A/N: Thank you so much for your patience. With NaNoWriMo in full swing, I can only post so often. I had a couple chapters prewritten but I'm trying to space them out I don't end up with a month long gap of no updates. So, thank you so much for your patience. Also, as always, thank you so much to everyone who has supported this story in anyway. I really, really appreciate it. Please consider leaving a review as I would really like to know what you guys think. Obviously the numbers show that people are enjoying this story, but I'm still trying to figure out why everyone likes it as much as they do. Enjoy the chapter!

"I found a hunt," Dean announced.

"What?" Sam asked.

"Out in New Mexico. Two people in the last two weeks were killed after clawing their own eyes out. I figured it sounds like our kind of thing. Don't you think?"

Sam just stared at his brother, trying to hide his shock. Dean actually sounded normal. It was almost as if a switch had been flipped inside of Dean. There was no doubt in Sam's mind that Dean was still hurting. Dean was probably just pushing everything down and choosing not to deal with it, just like he always did.

"Well?" Dean prompted.

"Uh, yeah," Sam said quickly. "Sounds good. When do you want to leave?"

"Now?" Dean suggested. There was no point in hanging around here anymore. Besides, Dean needed to get out of here and breathe. He was hoping that focusing on a hunt might be able to take his mind off of some of these things.

"Ok," Sam agreed.

Dean was already packed and was loading his things into the car. Sam was packing, but thanks to training from his father, it didn't take too long for Sam to pack. Less than twenty minutes later, the two brothers were on the road, heading toward New Mexico.

Fourteen hours later, Dean pulled into a motel in New Mexico. Both brothers could tell that it was not the nicest motel by any stretch, but they were they didn't have a lot of money and this was the first motel they were able to find.

Sam paid for the room while Dean worked on unloading their bags.

"I'm going to go get dinner. You want your usual?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. Extra bacon," Dean said. He had decided that he was going to stay back while Sam went to get food. He wouldn't admit that he was staying back in the hopes that maybe Cas would show up. After all, that was always when Cas would show up before. Sam would leave to get food and as soon as Sam was out the door, Cas would show up.

Being alone in the motel room while Sam got dinner made Dean realize how much he really missed Cas's presence. It was more than just having another person to talk to. After all, the two had just sat in silence a couple times. More than anything, Dean just wanted Cas back.

Dean wondered how people did it. How were people supposed to just get over losing a soulmate? Every day just sucked. It had been a lot easier when Dean hadn't known that he had had a soulmate. Now, everything was harder.

Dean was pulled from his thoughts when Sam opened the door to their motel room. Dean realized he must have really been out of it because it certainly didn't feel like enough time had passed.

Sam handed Dean a bacon cheeseburger and some onion rings before digging into his own food.

Three days later, Sam and Dean found themselves sneaking through a house. They had somehow convinced the family that if they left for a few hours, that when they came back, their "problem" would be gone.

As quietly and carefully as they could, the brothers moved throughout the house. The spirit had to be there somewhere. All of the evidence they had pointed to the vengeful spirit of a teenage boy who had been killed by his father nearly two decades earlier. Now it was just a matter of getting the spirit to show up so Sam and Dean could take care of it.

The brothers split up. Dean went into the room on the left while Sam went into the room on the right.

Stepping into the room, Dean moved his flashlight around, looking for anything. It was always the littlest things that would help. He heard the door to the bedroom slam shut. Instantly, Dean turned around and moved the flashlight around the door, but saw nothing, other than that the door was now closed. Dean made a quick decision and moved toward the door. He tried to turn the doorknob, but found it had been locked from the outside. Dean jiggled the doorknob with more force, hoping he could shake it loose.

"Dean!" Sam yelled.

Dean shook the doorknob harder, but it still wouldn't budge. Dean took a step back, lifted his leg, and slammed his foot into the door with enough force to break the lock and leave the door swinging on its hinges.

Dean quickly ran across the hall to the room where Sam was supposed to be. Dean took a quick look around the room, but found it empty.

"Sam!" Dean called, hoping his brother would respond so he could follow his brother's voice. "Sam!"

Dean," Sam called back. "Down here."

Dean moved down the hall, toward his brother's voice. He kept his shotgun out, just in case Sam had actually found the spirit. When Dean entered the room, he had expected to see the spirit. However, as he stepped into the room, he only saw Sam.

"Check this out," Sam said. Sam was standing in the closet of one of the bedrooms. Dean looked to where Sam's flashlight was pointed. There was a small door in the corner of the closet. Dean would have completely missed it if Sam hadn't point it out.

"You think it's in there?" Dean asked.

"I can't get it open," Sam said. "But they weren't able to recover a lot of the kid's body."

"You think that the dad killed his son and stuffed the body in here?"

"And then he sealed the room," Sam added. "It's small enough so a lot of people wouldn't notice it."

Dean nodded as he felt a blast of cold air. "You feel that?" Dean asked.

"Yeah."

Both brothers turned around and got their shotguns ready. They only had to wait for a moment. The spirit of Danny Williams stood in the doorway of the room. Danny stared at the brothers for a moment before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a knife and moving toward Dean.

Dean's eyes widened. As the spirit moved toward him, all he could see was Cas standing in front of him.

Cas fought as hard as he could, but the demon was too quick. The demon plunged a blade deep into Cas's chest. Cas dropped to the floor, completely unmoving.

Dean came back to reality at the sound of a gunshot. He quickly looked around and noticed that Sam must have shot the spirit with rock salt.

"You ok, man?" Sam asked, his voice laced with concern.

"Yeah."

"Seriously. Maybe we should just—"

"We're finishing this hunt, Sam."

Sam sighed. He knew his brother had just frozen. Normally, Dean would have shot the spirit before Sam could even think. Dean had even had the clearer shot, but Sam had instantly noticed that something was wrong. Dean had frozen up. Without thinking, Sam had taken the shot. "Fine," Sam said. "You work on getting in there. I'll keep watch." Sam didn't want to give his brother another chance to freeze up. It's not that he didn't trust Dean, it was more that Sam wanted to make sure that both of them could still make it out of there alive.

Dean did his best to clear his mind as he walked toward the closet. Cas's death was still extremely vivid in his mind and that was definitely something he would rather not be there. He took a deep breath, went to work, and hoped that he would just be able to move passed this.

Dean moved into the closet, working to find a way to open the small door. Dean couldn't tell what the door was sealed with, but he figured that enough forced would do the trick. As hard as he could, Dean rammed his foot against the tiny door. The wall shook but the door didn't budge. Dean tried again, this time the door appeared to move a little. On the third try Dean was actually able to kick through the door.

Dean moved some as much of the door away as he could before shining a flashlight into the tiny room. He couldn't see much, but there definitely was a small pile of bones in there.

"Found it," Dean informed his brother.

"Ok. Let's get his body out of here and torch it," Sam said.

"And how do you expect to move a skeleton?" Dean asked.

"Well we can't torch it in there. We'll burn the whole house down," Sam reasoned.

Dean sighed, Sam was right. "Did you bring the duffel in?"

"Yeah, it's at the end of the hall."

"Be right back," Dean said, moving out of the closet. Quickly, he moved down the hall. He grabbed the bag and turned around.

Standing in front of him was Danny Williams's spirit. The spirit curiously turned his head and looked at Dean.

Dean swallowed hard. The spirit started moving toward him. Dean looked to the spirit's hands and noticed there was a knife in its hands. Suddenly, it felt as though Dean couldn't breathe. All he could focus on was the knife in the spirit's hands.

It was quiet, Sam noted. Much to quiet. The duffel was at the end of the hall. There was no way it should have taken Dean this long. Besides, Sam should have heard Dean's footsteps by now.

Sam walked over to the doorway and stepped out into the hall. Immediately, he saw the spirit of Danny Williams's moving toward his brother. The spirit had its knife out and Dean was completely frozen.

Sam didn't even think. He aimed the shotgun and pulled the trigger. The spirit disappeared.

"Dean," Sam said frantically, moving closer to his brother. "You ok, man?"

Dean swallowed hard and nodded. Sam knew his brother was lying. "Why don't you go wait by the car? I can finish up here," Sam suggested.

"I can hel—"

"It's fine, Dean. I can finish it. Why don't you go clear your head?"

"Fine," Dean said, his voice a mix between anger and relief.

Sam came out of the house ten minutes later, their duffel bag stuffed with the bones of Danny Williams slung over his shoulder. He dumped the bones out of the bag, doused them in lighter fluid and salt, and set them on fire.

As the bones burned, he turned to look for his brother. Dean was sitting on the ground, leaning back against the Impala. Sam wanted more than anything to go over and help his brother, but knew that he needed space. Instead, Sam watched as the bones burned until there was nothing there except ashes.

"There's a hunt in Virginia," Dean told Sam the next morning. Dean had gotten up early. Well, it wasn't really getting up if he never went to bed. He had still been pretty shaken up after the last hunt.

"Seriously?" Sam asked. After what had just happened on this hunt, Dean wanted to go start another one? Absolutely not, Sam thought.

"Yeah," Dean said seriously.

"You've got to be kidding me," Sam said in disbelief.

Dean just shrugged.

"You completely froze up, Dean. You nearly got yourself killed. You can't seriously think that going on another hunt is a good idea."

"Sam—"

"Dean just think for a minute. Please. I don't want to see you get hurt."

"I'll be fine, Sam," Dean promised. "It was just a one time thing. I swear."

"Dean—" Sam started, but he was cut off by Dean.

"Just trust me on this, Sam," Dean pleaded. Dean couldn't explain it, but he knew that he had to go to Virginia. The hunt was more of a cover up. Dean just needed a reason before Sam would just drop everything to drive all the way across the country. Sure, Dean would have done it for Sam in a heartbeat, but am wasn't Dean. He needed a reason.

Sam still looked skeptical, not that Dean blamed him. He would have been acting exactly how Sam was acting if the roles were reversed. Actually, it had been like that. When Jess had died, Dean constantly worried about Sam even when Sam claimed that he was fine.

"Sam, please."

After a moment, Sam finally agreed. "Fine."

Two days later, Dean pulled the Impala into the parking lot of another sketchy looking motel. Sam went in to pay while Dean waited in the car. He still couldn't explain it, but he still felt that he needed to be here.

Sam came back out to the car and grabbed his bag. Dean followed Sam toward their room. Upon entering, Dean looked around, but noticed nothing unusual.

"Hey man, you ok?" Sam asked. Dean hadn't said much during the entire drive and to say that Sam was worried was a bit of an understatement.

"What?" Dean asked, turning toward his brother.

"I said, are you ok?" Sam repeated.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Cause you know, we could always just skip this and go back to Bobby's."

"No," Dean said instantly.

Sam stared at his brother, wondering what was going on in his head. "Ok."

"I'm sorry. It's just…"Dean trailed off.

"Just what?" Sam prompted.

"I can't really explain it."

"Try."

"I really can't. I just feel that I need to be here," Dean explained.

Sam nodded. It wasn't a lot, but Sam understood where Dean was coming from. Sometimes there were things you just couldn't explain and apparently this was one of them.

"You want me to go get some food?" Sam asked.

"Uh yeah. My usual," Dean said before moving into the bathroom.

Sam sighed, but didn't say anything. Instead he grabbed the keys off the table and went out to find some food.

Two days passed and nothing out of the ordinary occurred. Well, nothing unusual for Sam and Dean. Most people wouldn't consider chasing after an angry spirit normal.

However, despite everything being normal, it didn't stop Dean from looking for anything out of the ordinary everywhere they went. He still hadn't figured out what the feeling was all about, but it hadn't gone away. Dean still felt like he needed to be here.

Every night, Sam went out to get food while Dean stayed at the motel. Dean hoped that the more he thought about it, he would be able to figure out why he was actually here.

Dean heard the door open and looked over. Sam must have forgotten something because there was no way he could have been back with food that fast. However, when Dean looked over, he didn't see Sam. "Cas?"