

Bobby was surprised when they came back empty handed after being gone so long. Sam went to go make a few excuses to Jess, and Dean stayed behind and tried to come up with an explanation that would satisfy Bobby.

"I don't think there's a monster in there Bobby," he said. "Wild animals, yeah, but we had to go crazy far to find traces of anything dangerous. There wasn't any sign that they were coming out of the woods either." He furrowed his brow. "If it is a shifter, maybe it only wants you to think it's in the woods? To avoid suspicion or something."

"You think there's a monster in town?" asked Bobby, incredulously. "Do you iknow/i how many wards we have around this place?"

"Ward can be broken or changed or…ways found around them," pointed out Dean. "And maybe whatever is causing all the damage was here before the Wards were put up, or before they were strengthened. Or maybe whatever it is isn't affected by the wards we have. I don't know, we'll keep looking. Just…whatever it is isn't in the woods." He'd hate himself forever if it turned out that Angel was lying. But Sam trusted him, and Dean…found himself doing it too. Trusting a monster was never a good idea, but….Angel didn't seem like a monster to him. Just a man with wings.

Bobby was rather unconvinced, but he didn't argue it further. He'd strengthen the wards against every evil thing he knew of, and he'd keep an eye on Dean. And Sam, he thought. Sam had been with Dean the whole time. And there was definitely something they were not telling him. He'd raised the both of them. He knew when they were lying.

Angel is surprised, when Dean proves to be as good as his word and returns to the wood the next day. "Sammy has to spend the day with his girlfriend," he said, grinning. "Because she spent all of yesterday studying, and he spent it here, so he's gotta take her to a movie or something today."

"Oh," said Angel, eyes wide. "Is that how it works?"

Dean chuckles, and Angel thought the sound was one of the best things he'd ever heard. "Nah, not really," he said. "They say they aren't even actually dating, but…I dunno. I see the way they look at each other. If they aren't dating, they definitely should be."

Angel considered that, and nodded slowly. "Then I suppose it is good that they spend time together. "

"Oh!" said Dean, suddenly. "I brought you something." He swung his backpack off his back and balanced it on a smallish fallen tree that didn't have any snow on it. He pulled out a rather colorful woven bit of cloth. Angel looked confused, so Dean explained. "See, there's a hole here, for your head," he pointed, "and then it's kind of open at the sides but it's better than nothing. It's a poncho. I got it in Mexico. Or…Bobby did anyway. It'sfrom there."

Angel carefully pulled the poncho over his head. It allowed his wings freedom, he noticed, but if he tied it somewhere, it would offer him a decent amount of warmth as well, and if he had to fly or fight, he wouldn't be cold. He looked to Dean with shining eyes. "I…thank you, for this gift. It seems the sort of thing that Mary did for me."

Dean swallowed. He wondered if his mother was the first…the only person to offer him any sort of kindness. He didn't really feel comfortable asking though, he didn't know Angel well enough. "It's nothing," he said, brushing off the thanks. "I figured…you gotta be cold and you don't really have…anything. I bet we could find something that works even better, if you wanted to give it a try."

Angel smiled at Dean. "Thank you," he said again. "This will do wonderfully, Dean. It is…more than good, really." And it was. He was feeling warmer already. Dean seemed happy with that.

"I can bring other things too," he blurted, causing Angel to look up, confused. "I mean…blankets. A…tent or something, Jeans. Shoes. I mean, if you are going to be living out here, why shouldn't it be in relative comfort?"

Angel stared, more than a little confused. "Why would you do this for me?" he asked. "We don't know each other."

Dean shifted a little. 'I dunno. I just…want to help." Mary had seen something in this strange person worth helping. Worth protecting. Dean wanted to honor her memory. I wasn't sure how to best put that into words, but helping Angel felt like the right thing to do.

"Alright." Angel didn't really believe him, but…that was alright for now. "Come," said the winged-man. "I should have some fish in the trap now. I can cook you lunch."

He'd figured out how to leave traps for small game, like fish and rabbits slowly. Weaving nets from lake-plants and ferns, making snap-traps with branches and twine. He checked all of his traps once a day. If something else got to his game first, he figured that they had a right to it. Other creatures needed to eat too.

An hour later, they sat in a small outcrop near the lake, snowless and actually sort of warm, as the rocks protected them from the wind and the fire crackled merrily. Both had a fish, perfectly cooked. Dean had shown Angel how to properly gut the thing, and Angel used the knife he had taken from Sam. Dean wanted to say something about that, but Sam could get another knife and it didn't seem like Angel had much of anything.

"So," he said, conversationally, gnawing on a bit of fish. "If you were in the Cage for all that time, how'd you manage to keep things with you?"

"I thought I explained…well. They would give me a pair of new pants when my old ones got too old to wear. But when I was…fifteen years in the cage, I…I grew more frightened they would start to actually take away the things I held dear. They'd already burned the blanket. I had a few things I never wanted to lose. The photos. The first book I learned to read. And the dictionary that taught me many English words."

"You didn't know English?"

"Well, I was merely a child when I was brought there. I spoke a different language. One I have not forgotten, but can't recall learning it. I think I always knew it. But no, I didn't speak or read English, but I understood it. Anyway. I wanted to keep the photos, and those two books safe all the time. "

"What do pants have to-"

"I'm getting there. I had things I wanted to keep safe. I was allowed two books-other than the first two, that I could have at any given time. When I finished one, I'd be given another. One fiction and one non-fiction usually, though that changed sometimes. But I didn't want them taking things from me so, when I noticed that my pants were too short, I asked for the next pair, but they didn't give them to me. I decided…well it hardly mattered, so I simply took off the pants and made a little bag out of them. I had a bit of thread and needle that Mary had given me years before that I hadn't made much use of…Anyway, at some point, I suppose they had had enough of that particular…insubordination, and they gave me a bag and a new pair of trousers and after that, I managed to keep the bag with me at all times."

Dean laughed. "Dude, I can't believe you did a nudist strike all by yourself and it got you what you wanted."

Angel shrugged. "Well, it wasn't like I had any privacy at any time anyway. There were cameras everywhere, showing every angle of every room and corridor in the facility. And, since they were throwing a lot of resources into figuring out just what I am, I had more cameras on me than most. Modesty was not really an issue."

Dean was quiet, thinking about that. That sounded…well, everything about Angel's life sounded awful to a point it didn't even bear thinking about.

"This place…" Angel sighed. "It's wonderful. It's open and peaceful and there's no schedule but that I've made for myself. There are no cameras and no tests." He smiled at Dean then, and something in Dean's stomach clenched, "And I have met someone that I can talk to that does not have any ulterior motives or intent to cause me harm."

Dean offered a small smile, but the confession had disquieted him some. Well. He'd prove Angel right. "I'll make sure you never go back to that place again," he swore.

Bela was almost finished in this town. No one had seen anything at all, as she'd suspected. The monster wouldn't stay close. He was intelligent, she remembered that. He'd get as far away as he could. She looked up at the faded sign. "Singer's Auto Salvage'. There was writing underneath it, but it was too worn to make out. When she knocked, the bearded man that opened the door seemed to fit the place perfectly.

"Hello," she said, as if she hadn't done this a thousand times. "I'm Bela Talbot. I work for a group that has a vested interest in protecting…" she smiled and gave a little giggle, "well, your interests."

"I ain't selling," the man, (Singer, she assumed, said, a bit suspiciously.

"Oh no," she said quickly. "You misunderstand." And that was part of her script too. "Like I said, we want to help. There's a dangerous animal that recently escaped. A monster, if you will."

"Oh Lord," sighed Bobby. "You work for that Company, don't you."

Bela hadn't expected him know about that. She blinked, faltering. "Ah. Yes," she admitted. "The earthquake a few months ago? Some of our…research subjects escaped. We've rounded up all but one," she added quickly. "He looks like a man, but he isn't one. He's got wings. Big and…dark colored. He's quite dangerous."

"Haven't seen him," said Bobby gruffly.

Another man, younger, and god was he tall, came in from the kitchen, with a young blonde woman, both pink faced and a bit wet from snow. "Sam," said Singer, "in any of those long walks you take, you ever come across anything weird?"

"What? Why?" he asked. A bit too quickly.

Bela narrowed her eyes, filing that reaction away. "A monster," she said. "Looks like a man with wings."

The tall man, Sam, seemed to school his face. She doubted she'd have noticed, but she had twenty years of experience learning to tell when monsters were trying to hide their feelings and people were not that different. "Wings? No, I haven't seen anything like that," he told her.

"Well," she said, smiling, though less pleasantly, more predatory, "I'll leave my card. I'm staying at Missouri's Bed and Breakfast. Call me if you see anything?" Singer took the card and nodded, before closing the door in her face. Bela waited until she was off the property before pulling out her phone. "Sir?" she said. "I think I've found something."

Bobby was growing suspicious. Dean was always leaving, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes around mid-afternoon. He always was back several hours later, and if Bobby needed him in the shop or to take care of something at the Yard, Dean did it, either before or after his walks. Sometimes Sam went too, if Jess was busy or they needed to take a break from each other. The boys always came back with red cheeks and bright eyes, almost vibrating with excitement.

According to the Winchester boys, they were simply 'taking a walk.' So, Bobby was suspicious. Dean had never been one for 'walks.' If he went into the woods, it was for a hunt. But he wasn't doing that now. He and Sam would go into the woods, usually with full backpacks and often as not, come back with empty ones.

Rufus, down at Turner's Hardware, said they were coming to the store pretty often too, buying lumber and tools, among other things. "Aren't they a bit old for forts?" he asked Bobby, who had grunted, and made a note to confront them about it soon. There was an old Trapper's Lodge in the woods, pretty far in actually, a good four miles in, and it wasn't easy to get to, but he sort of thought they were maybe fixing it up. If hunters needed a place to stay, the cabin could be a viable option. At least, that's what he hoped they were doing. Maybe they'd tell him when they were done.

That's what he told himself. And he had to believe it. At least for now.

One day, about three weeks into their acquaintance, Dean told Angel that they wouldn't be coming the next day. "It's Christmas," he said. "It's sort of expected we spend the day with our family. And right now, that's Bobby."

Angel had nodded doubtfully. He understood the basics of Christmas, sort of. He'd read the bible. And he'd read a few books that had characters that celebrated it. He was a bit unclear as to what the actual ipoint/i was, but he knew that people wanted to spend time inside with fires and trees or something. And family, that was always stressed, if Christmas was mentioned in a book.

So they wouldn't come on Christmas, but the day before, they stayed for an extra long time and helped him move his meager supplies from the tree den he shared with Mareka to the Cabin that the three of them had been fixing up to be somewhat livable. They'd at least fixed the floor, and yesterday, they had put up something Dean had called 'insulators,' and some new siding on the outside walls. The window was still broken, and the door hung off it's hinges, but they'd bought him a little lamp that, when he pushed the button on the bottom to ON would fill the room with a bright white light that made it very easy to see every part of the room.

"It'll help you when you read," said Dean, smiling. Several days ago, they had given him what they called an 'all weather sleeping bag,' that had an extra lining so in the winter time it was very warm. It was also, according to Dean, waterproof and it had a little hood that you could quite literally zip yourself inside so that absolutely no part of you would stick out. It was an odd pattern of greys and greens and browns, and Dean said it was so if you ever were out in the woods and you couldn't find shelter, you could zip yourself fully inside and people couldn't see you well.

Angel pointed out that it was snowing and also, he'd be in the cabin, but Dean had shrugged and said, "it's still warm and we haven't figured out how to get you a battery operated heater yet." They'd given him lots of gifts to the point where he was overwhelmed and tried to give them back.

"No," said Sam, firmly. "It's not too much. Everyone should be able to live comfortably and you are no exception." In the weeks proceeding the move to the Cabin, they had given him a sturdy duffel bag, three pairs of jeans, six pairs of socks and a pair of boots (they were a bit too big, as they were Dean's), a belt, as many pairs of underwear as socks, another poncho, a few blankets (some light and some heavy) something that Sam called an 'egg crate' but was really a big piece of foam that was easily rolled up, with raised bumps in the foam that created a softer surface to lay on than the ground, the lamp, and three new books. Some of these supplies had been moved into the cabin already, but most of them could be put in the duffel.

Dean stared around the cabin. "We need to get you a chair," he decided. "Or a box. Something to sit on at least. Maybe some food too. You shouldn't have to be fully dependant on….Oh!" He shoved Sam's shoulder then, causing the taller man to lose his balance and glare at his brother.

"What?" he grumbled. "And don't hit me jerk."

"Don't be such a bitch," Dean retorted. "But we should see if Eliot is still trying to sell that old camping grill thing he has."

"Oh!" Sam's eyes lit up. "Yeah. Angel," he said, turning to the winged man that had been growing steadily more confused as the conversation wore on, "There's this guy we know selling this like, camping stove. We'd have to make a firepit for you, but then we could put this metal grate thing over it, so you can lay meat or whatever on top without having to worry about it falling into the fire. He's also got these long iron fork things that you can stake things on to hold them over the fire, like you do with the sticks, except the iron bars done catch fire. And he was also selling this grill thing that you can put on top of the grate to cook other things that might otherwise fall through the slates. It's great."

Angel's eyes widened. "You'd do that for me?"

"That one we'll call a Christmas present," said Dean, grinning and clapping him on the shoulder.

"I don't have anything for you," said Angel, doubtfully.

"I want to meet the wolves," said Sam, automatically. "I've always been fascinated by them and…you said before that they listen to you."

Angel considered this. "Alright," he said. "For your Christmas gift, I will take you to meet the wolves. I will inform them about it first, so it will be in a few days."

"It's okay, you won't be getting yours for a few days either," said Dean. "I wanna meet the bear. And…uh. Apologize for almost shooting her."

"She won't understand that," he said. "The apology, I mean. She will likely fear you because you are human, but she will recognize my scent on you and be less likely to run."

"Why don't they run from you?" asked Sam, curiously. "I mean, you look pretty human."

"I suppose I do not smell it," said Angel, with a tiny shrug. "In all honesty, I don't know. But the animals of this forest have never treated me as human."

Sam nodded, thinking. Dean kept forgetting that this was not a man, but a monster. "You don't have a problem with iron, right?" he asked, suddenly wary.

Angel only sighed. "The nails we've used have been iron," he said. "I have no problem with silver or blessed materials either. Or salt or anything else. I told you, I've had all the tests done to figure out what I am."

Sam glared at Dean, who did have the grace to look a bit guilty. "Sorry. I wasn't…it's not like I was gonna turn you in or anything. I just didn't want to give you something that might hurt you."

Angel smiled. "It's fine Dean," he said. "I don't mind. When you get back, I was thinking…we can protect the cabin with the sigils you know. Probably mostly on the inside. Or…" he tilted his head. Possibly the outside too. Maybe there is a glamour that will make this place look uninhabited. " He'd only seen three humans in these woods, including Sam and Dean, but he was still nervous about discovery.

Sam nodded. "Sounds good. We'll see if we can dig something up. But…we should probably go for now," he admitted. "It's getting late, and it will take us a while to get out of here, especially if we are gonna avoid leaving tracks. "

"Goodbye then," said Angel.

Both brothers smiled back.

"Bye dude," said Dean. "And Merry Christmas."

Christmas at Bobby's was a simple affair. There was a tree, sparsely decorated, just lights, no baubles, a star at the top. There weren't any stockings. But there were several brightly wrapped packages under the tree.

It would be interesting with Jess there, really, but he liked her, and it might be nice to have someone besides the three men around.

They'd all agreed to wait until after breakfast to open presents, and Jess and Bobby had worked together to make a rather impressive spread. There were eggs, bacon and sausage (and for once, Sam didn't complain about it not being turkey bacon, whatever the hell that was), and pancakes (regular, blueberry, and chocolate chip) and of course, coffee. There were bagels and toast too, and a fruit salad.

Dean, naturally, had some of everything, and was quite stuffed and pleased by the time everything was done. Jess and Bobby decreed that since they'd made everything, Sam and Dean could put everything away. Dean's insistence that he was the oldest and therefore should be managing was unheeded and Jess threatened to slap him with the batter covered spoon if he didn't clean it. So he did. He did not dare call Jess' bluff.

Once dishes were clean and put away, the four of them reconvened in the sitting room.

Sam shoved his newspaper wrapped gift into Dean's hands first, grinning. Dean rolled his eyes, but tore in, eagerly. It was…a sock monkey hat. He raised his eyebrows at Sam's laughing. But this was tradition. They gave each other a silly gift and a more legitimate one. Dean thrust his own gift at Sam. It was sweet pea and cherry scented shampoo and conditioner. "For those silky locks," he told his brother, grinning.

Bobby had rolled his eyes at both of them. Sam and Dean had pooled their resources to get Bobby a computer and router, complete with a year of internet service. He'd gotten pissy and gruff, but Dean pointed out that it would be so much faster to research without having to go to the library. And Sam had told him that he could buy rare old books on Amazon if he wanted and also cool relics on ebay and that had satisfied Bobby a bit.

Jess got a thick bracelet from Sam, silver with a Sumerian charm carved along the outside and a Latin one on the inside. She didn't have to know what it meant, but it would protect her from a lot of things. She loved it and favored him with a kiss on the cheek which made him go red.

Dean joked he should have gotten Sam a pack of condoms which made him go even redder and shove Dean off the couch and onto the floor. Jess snorted at that.

"You deserve that," she said. "You don't have to be rude." He gave her a slightly chastened look, and gave her his present to make up for it.

Dean had been rather at a loss as to what to get Jessica, so he'd ended up giving up and asking Sam what to do, and he said Jess was interested in languages, so he'd gotten her something called Pimsleur that was a slightly cheaper version of Rosetta Stone that could teach her French. "If you already know French, I left the receipt," he said. "You can exchange it for Italian or Russian or…I dunno. Greek or something. Whatever you want."

Jess smiled and thanked him. She gave both of them their presents at the same time. Dean received a new set of wrenches "for when you're working on the cars," and Sam a biography of Thurgood Marshall and an Ansel Adams photography collection. Dean teased him about that, but Sam hit him with the photography book and it hurt enough that Dean stopped teasing and started thinking about how the sharp corners of hardbacks could be used to decapitate a vampire.

Jess gave Bobby a book on Celtic lore, because she'd noticed his book on Roman myths and some of his other cultish-looking books on the shelves and thought he could use one on the Celts. It was an old book, if not a very rare one, but Bobby was pleased anyway.

Bobby gave Jess a biography, some scientist that had done something….awesome in the field of biochemistry. Dean didn't get it. Bobby had also gotten her an iron ring that had a cross on it, and that thrilled her. Apparently, she'd seen something similar once, and had described it, but was unable to find it again. Bobby had found it, it seemed, though he made it out of Iron not steel or whatever the one she'd liked was made out of, because, he reasoned, Iron would be a lot safer for her. He had had the inside coated in the steel though, to stop it from having a chance of turning her finger green. Or she might not wear it. He'd been warned about that by the seller, girls not wearing rings or jewelry that turned their skin green.

He got Dean a very nice bottle of very nice whiskey, and Sam an iPod. Dean's mouth had fallen open at that, but Bobby said shortly that the whiskey had been damned expensive too, and he'd gotten the iPod for sort of cheap so Dean could shut it.

Jess had insisted on Christmas carols, which was sort of horrible, as none of them had very good voices and Sam and Dean didn't really know any Christmas carols anyway, and kept singing the wrong words.

Sam helped Bobby set up his computer and router and Jess started reading her bio-book, and Dean felt a bit at a loss. He wondered what Angel was doing. Reading maybe. Sitting in his cabin with that worn and slightly mildewed copy of the Hobbit that had been with him when he'd fled the Company. Or maybe he'd be at the lake right now, seeing if his nets or line had caught anything.

Dean sent a quick text to Eliot (who answered right away, that yeah, $75 would be great and arranged a pick up for noon the next day), and then lounged on the couch. He dozed until Sam woke him for lunch, which wasn't big, just sandwiches, but apparently, dinner was going to be huge. Which Dean doubted because no one had been cooking all day.

Sam rolled his eyes and reminded him that they'd be going to Ellen's for dinner, and Dean had been forced to confess that he didn't even remember that Ellen was back in town. She and her daughter had left years ago, after her husband had died, and he'd heard she'd set up a restaurant somewhere in the middle of the country.

"She's back now, has been for about a month," said Sam. "Dude, have you been paying attention at all?" No, not really. His thoughts were in the woods most of the time, surrounding a strange man that his mother had known and even, if her face in the pictures were anything to go by, loved as one of her own.

To Dean's dismay, he found they were all expected to go to church too, before dinner. Bobby told him to stop whining because it wasn't as if this was something new. Christmas they always went to church, but Dean had rather hoped to get out of it this year. No such luck.

Still, as they learned of angels singing about glory to baby Jesus, he thought of another Angel, and wondered if he'd like church. The music, maybe. He needed to play Angel some music sometime. He could bring…a walkman or something. He didn't really pay much attention to the rest of the service, planning out how he was going to take Angel his Christmas presents.

Angel was a little anxious, as he had been (though didn't remember) the day before Mary had come back from her maternity leave. Would Sam and Dean return? They did, and Angel breathed a slight sigh of relief. He had been nervous yesterday, pacing, before finally going to the Wolves and telling them he'd be bringing some humans around and they were to be nice and say hello, and then going to Mareka to tell her the same. He hadn't slept well, even with the sleeping bag and cabin and egg crate.

But Sam and Dean came today, lugging what looked like quite a heavy bit of equipment. He took it rather easily, and both looked at him in surprise, as he lead the way to the lake. He had a fire pit. He didn't need another so close to the cabin. They showed him how to work the grill and set up everything. It looked amazing. Angel was quite pleased with it. Food, he thought, had just gotten easier to cook.

Dean had also brought him a rather silly looking hat, and Sam had rolled his eyes, but Angel decided he liked the hat. "Sam gave it to me as a gag gift," Dean confided in Angel.

"Who gagged?" he asked, horrified.

"No like…a joke. We always give each other something we know we'll never use. But…It's sorta cute and I figured…you could use a hat. Most of your heat goes out through your head you know." And Angel had put the hat on his head so seriously that Dean had a difficult time not laughing. "It suits you," was all he said, though he did grin.

Sam had brought a few books as well. "You can borrow them," he said. "They're mine, but I don't read them much anymore." There was the complete Lord of the Rings, Dean noticed. And a few lore books. "I didn't know what you knew about how to protect yourself," he said. "So I brought a few books on it."

Angel had smiled, and set them reverently next to his other (few) books, near his bed. He'd also used the staple gun to pin up the Polaroid's their mom had taken, noticed Dean. Right next to his sleeping bag.

It seemed that Angel was as good at his word as the Winchesters, because he took both to meet with the wolves that very day. They'd sniffed at the brothers, growled and postured a bit, but soon went back to ignoring them, choosing to roughhouse in the snow a bit, or lay down, watching.

Mareka was even less interested than the wolves, staring impassively at both before letting out a gruff growl and padding back in her den to go to sleep. "She sleeps a lot in winter time," said Angel apologetically. "She doesn't really hibernate, but she does sleep a lot.

The next few weeks, they fell into a pattern again. Sam split his time between Jess and Angel, Dean, between Angel and the shop. Bobby remained suspicious.

One day, at one of their Winchester-less lunches, he asked Jessica about it.

"You know where those boys go?" His mind kept going back to Bela Talbot, the Company worker, and her belief there was a monster around the area. He asked her if it bothered her that Sam spent so much time away.

Jess though, just shrugged. "Not really. He sees me all the time at school. He talks about Dean a lot though. He misses him. I figure he just wants to make up for lost time." She grinned. "Plus, he's all mine when we go back to California. I'll let him have his fun for now. I think they're making a shelter or clubhouse or something. For summer when they go camping. Sam told me about it, a little. And really, it makes me feel better that they'll have somewhere safe to be when they're out in the woods all night."

Bobby wished he could share her optimism. Something kept niggling at him though, just under the skin. Something was off about the whole situation. And soon, he'd figure out what it was.