By the time Dean and Benny walked into the bunker there was the general atmosphere of a party in the library room.
Dean looked at Benny and Elizabeth as his friend greeted his descendant. He kissed her cheek gently and put an arm around her, and then whispered something to her. She grinned in response and they left together. Dean hoped rather than believed the two of them were going to cook something for them. Benny wasn't angry anymore, but he probably wasn't in the mood to cook for them again any time soon.
Dean took Sam aside. "You haven't stopped looking for an alternate solution to Elizabeth's problem, have you?"
"No—I mean, we didn't know whether or not we could trust Crowley, so we kept looking. We found the name of the demon in the spell. I'm worried, though, if we summon it, would it possess Elizabeth again?"
"I don't know. The only time we've summoned demons, they've been crossroads demons. Maybe the tattoos are enough, but I don't think they'll work if the demon has permission to enter. Is there some…I don't know…religious thing? Like a confession or a confirmation that could affirm some other alliance?"
Sam starred at Dean. "Could it be that easy? I mean, I kept thinking about a cult to some other god—but maybe a baptism would do it. I mean, it's supposed to make a clean slate, and apparently holy water had the ability to almost cure Crowley."
"I know there's a line in The Godfather about renouncing Satan during the baptism. Maybe it would work," Dean sighed. "I wish we could ask Bobby."
"I wish we could ask Pastor Jim," Sam said.
"Do we know any religious types to ask? I mean, there's Cas, but he doesn't seem very up on church stuff, for an angel," Dean said.
"Hey, what about Father Simon?" Sam asked. "He might be able to answer questions like this."
"The guy who helped you 'cure' Crowley?" Dean asked. "It's worth a try. You got his number?"
"Yeah, but the question is if he's willing to help us. He wasn't too eager to get personally involved before," Sam said.
"Dude, he's a priest. If a baptism will work, it's well within his duties," Dean said.
"Hey, I agree with you. I just don't know if he will," Sam said.
"Well, do you want to call him?" Dean asked.
"Okay. What are you going to do?" Sam asked.
"What do you mean what am I going to do?"
"You look like you're hiding something," Sam said.
Dean glared at his brother. He really couldn't get much past him. Reluctantly he answered. "I asked Cas to ask around about why you're still sick."
"I wish you wouldn't have done that," Sam said. "I'll get better. I'm getting better."
"Are you?" Dean asked.
Sam's silence was answer enough. He looked down, and Dean awkwardly patted his shoulder. "There's got to be one trustworthy angel out there. Cas'll find him—her—it? I never know with angels. Anyway, we can trust Cas to do this."
"Can we?" Sam asked. He looked at Dean earnestly. "Isn't his judgement a little suspect, here?"
Dean glanced around, but Cas was well out of earshot. "Sam, if we don't start trusting him again, will he ever be trustworthy? I mean, yeah, we'll double check whoever Cas gets to help us, and we'll use our own judgment, not just his, but if we lose faith in him—"
"—he'll lose faith in himself and never trust himself again," Sam finished, nodding. "Fine. We'll—okay. You trust him, I trust you, and I really am not getting any better."
"And it's not exactly the kind of illness anyone but an angel would understand," Dean said.
"Agreed. So, you handle that—"
"—Sam, you can talk to Cas about this. I mean, if you want we can switch. You should probably be the one in charge of your own treatment, you know?"
"Dean, honestly? You 'speak Cas' a lot better than I do. As long as the two of you don't make any decisions without me, I'm okay with this, for now," Sam said.
Dean was oddly touched by this show of faith from his brother. He left to see what Cas had found out.
He found his friend in his storage room, sitting on his cot. "You know, we could probably stretch our budget for a proper bed," Dean said.
"You should consider the fact that Benny and, potentially, Kevin's mother, might be moving in here," Cas said.
"You know we don't actually have budget, right? We just scam credit card companies," Dean said. "And Kevin Tran's mother is not moving in here. No one wants that to happen, probably especially Linda."
"I like the cot. If that ever changes, I'll let you know," Cas said.
"This is a big bunker. Sam couldn't find you any better place to set up?"
"Dean, I like this room. And I sense that you are stalling—are you worried about the news I might have about Sam?"
Dean scowled. "Of course I am," he said.
"I think that the alterations to Sam's physiology I sensed when Sam was trying to complete the trials can be repaired. I would have attempted to repair it when I was still an angel, but I sensed the alteration was required for the trial to be completed," Cas said.
"So all we need is one trustworthy angel," Dean said.
Cas shook his head. "A few years ago I would have thought that was the easiest thing in the world to find. But nowadays…"
Dean nodded. "I never thought I'd say this, but I wish Gabriel or Balthazar were still alive. There were annoying, but I would trust them not to outright kill Sam—now, anyway."
"There are all kinds of angels—many varieties that you have not encountered because they've never left heaven. I know a couple who believe that the sole purpose of angels on earth is to heal humans with the power of their grace. Hopefully I can find one of them to help Sam. He's not getting better, but he doesn't seem to be getting worse quickly, and I think we can both agree that it's better to find an angel we can trust than to take a chance to get a quick result," Cas said.
Dean nodded.
"What's going on with Elizabeth?" Cas asked.
Dean filled him in, and Cas emerged from his room to help.
Sam had contacted Father Simon and he had agreed to try a baptism. His new congregation was in Boise, so the plan was for Dean, Benny and Elizabeth to drive there and try the baptism.
Except when Elizabeth heard the plan, she objected strongly.
"There's a priest in every town. Why can't I just get baptized anywhere?" she asked.
"Are you a Catholic?" Benny asked.
"Umm, my Granny is. None of us have been baptized for a couple of generations. We're kind of…nothing," she said.
"I was a Catholic before I became a monster, and I happen to know they make adults jump through all sorts of hoops to make sure they're really serious about joining the faith. You think we can just go up to any priest and say you need to get baptized without any of the customary lessons because you accidently performed a satanic ritual?" Benny asked.
Elizabeth looked chastised. "Is that what I did? Performed a satanic ritual?" she shoved at Benny. "Why the hell did you have a satanic ritual in your spell book?"
"You don't try every recipe in the cookbook. Some you just read every once and a while, and wonder," Benny said.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "So the restaurant is closed indefinitely. How do we even know if this baptism works?"
Benny shrugged. "Maybe I'll have to stick around and keep an eye on you. I know I said I couldn't before, because of attracting vampire attention, but the threat of vampires is better than the threat of possession."
"Wait a minute," said Dean. "Elizabeth, you told me you couldn't perform spells before you did the dedication ritual. So we find a spell that you couldn't perform before, confirm you can perform it now, and then if you can't do it after you're baptized, we know it worked."
Benny acknowledged this would work, but looked disappointed. Dean recognized that Benny would have liked to have a reason to hang around his descendent, and Dean had taken that away from him.
When Elizabeth went back to Dean's room to gather her things as they would be leaving early the next morning, Dean took Benny aside, clutching his arm loosely.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Benny looked confused. "What for? I'm not still upset about before. Besides, I like this plan a hell of a lot more than making a deal with the devil."
Dean let go of Benny's arm and looked down. "No, I mean—if you'd had a reason to stay with Elizabeth, you could have had your family. I kind of took that reason away just now."
"Dean," Benny said softly. Dean looked up, wondering why Benny had paused. He realized that he had been waiting for Dean to look at him, because now that Dean was looking into Benny's eyes he spoke again. "I'd rather be with you. It wasn't an option before, but now that you seem to think it is, there's nothing I want more."
Dean didn't know what to say. He was warmed by the words—comforted. And too choked up to say anything in return without embarrassing himself by saying too much. He was afraid of showing Benny the embarrassing feelings he thought he might be developing for the monster. If he ignored those feelings, they might go away. But Benny looking at him with such affection and treating him like he was precious wasn't helping him hold his infatuation in.
Luckily for him, Sam interrupted the moment. "Can I talk to you, Dean?" he asked.
Benny grabbed Dean's elbow and squeezed it affectionately as he walked by to leave the two of them alone. "See you later, Dean," he said.
Dean nodded and looked at Sam. "What's going on?" he asked.
"I never asked. Why did you decide not to go through with making the deal with Crowley?" Sam asked.
"Something about seeing Linda Tran shackled in a storage locker made me realize that there was no way it was a good idea to let that guy loose, ever," Dean said.
Sam nodded. "How did Benny react to that?"
"About how you'd think. But this is better. If it works, it means no compromises, no deals with the devil. The only reason I was willing to make that deal was because it seems Crowley always finds a way to slither away in the end anyway. And in a way we're survivors in the same way. How many times has Crowley been our last resort? But he's a last resort. It wasn't time for that, yet," Dean said.
"I'm glad you came to that conclusion. When you left I had second thoughts about it. And third, and forth," Sam said. "But I didn't think Benny would take it as well as he did."
"He trusts me," Dean said.
Sam looked like he wanted to ask another question, but then Kevin walked in the room and said, "So what do we tell Crowley?"
"Nothing," Dean said. "We tell him nothing. He'll figure out we didn't take the deal in a decade or so."
Kevin grinned evilly. "I like the way you think sometimes, Dean. And I mean, if this doesn't work, if nothing works—"
"Yeah, deals with Crowley are the last resort," Dean repeated. "How's your mom?"
"She's doing better. She wants us to go home, or at least, to some normal town. To a normal house, with windows. Do you think—do you think we can? Do you think that's safe?" Kevin asked.
"I don't know," Dean said.
"I think you have to consider what you really what. I mean, maybe it's more dangerous to go off to a 'normal' life somewhere. But if you're unhappy here, if it's not really living for you, then you have to go regardless of the danger," Sam said.
Dean looked at his brother, considering how much of that speech came from Sam's own heart. How long until Sam turned his back on the hunting life for good?