"Cas!" Dean whirled his head around as he ran for his life. That goddamn angel. Dean could feel- and smell- the thing's hot breath as it reached out to grab him. It missed, this time, but it was getting closer by the minute. "Cas!"

Out of nowhere, a hand reached out and grabbed Dean by his jacket collar. The hand yanked and pulled Dean into the small dark cave. Abaddon kept running.

Dean looked up from the ground and took a much needed breath. "About freakin' time! I was almost turned into monster chow!" Dean growled. "Where the hell were you?"

Castiel smiled and reached into his pocket, pulling out a rock. "I found this rock." Grinning, Cas closed one eye and held it an arm's length away. "If you look at it for a while, you can see a face. And if you turn your head to the side a little, it looks like the Mona Lisa."

Dean ran a hand through his hair, which had grown considerably since they were first sent here. It was almost as long as Sam's now. He slapped the rock from Castiel's hand in anger. "Damn it, Cas! You've been gone three goddamn weeks to find a stupid rock that had a stupid face?!"

"Well," Castiel looked down at the rock, looking very much like a sad, kicked puppy. "Yes."

Dean rolled his eyes for what must've been the millionth time and gave a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry Cas. It was a cool rock." The trench coat wearing angel beamed as Dean cleared his throat. "Did you find anything?"

Still smiling, Cas nodded. "The guard is gone."

Dean's brow furrowed. "The guard? What guard?"

Cas knelt down and picked up a stick. Turning it over and over again, inspecting it closely. "You remember the skeleton? With the red eyes?"

Dean thought for a moment. "Yeah, he was the one who tried to kill us when we first got here."

"Well, that's because we were at the door. And that location is supposed to be a secret." Dean was confused and apparently, it showed on his face because Castiel elaborated. "The front door to purgatory." Now Dean simply wanted to strangle the angel.

"What? Cas, this whole time, we could've been looking for the door. We could've forced the guard to take us with him! Damn it!" Cas reminded him to be quiet, for fear of attracting Abaddon's attention again, which angered Dean even further. Despite that, he lowered his voice to a whisper. "It's okay, we've just gotta find the door, and if the guy's gone, you could just zap us out, right?"

Turning the stick in his hand, Cas started chipping off small pieces of it. "Not exactly."

"Care to elaborate on that?"

"Elaborate." Cas said slowly. "Elaborate. It's an odd word, don't you think? El-ab-or-ate. Elaborate."

After a few moments, Dean sighed and kneelt down next to his friend and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Cas. Stay with me just a little bit longer, okay?"

The angel closed his eyes and breathed for a moment. When he opened his eyes again, they were serious, for now the old Cas was here. For now. "Dean I cannot simply 'zap' us out of here. Not even if we were right on the front step, so to speak. We need the guard here to open the door, which he cannot do because he's out there." He said, pointing behind him. He thought for a moment and sighed. "But, I suppose, if we were to wait there by the door, eventually, he'd be banished again. And as soon as the door opens to let him in, I could get us out."

Dean smiled for the first time in a month. "That's great! Well, let's go find the door then!" Dean stood up and looked around as if he'd see a glowing light, leading them to the door.

"Dean." He stopped and turned around to see Cas standing up. He faced the hunter with sorrow in his eyes. "It could be months, most likely years before the guard is banished here again."

The smile on Dean's face faltered a little but after a moment, it was back, just as bright as ever. "Cheeseburger. That's the first thing I'm gonna have when we get back. No, make it a double cheeseburger with bacon, and a fried egg on top."

The way Dean saw it, if he looked forward to the things that were gonna be waiting for him upon their return, then he would keep that small flame lit while in this hurricane. That one little beacon of light in this dark tunnel would keep him going until he got out.

xXx

"What if we-"

"It won't work."

"You didn't even hear me out." Dean said, irritation lacing his words.

"Because it won't work." The angel responded just as heatedly.

For days now, Dean had been trying to think of ways to find the door, since Cas didn't know, and Castiel was shooting down all his ideas. Right now, they were still in the cave Cas had been in before. Dean had made a fire deep within the cave so as not to attract any unwanted attention from the outside. Dean sat against the wall, with his knees drawn up to his chest. Castiel sat across from him, his elbows resting on his knees.

"Well, we've gotta find the door, Cas!" He stood up and stretched. "And I don't see you pitching out any ideas."

"It's not exactly fun for me to point out all the flaws in your plans, Dean." Castiel said, sounding very bored. "And believe me, there's plenty."

Dean rolled his eyes. "I'm gonna go stand watch. Get some sleep." Without another word, Dean left the angel by the fire and went to the entrance of the cave, hidden in the shadows. He kept an alert eye out as he listened to the screams and growls and moans coming from the tortured souls of purgatory.

As he knelt there, watching and listening, a random thought occurred to him. He couldn't remember what he looked like. Could that even happen? Could you really forget what you looked like? It'd been almost a year since he'd seen his own reflection. He could remember Sam's face as clear as day, but not his own. Even as he thought it, Dean knew it was shallow but still, he wondered.

Castiel cleared his throat behind Dean. He turned from his crouched position and faced the angel.

"Here." Cas dug into his pocket and produced a long-dead cell phone before tossing it to Dean.

The hunter grabbed it and looked up at the angel, exasperated. "Cas, it won't work. We tried it when it did work. Remember?"

"Not for that." Cas smiled sadly as he started walking back to the fire. He stopped and turned to look at a very confused Dean and ran a finger over his own jaw. "You could use a shave."

Dean smiled in realization. He slowly brought the phone up, level with his face and looked at his reflection. A heavy beard hid half of his face, and the rest of it was covered in dirt, mud and dried up blood. Peeking through the dirt, dark circles hung below the two hazel eyes looking back at him. He locked eyes with his reflection and stared for a while. He looked like a freakin' caveman. The gaze of his own reflection looking back at him made him shudder. Those eyes that had once shown someone who had endured hardships and pain, but also joy and humanity, now held nothing of the sort. They were the eyes of someone who'd been living with the monsters for far too long. The eyes of an animal.

When Dean lowered the phone, Cas was still standing there with a look of understanding. Dean tossed the phone back to him. He caught it easily.

"Thanks Cas." The angel gave him another sad smile and nodded once before continuing on to the back of the cave. Dean went back to keeping a lookout, watching the dark shadows dance through the trees, a mile or so away. He listened to the sounds of all the demons and other monsters fighting amongst themselves.

xXx

"I'm telling you, we already went down that way." Castiel pointed out. The two had left the cave and were walking through the woods once more. Cas had told Dean that the closer they got to the door, the harsher the conditions would be. When they got closer to the door, there would be no trees to hide behind, no bushes to duck under for protection; just open desert.

"No, we haven't." Dean was getting oh so close to strangling the angel, his hands were just itching to do it. "Cas, no offense, but you've got your eggs a bit scrambled. Plus, I'm a hunter; I know we haven't been here before. Why don't you do something constructive? Like find someone who can help get us to the damn door?"

Cas sighed and disappeared. Dean muttered profanities and continued walking- Cas would catch up eventually. Hopefully. He kept walking until he looked around, only to find that the angel was right. These were the same bushes that's he'd tied a piece of cloth to a few hours ago. He sat down with his back against a tree, closed his eyes and rested his head back on the rough bark. Then he did something that surprised even him.

He started praying. Silently, of course, but he prayed none the less. He prayed for someone, anyone, to help him get to the door. He needed to get there, but had no clue which direction to go. He stood up and blinked several times, blinking away tears of frustration. He'd only taken a few steps when the pain in his arm started up again. He grabbed his arm and held it tight as he continued walking. Of course the poison would start spreading when there was no freakin' angel there to heal him.

Then he felt it. The ground shaking steps of what could only be Abaddon.

Dean started running forward as fast as he could. He couldn't see the thing yet but then, he didn't really want to either. He kept running as the cover of the forest ended, giving way to desert. He had run for at least twenty minutes straight when he was stopped short by a wall of rock. He wasn't sure just how high it was, but he couldn't see the top. Risking a look back behind him, Dean saw the trees shaking with each thunderous footstep. That was all the motivation he needed. He grabbed a part of the cliff that was jutting out and pulled himself up. He struggled to find a place to rest his feet as he searched for another rock to pull himself up.

Dean had been climbing for probably over an hour and a half now; his arms were aching, legs were shaking and his fingers were bloody, which made the climbing about a hundred times harder. He could see the flat top of the top of the cliff from where he hung but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get his hands to move. Bloody hands were holding onto the cliff with a dead man's grip and weren't planning on letting go anytime soon.

Dean knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't help but look down. Once he did, he instantly regretted it. He guessed himself to be about three miles from the ground. He wasn't sure if it was even possible to climb that far that fast, but then, that might've been the two days without water or food talkin'. His mouth was dry, despite the sweat that was constantly dripping into his mouth, and he couldn't even feel his arms anymore. Closing his eyes, Dean vaguely toyed with the idea of just letting go, but aside from the fact that his hands wouldn't let go of the cliff, he had to get to Sam. No matter how long it took.

All of the sudden, his left hand slipped from the rock. Now all that was holding him up was his right hand.

"Cas!" He screamed. "Cas!" Dean screamed out for his friend until he was blue in the face, but nothing. No familiar sound of wings flapping, no one was coming to grab him and zap him to somewhere safe. Well- as safe as you could get in purgatory.

Dean mustered up all of that was left of his strength and reached up to grab the rock, but it was covered in his blood and his hand slipped off once more. That's when he started laughing. Not just a normal chuckle, but a full-out, pee your pants, sidesplitting laugh. Why was he laughing? Good question; he had no idea. Right now, it was either laugh or cry, and he sure as hell wasn't going to cry.

"Now, I see the humor in your situation, but I don't see how you could possibly think this is funny." Dean looked up into the face of the last person he ever wanted to see.