Dean woke up slowly, a dizziness the likes of which he had not experienced before, blanketed his reality. He remembered one time taking Sam to a carnival at a rural fair. Sam had convinced him to ride this one ride called the Zipper, a whirling, upside down, mess of a ride straight from Satan's worst nightmares. Dean put on a brave face. He'd rather have fought a nest of vamps than ride that thing, but more importantly, he'd rather not disappoint Sammy. So, he got on and was immediately filled with regrets.

Sam had been giddy throughout the whole experience. Dean had barely kept from vomiting with each spin and flip. The feeling now was worse, but not by much. He cracked open his eyes with a groan. Everything was dark. He could feel the car moving and surmised that he must have gotten attacked on a hunt. "What the Hell happened?" He tried to remember what he had been doing before, but nothing was there. His mouth tasted like death and paste had a sick love child.

Cas slowed the car which was driving through the thickest night ever. Dean registered that Cas was driving his car, and his nerves became a little more frazzled. Cas spoke, slow and deliberate, "You should try to sleep more."

Dean sat up straighter, "What happened, Cas?"

"The darkness was affecting you. I made you sleep." Dean stared at him past a squint. Cas kept driving, looking straight ahead.

"What do you mean? Hate to say this, Cas, but whatever you did, wasn't your finest work. Feels like everything is spinning, and I don't remember the fight that lead to it." Dean pressed his hand to his forehead.

Cas stopped the car and turned to him. "Does it hurt?"

Dean dropped his hand and said, "Doesn't feel good."

"Here." Cas reached out to him, fingers extended. They brushed back a stray wisp of hair on his forehead, and Dean felt like this moment was something familiar before Cas pressed his fingers to him. The feeling left along with the dizziness. "Better?"

"Yes. So what happened?" Dean took in his surroundings. Everything was really, very dark, only now it was clear that it was more than night.

Cas began driving again. "We are going to Muncie, Indiana to try to fight the darkness that you and I and your brother unwittingly unleashed on the world.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know what you are talking about." Dean rubbed the heels of his palms in his eyes.

"Hmm. It' should come back to you. Give it time. What is the last thing that you remember?"

Dean sat quietly for a time, trying to stretch his mind back. Cas let him take his time. Everything was a mess. He wasn't sure what was the last thing in his memory or the first. There was Charlie's body burning on the pyre. There was his father staring at him with demon yellow eyes. There was Sam falling, falling, falling into the pit on a scream. There was the bunker empty as a new made grave. Finally he said, "I killed Death."

"You can't kill Death, but you did something that may have looked like that." Cas glanced at him with his pronouncement.

"If I didn't kill him, then he will be angry." He paused a moment, trying to collect more memories before he continued. "It sure looked like I killed him."

"You can't kill Death. The idea of him is enough to allow for his continued existence. He is older than time, older than God. He is certainly not going to be killed by a mere human." There was a note of condescension in Castiel's tone.

"I wasn't a mere human." Dean allowed his tone to take on a bit of the condescension too. "I mean, my memory isn't so hot right now, but I do think that the Mark of Cain has to count for something. They passed a crossroad that had a sign. Cas slowed up and Dean read it. Turning would take them toward the Dakotas. Dean felt a pull in that direction. Straight ahead though was Muncie, and he felt a pull in that direction too. Cas continued going straight.

His pocket began buzzing, and Dean reached for it. The screen showed Sam's name. Dean answered it immediately. "Dean?"

"Hey there, Sam. What's up?"

"Just needed to talk to you. I'm starting to think that everyone is insane."

"I'm afraid to even ask what you are talking about. By the way, full-disclosure, I'm having some memory issues right now, so be patient." Dean huffed out a breath of frustration.

"Are you okay?" Sam's tone shifted noticeably from irritation, to mother hen.

"I'm fine, mom. Now tell me why everyone is supposedly insane, and maybe include who everyone is in that narrative."

Sam took a deep breath and began, "So, you remember that I am at Jody's place right?"

"Well, I know now."

"Wow, you need to tell me what happened."

"No, I need you to finish your damn story. Come on."

"Okay, so I'm at Jody's, and get this, Linda Tran shows up." Sam paused for dramatic effect. Dean could almost see his arms flailing about in wild gesticulations. "But she didn't show up alone, Dean."

"Okay, I'll bite. Who'd she show up with? She have a demon boyfriend?" Dean really hoped that wasn't the case.

"Kevin." Sam just let that one word drop.

"My memory isn't that bad, Sammy. I remember that he died. The veil's okay now. Souls can go toward the light or whatever."

"Yeah, I know, but get this, Kevin has a new body. Some donor kid that was apparently all ready to die and shit decided to give his body to Kevin as some sort of a vessel."

"So, Kevin is wearing this kid like a meatsuit?"

"Uh, yeah. And everyone is totally fine with it. Like, Jody and Donna don't even seem to see it as a problem. And don't even get me started on Linda. She practically tore my head off for even questioning the choice."

Dean thought about it and then cast a glance at Cas who was listening intently from the driver's seat as the dark miles passed them. Dean knew that he could hear the whole conversation despite the fact that the phone was not on speaker, angel ears. Dean also felt like there were some things that he just couldn't say. After all, Cas had taken a vessel in order to be among the humans, and Dean knew that there was some guilt weighing on him over that choice. "How is he?"

"I haven't really talked to him much." Sam sounded like he was exhausted. Dean felt the pull back to Sioux Falls. "I mostly just yelled at him, then Jody sent the kids off to another room while we discussed the present situation."

"Did he seem like a rage-filled lunatic, hell bent on vengeance and destruction?"

"No, he seemed downright calm. I have been on edge for days, maybe longer, since I don't actually know how long I've been here. It is plenty hard to measure the passage of time without sunrises and sunsets. So, comparatively, Kevin is way chill."

Cas interrupted then, "How is Claire?"

Sam heard the question and replied, "She released one of the light birds, and now it is on Jody's roof. The whole house is covered in light. She seems like she is able to talk with the thing. Other than that, she is more fine than the rest of us. The dark doesn't affect her, and she is strong. You'd be proud, Cas." Dean could see a slight uptick in his lip with the words. Cas kept staring ahead into the dark though as he drove.

"So, how long will donor kid let Kevin ride him around?"

"I'm pretty sure that it is like a permanent arrangement. At least, that is what Linda implied. She said that, Freddy; that's the kid's name, chose this over death. He apparently had some baggage when they met him. Regardless, this does seem like a situation that came about with consent. So, there's that."

"Not gonna lie, Sammy, but having Kevin back, even like this, feels kinda right. Maybe we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, ya know."

"Hmm, I don't know. I don't think that we are the kind of people that get this lucky. Everything that seems good comes to us with a steep price." He paused again as if he had too much on his mind and no way to deal with it all. "So, any news on your end of things?"

"It's patchy. Cas said that the darkness started affecting me. I apparently passed out, and now I don't remember a bunch of stuff. He said that it would come back to me though."

"You sure you're gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, Cas has my back. We're on our way to Muncie. Looks like we have maybe a few more hours to go, unless we run into traffic." He laughed a little then added, "Actually, we've been pretty lucky. There haven't been any abandoned cars on this route. Pretty smooth, knock on wood."

"Yeah, good luck. What are you gonna do when you get to Muncie?"

"Don't know." Dean turned to Cas then, and asked, "So, what are we doing in Muncie?"

"It is not clear why we need to go there. The angels want us to go there. Someone is waiting to talk with us. I am hopeful that it will lead to answers." Cas was speeding up. Dean could see the flash of the road lines streaking by more rapidly. He wondered about the reason for the change until Cas spoke, "Have you heard anything about either Rowena or Crowley since we last spoke?"

"No. We have been pretty focused on the immediate area and the darkness. We are all going to dig into the research tomorrow after a good night's sleep. We were all pretty well beat today."

"If you unearth anything of importance on either of them, do not hesitate to call, or pray. It is likely that the phones will stop working soon, and I want to make sure that I am still getting information. I feel that it may become important for us to find Rowena."

"Why? Do you think that she can do something about the darkness?" Sam asked.

"We won't know unless we ask. She affected me. Her spell was important. I would like to discuss this with her in person." Something in Cas' tone told Dean that when he said the word discuss that he did not mean it. He also got the impression that there was more going on than what Cas was saying. He decided that this was a subject that he would explore with Cas later on.

"Well, I'm gonna hit the sack. You two stay outta trouble."

"You know us." Dean chuckled a little. Sam yawned and Dean could practically hear his stretch over the miles. "You stay safe too, Sammy." Cas glanced at him. Dean tipped the phone away from his ear and hung up. "You okay, Cas?"

"Yes, Dean." Cas sounded tired, and for an angel that was worrisome.

"You seem like you are worried about something."

"Everything is problematic. It would be nice if just once things would work out." Dean reached over to him and rested a hand on his shoulder.

"I hear ya. Maybe things will look up in Muncie. I mean, it can't exactly get any worse than eternal night right? Cas turned to him, his face wrinkling up a little as if to say, Really, Dean. "Okay, I know, don't jinx it."

"It just seems that with us, it can always get worse and usually does." Cas was turned to him as they barreled down the long, straight stretch of road. Dean turned away from him, and looked out into the dark.

Something was there. Dean yelped and grabbed the wheel. Cas slammed on the brakes. The forms in front of them appeared to be children. They were everywhere at once. The car was still, humming away in the dark. The children though moved closer. There were many of them, all with long dark hair, all with thin white gowns. Their heads were tipped down to the ground as they walked around the car. One stood in front of the hood.

"This is bad. I think this might be bad." Dean broke the quiet. And as if his voice was a trigger, the children raised their heads up in unison. Dean felt his body pressing back into the seat. Cas' hand came up to Dean's chest.

"Seatbelt, Dean," Cas said. The children seemed to stare at them, but one could not call it that. For they did not have faces from which to stare. There was just skin pulled taut over bone, and dark hair framing something that was growing more frightening by the second.

Claire had tried to sleep. Maybe she did sleep a bit, but she couldn't tell. When she woke up the room still had the same amount of light pouring through the window and beyond it, the same amount of dark. Before wearily crawling into bed, she had called Cas, wanting him to know that he mattered, that someone in this vast universe cared about him and wanted him to return. Instead she had gotten Dean, and she wondered again why she had traveled the conversational path with him that she did.

She also wondered when her thoughts on him had so utterly changed. She thought that maybe it had come from the feelings that pulsed out from Cas each time that Dean was near, or each time that he was even discussed. Maybe it was from something else. Regardless, she felt a kinship with him, one that was particularly strengthened through their conversation. She wondered if he would take her advice and talk to Cas, tell him that he mattered to a hunter too. It mattered, and she hoped that he would see it that way too.

She got up from her bed and stretched out to the ceiling, feeling her muscles tightening with the effort. She made her way over to her window and popped it open. The slightly sloping roof just outside of the window made for a good sitting space. She had discovered it the first night that she had spent in the house. It had been 2:00 am and she had not managed to sleep much then either. She had discovered that being out there afforded her a most excellent view of the sky. It was a country sky, complete with so many stars that you could only feel like something small beneath it all. Sometimes it was nice to feel insignificant, to just be and not have anything matter too much.

She climbed out now and found a spot next to the pop-out for her window to lean against. There were no stars tonight, just the oddly bright light that drowned out the dark. She could see beyond it though to were the dark was. There was an odd little boundary of sorts just beyond the yard, and out there she could see the swirling mass of chaos that was just waiting to get back in.

She felt the first tremors making their way down her skin as she looked at it all. A flutter of wings and suddenly she wasn't alone, and the tremors stopped. "Hey there," she said as the bird cocked its head to the side.

"Are you okay?" It asked her with a human voice that came out rough and somewhat squaky at the same time.

"You talk?"

"When I feel I must. Most times it will be best for me to be a silent guardian."

"Why?" She turned to the bird a bit more, pressing her back to the pop-out roof that surrounded her window.

"I have much to atone for, and talking is a means by which many try to alleviate their own suffering. I do not wish for relief, only to offer whatever help that I can for the good of mankind." The bird kept watching her and it was intimidating in a way. Its eyes were glassy black, and she couldn't lose the feeling that they were a bit too much like demon eyes.

"Can we beat this?" She waved her hand out to the world.

"There is much that needs to be done. Chaos was beaten back before, but it took considerable work. It was the work of angels and gods. It is not reasonable to assume that a few mortals alone can do this."

"No one ever accused any of us of being reasonable. Guess you think that we are all just crazy for even trying to solve this."

"No, not crazy. You are admirable in your dedication toward seeing a cause through to its completion. I have hope that you will be successful, and regardless of the outcome, you have my support." The bird raised its wings out in an impressive stretch that brushed Claire's arm a little.

"What should I call you?" The bird looked at her with its head tipped a little. "What's your name?"

"My name is cursed. You should not call me anything." The bird shuffled away a few feet.

"Wow, way to be all intense and emo." Then in a mocking tone, her best mimic of the bird's deep cadences she added, "I have no name. All is darkness, like my soul. My favorite author is dead. Edgar Allen Poe wrote happy feel good stories." She amused herself into a fit of laughter. The bird came back to her.

"Once again, I must ask if you are okay. You seem to have lost some of the sanity that you seemed to have earlier." It tipped its head again.

She was still laughing when she said, "I'm fine. You are a riot though."

"I'm calm. I do not see how I could be compared to rampant destruction in this moment, albeit in the past the description would have been apt."

She snorted out another laugh at that. "Really? Really, are you for real?" She drummed her fingers on the roof a bit at her sides. "I'm gonna call you Nevermore, like the Poe bird until you tell me your name. Unless, of course, you prefer a more feminine name like Lenore."

"Nevermore suits me fine."

"Okay, then Nevermore it is. Now, tell me how we solve this here crisis."

"I can only speak to how it was solved before. There were no humans to worry over then. In fact, Chaos was not a destructive force. It just was. We made it into something else."

"You make it sound like it was a being." She felt the swish of Nevermore's feathers as they brushed across her hands again.

"It was, is. Your Christian biblical story got some of the concept right when it said, And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.' However, there are implications that it all happened within just days of mankind becoming a sentient presence on earth. This is not the case and would have caused a great deal of trouble for all of us."

"So, what changed things? I mean, how did it go from being a being just minding its own business to this destructive force that we have now?"

"We used it for creation. The Host and the gods wanted, craved an act of creation. We wanted to bring forth creatures that would, for lack of a better word, entertain us. And humanity was entertaining. In fact, it was more than that, you have been inspiring. Regardless, we dove into the darkness, manipulated it into new forms. In the end, life sprang up from it. It was crude and still a bit chaotic, but it was life. We brought forth plants and sea creatures. The first plants were the ancestors of many of your poisonous plants, your nightshades and such." Nevermore hopped up onto the pop-out. "The boy is coming out to join you. Shall I peck at his face until he departs, or do you want his company?"

She stifled a laugh, "I don't mind him joining me." She could hear the shuffling moves of Kevin or Freddy over the shingles and leaned past the pop-out to watch his cautious approach. "I'd be careful If I were you. Falling will lead to broken bones, and I'm pretty sure that we don't have a fully functional hospital at this time."

"Heard you talking to someone out here and didn't want to miss the party." Kevin threw a glance up at Nevermore who just looked down at him in silence.

"Kevin, meet Nevermore. Nevermore, meet Kevin." She nodded up to him. Kevin reached up as if to shake hands. Nevermore pecked him.

"Ouch." Kevin yelped and pulled his hand back. "I'm a former prophet of the Lord you stupid bird." Claire laughed at him and had to bite it back with her fist in her mouth.

Nevermore hopped down in front of him, "I apologize. I did not recognize you in this form."

"What do you mean, you didn't recognize me? Have we met?" Kevin sounded concerned, and pulled his pecked hand to his chest.

"Just once, but it was enough. I'm sorry." With that Nevermore flew up into the sky until they could no longer see him.

"Uh, what just happened?" Claire asked, still looking up into the sky.

"Your guess is as good as mine. It is worrisome though, seeing as most of the supernatural creatures that I have met either wanted me dead or were wanting me alive for their usually awful purposes." He seemed to curl in on himself a little and she felt a sudden pity for him. She inched down the inclining roof, bringing them a little closer.

"So, couldn't sleep huh?"

"Not with you two jibber jabbering out here. Plus, I'm kinda not much for sleep. Freddy's body requires it a little, but I don't. So, consequently, I often find myself leaving him during those hours to go haunting corners or whatnot." Claire looked at him funny. "What? I get bored."

"So, tonight you decided that he didn't need sleep though?"

"Nah, he got a few hours in. We're good." Kevin inched closer. "Don't you worry about falling?"

"It's not that steep."

"Hmm, tell that to my nerves."

"You could always go back in. No one is forcing you out here." She laughed at him a little again.

"Nah, I like the idea of talking with someone that is neither my mother or my body."

"That sounded way odd, just so you know."

"Not as odd as the reality of it. It's been an odd year. Mom and I have been kinda a demon fighting duo. She toyed with the idea of me going off to college via Freddy's body, but we never did work that out. Plus, I think I'm a little beyond that path now."

"So, you basically became a hunter then?" Claire could feel a type of coldness coming off of Kevin. It was an odd thing since proximity to people usually brought warmth. It was probably a ghost thing, she thought.

"Mostly. Mom and I look for cases and kill demons, so I guess that makes us hunters." While he was speaking, Claire felt a sudden pulse pass through her. She recognized it as Castiel. It was sorrowful. She felt the emotion of it pour through her and her eyes began to tear up. Kevin seemed to notice and reached out to her. "It's not a sad life or anything. No need to cry."

"It's not that. It's…" She swiped at her eyes quickly, dashing away the tears there. "I can't explain it properly. I sometimes pick up on things from Castiel, feelings and such. I think something is wrong."

"Like what?"

"He was sad, and not just a little." She got up then and held onto the side of the pop-out readying herself for the shuffle back inside, back to her phone. She did not think that a prayer would be enough.

"Wait, I'll go with you. I'm not so confident with the standing and walking up here though. He slowly scooted back and gripped the side of the pop-out. His foot started to slip, and Claire reached out swiftly and pulled him back from the fall. "Shit. Thanks."

There was a sound in the distance, a low hum coming from the darkness. They both turned to it together. "What's that?" There was movement in the dark, bodies. Claire firmed up her grip on Kevin's arm more. "Are those children?"

"I don't think so." His voice was a low whisper, shuddering out to her. "Look at their faces."

She had to squint to see them, but they did not seem to have faces. They were surrounding the property line. Their bodies pressed side to side with each other. They stared without staring up from the darkness directly at them on the roof.

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AN: Thank you all for your patience on the update. I needed some time to overhaul the DCBB fic, and it seems to be going well. I also had to finish the ficlet, The Woods Were Dark and Deep. I don't think anyone really read it though, so that was rather unsuccessful. Anyway, I'll have another update to this in a week. Thanks for reading and commenting. It is most encouraging. Particularly wanted to shout out some thanks to rainystv for all of the encouragement.