Sam had been sat in his car since he watched Bass walk into the prison. He had decided on the journey up here that he would wait here until he was absolutely certain there was no hope for today. After all it made sense if Dean was released to be here, ready. He checked his phone again, willing it to ring or chime. The only sounds in the car were the steady tick of the dashboard clock, the cooling whirr of the engine fan and the occasional brush of the desert breeze against the exterior panels.

A low slung, black sedan pulled up a few spaces over and Sam watched idly as a figure emerged from the driver's side, mainly hidden from view by the bulk of the vehicle. Head and shoulders bobbed awkwardly along the length of the roof, he was hopping Sam realised. Seconds later the reason became apparent as the man cleared the back of the vehicle, one long pole appeared high above it, reflecting in the glossy shine of the paintwork, he was pulling crutches from the back seat, the clear outline of a plaster cast foot hung mid air behind the rear bumper as he leant against the car for balance.

A flash of light caught Sam's eye and he glanced back in the direction of the prison buildings, the main door had opened and someone was stood in the doorway. A loud clatter drew his attention back to the neighbouring vehicle. The man was now struggling with a briefcase and files and had dropped one of his crutches. With a sigh, Sam opened his door and unfolded himself from his seat strolling over to help.

"I shouldn't have let him talk me out of it. I should have gone with him," Bal complained again, pausing mid-stride as the time ticked past. "The pressure of making the statement and he's worried sick about Meg… it's gotta be tearing him apart."

"If you keep on pacing up and down like this you're gonna be tearing Nevada an even grander canyon," Gabe remarked softly. "Kali is with him, Bal. He told you, he was fine. Now why don't you do what he suggested and try to get some rest."

"I shouldn't have listened. I'm a terrible friend. I should be there to support him. He's had even less sleep than I have, selfish, selfish..."

"You're not selfish, Bal." Gabe peered over the file in his hand. He gave Bal an appraising look and with a sigh finally put down the paperwork he had pointlessly been trying to distract himself with. "You've always had Cassie's back. Remember when I first met you?"

Bal laughed, it sounded a little hollow, but it was a laugh. He paused again in his pacing as Gabe provided his own answer. "I arrive at the most refined kindergarten in town expecting to collect my demure, sensible, quiet little baby bro and there he is, four years old hand in hand with this little boy, blonde as he is dark. Cas caked in mud, clothes torn and you sporting a black eye. And that hairy lipped matron, what was her name?..."

"Mrs Glenn."

"... that was it Mrs Glenn… upper lip quivering like a constipated dog… disapproval screeching from every pore, telling me to…how did she put it?"

"...remove your delinquent little brother and his hoodlum friend from her establishment." Bal supplied.

Gabe nodded, "Dad was furious. It took all Valentine's powers of persuasion to get him to agree not to sue. Once he found out what had been going on he wanted to drag Mrs Glenn through the courts for negligence for letting all that name calling and bullying to go on in the first place. He always hated shit like that. Valentine was adamant that we could never get a court to take it seriously. 'You want to take a playground spat to court. You'll be a laughing stock, man. Besides which we're lucky the other kid's parents just want it to go away.' So instead Mrs Glenn gets a reprimand, the kindergarten gets a brand spanking new set of playground equipment courtesy of Angel Inc and the little brat has to paint an 'apology'. Then after all that I still had to go find you both a new Kindie, because despite his reinstatement Cassie refused to go back without you."

Bal nodded. "And my parents lacked the clout or the finances to buy me out of trouble."

Gabe smiled. "Ah Castiel. It took a lot to push him into it, but he was a headstrong little fuck once he set his mind on something. And he was NOT going to go back to school without Bal. No sir. No way."

Bal laughed. "You know Cas would have just gone on just ignoring them. It was me who got mad and fought back. Billy wouldn't leave Cas alone. Called him freak. Hid his lunchbox. Ripped his pictures. And stoic little bastard just let him. But I couldn't. He tripped Cas on purpose and when I shoved him over he laid into me and that was when Cas finally flipped."

"What did he actually do?" Gabe asked. "I never did find out exactly…"

"Oh, Cas dragged him off me and then sat on him until he said he was sorry. When Billy finally stopped struggling, Cas calmly got up and took my hand and walked me inside to tell Mrs Glenn. William Dukakis III sure learnt not to mess with the 'freak' or his 'boyfriend' ever again. You think Cas was covered in mud, Billy Duke looked like the thing from the black lagoon."

Gabe's laughter turned a little sad. "S'funny really. Dad was actually quite proud of Cas for the whole thing. He didn't think much of the Dukakis family. He always hated bigots and bullies and yet there he was, raising the mother of all bastards in his own brood and slowly handing his firm over to him."

"I never liked Raph," Bal admitted, "Didn't understand why when I was a kid, just didn't like him on instinct. But it can't have been easy for you all…"

Gabe huffed at that. "Understatement of the century...It was unbearable, watching all the in fighting. Lucifer and Raphael permanently at odds, Michael plodding stoically on, avoiding taking sides at all costs. The best I could do was keep Cas out of it, play the fool and try to break the mood. But in the end I just couldn't do it anymore. Dad was already reaching the point where he wouldn't listen to me anymore. The drugs thing was just the final straw… for him and for me. I loved them all too much to stay and watch them rip each other apart. Knowing that one of them had left that shit in my room to frame me...it was just too much… I left them to it, the great big bag of dicks." He paused and picked at his fingers. "Now half my family is dead and it's too late, I can't go back and fix things. So if anyone here is selfish...it's me. I left my little brother to deal with all that… alone…Raphael could have killed him… it's only because he had the luck to run into Dean that he didn't… so now the only thing I can do now is use every trick at my disposal, do everything in my power to get them both safe and help bring that asshole down."

It must be nearly time for his evening meal, he wasn't hungry, but it seemed at least 6 hours since the lunch tray had disappeared back through the hatch. Dean knew he was cruelly fooling himself. In reality it was probably less than an hour since he had heard the telltale scrape and clank. Time was passing unbearably slowly. His muscles ached slightly from a morning spent doing press ups and sit ups and every other kind of exercise he could think of to burn up the unrelenting minutes. He pulled the book from under the folds of the blanket, it really didn't matter if they saw and ordered him to pass it back through the hatch. Even if he didn't get to read it, at least the interaction would alleviate the boredom.

He flicked forward to the place he had left off. He found it easily, Twain had left the middle east and was onboard ship heading back towards Europe and Dean hadn't been reading long when he was struck suddenly by the similarity of his own position to the shipboard routines. Iron bars do not a prison make, he mused. He immersed himself in the sheer 'Twainess' of it, chuckling at the subtlety and charm of the sailor's dialogue. He brushed at a smudge in the middle of the page. Not unusual in a book of this age with its tightly packed typesetting to have ink runs. But then as he turned the page he realised with irritation it was getting worse and beginning to make it difficult to read the text. He flicked forward a few pages to check the extent of the damage, the marks became gradually darker, beginning to take on the appearance of lines of text. Brows furrowing he realised what they were. Whoever had written that post-it had done so in situ. These marks were the resultant leaching of ink into the absorbent pages of the book. He pulled the post-it from the back of the book and flicked backwards and forwards, comparing the blotched and crinkled note with the pages, deciphering the gaps in the message. The sound of the deadbolts sliding open on his cell door had him jumping to his feet, with the last sentence he had made sense of ringing through his mind. Watch out for Alastair…

"Hello Dean. How are you today?"

So much for isolation or for that matter, restraint protocols, Dean thought as the door clanged shut and they stood alone in his cell.

Other vehicles drew into the lot as what Sam presumed were other guards arrived for their shifts. The ebb and flow of people gradually shifting as those leaving began to cross in the other direction like the different layers of seaweed at the change of tide. Eventually the activity stilled and the clock hands measuring his chances of seeing his brother that evening rounded from unlikely towards fat chance.

Reluctantly Sam turned the ignition, put the stick shift into drive and followed the scribbled directions to the little B&B that Bass had suggested as an alternative to the rat pit motel on the highway. "It's the first night out stop for most of the cons. Everything is cheap in that place, the steak, the drugs and the whores. I stayed at the B&B for a few weeks until I got my apartment, the owner is a bit weird, but she's kind enough."

Not even the subtle scent of bergamot from the Lady Grey could soothe Crowley or diminish his irritation. He felt the remnants of Dr. Roman's presence in his office in the same way someone tastes the fur on their tongue after a night's heavy drinking.

The good doctor had tried to insist that he be allowed access to Dean Winchester to carry out a psychiatric assessment and Crowley had reached the limit of his patience in half the time it normally took him as he tried to deflect the visit.

"I'm afraid Mr Winchester is currently under the remit of our medical team," Crowley said with a calm he did not feel. "I can not give you access until he has been officially declared fit for examination."

"I am a qualified doctor, Mr Crowley. I could assess his condition before I begin my court mandated psychiatric…"

Crowley cut him off. "I don't think that would be appropriate, Dr. Roman, or should I call you Dick. It is up to the prison physician to decide when and if prisoners are…"

"Is it possible for him to check Mr Winchester's state of health as a matter of urgency? I only have a 24 hour window in which to make this assessment, without impinging on my other professional duties."

"Well that is fortunate," Crowley had smiled graciously, "Our physician will be in a position to see Mr WInchester tomorrow. If you would like to call tomorrow lunchtime I will be able to let you know whether it's worth you coming back tomorrow afternoon."

"In that case, perhaps you could provide me with the files and reports requested. I can review those this evening, prior to my examination tomorrow."

Back and forth they had battled. Much to his chagrin, Crowley could think of no reason to delay handing over the files. He'd called Missy. "I'm a little behind with my filing, sir ," OK, he was paying attention, "but I have checked my tray for anything important that might be missing from the file." Bless whichever deities had sent him Missy. He'd stake his life on the notes on the skirmish between Dean and Benny not sitting in that file.

With the obvious rudeness that only a very polite Brit can carry off, Crowley had dismissed the oily Dr Roman. Missy personally took him all the way out to his car, carrying his briefcase as he clumped along on his crutches. She'd returned fifteen minutes later with the tea tray, setting it down to softly close the window Crowley had opened to clear the air. And thus they sat quietly, the scent of Bergamot replacing the choke of aftershave, sipping at the aromatic, delicate tea sweetened with a dash of clover honey. "Well," she commented quietly, "he was more smarm than charm."

Crowley nodded. "The paperwork?"

"Shredded. While you were talking." She smiled at Crowley's look of surprise. "It's not like you had any intention of ever completing it."

He shrugged the truth of it. "Anything else?"

"He asked whether I had any recommendations on where he should stay…" She hid her smile behind her tea cup, eyes wide and obscenely innocent, as the crowd of Shirley Temple curls quivered with the movement. "I gave him directions to the motel on the highway..."

Crowley's laughter could be heard all the way down the corridor.

If he and Dean ever met up on the outside after this whole nightmare mess was sorted out, the first thing Benny was going to do was sit him down and teach him Morse code. Three hours of gut churning anxiety when all he got back was a tapped rhythm .Six feet away and completely unable to communicate with the kid. All the while worrying that the shift change was gonna bring trouble their way. Bass had told him that Crowley was adamant that neither he nor Alastair was allowed on Iso, but if Bass could circumvent Crowley's dictat, Alastair sure as hell would be able to. And Benny was almost certain now that it was Alastair who was the danger.

At least lady luck was on his side with the guard duty. Just about the only guard stupid and bribable enough to let him actually pass messages in isolation was on the night roster. He'd looked puzzled when Benny asked for post-it notes, a sharpie and the book from his library cart, but he'd complied nonetheless. It had cost Benny a pretty fortune to get him to slide the book into Dean's cell during the night. Bass had come through with the sabotage of the cameras. They'd been fixed this morning he noticed. All he could do now was sit and wait. He was confident that Alastair would make his move at some point, he just had to hope that Dean would stay out of it or better still be long gone by that point.

Bass had strolled quietly in the direction of the Isolation Wing. Collecting his radio and his equipment at each stage, listening to the claustrophobia inducing clangs and clunks of locks as he passed through each detector and level of security, the feeling of descending ever deeper into hell occurring to him yet again. He'd waited until Eli had gone for one of his ever frequent toilet breaks before quietly letting himself into Dean's cell. "Hello Dean. How are you today?" The look of surprise flashed quickly over Winchester's features before settling into a pursed lip appraisal.

There was no aggression there, just wariness. A coiled readiness, masked by a deliberately relaxed stance. "Well hello, Bass. Come to give me another vampire kiss or you actually gonna just talk to me this time?"

Eli returned from his toilet break to find Bass smiling at him benignly from behind the array of security monitors, sipping a coffee. He settled next to him and glanced at the monitors. Both of the prisoners looked surprisingly relaxed for men in isolation, normally prisoners in here were either mice or tigers. These two looked so relaxed they could almost be in a poolside cabana rather than a jail cell. He himself was a naturally lazy man, so he liked to think it would be his modus operandi too. The phone rang and the pair stared at it, Bass closed his spare hand over his mug and nodded towards it, with a sigh Eli relented and picked it up.

"You what? You're shitting me…. Yeah… Yeah… well, OK… but shit… I'm s'posed to finish in twenty… no… well, no… I guess, we'll have to. Too late for anything else now… yeah… you take care now."

Bass' eyes, brown as his coffee, were pools of liquid innocence over the rim of his mug, eyebrows raised in question.

"One down on the night shift. Thompson's got food poisoning." He looked at Bass expectantly. Bass blinked back, mouth still hidden behind his mug. "Well shit, boy, there's a game on tonight…"

Slowly Bass put his mug down. "I suppose I could stay, cover for you. I know you're the on call, but heck… I don't even like sports."

"Wouldya?"

Bass nodded slowly, once more lifting his mug to his lips.

"Well, I ain't gonna knock you back on an offer like that… don't much like working with Alastair anyways. You alright, Bass?" He patted the younger man heavily on his back as he choked on his coffee.

The B&B was every bit as charming as Bass had suggested, the entrance hall was more like a hotel, panelled, spotted with real pot plants and pictures, sunlight flooding through a stained glass panel next to the front entrance. The woman on the desk who introduced herself as Becky, had scanned Sam from toe to mahogany locks and promptly changed the room number on her ledger. The scratching sound of metal nib on the parchment like paper somehow completing the sense of taking a step back in time.

When he unlocked and opened his door Sam discovered, that apparently, his height entitled him to a quiet room with a king size bed overlooking the high walled garden. Double doors opened onto a small balconette, soft voile deflecting the bright sunlight into something softer and more soothing. He kicked off his shoes without untying them and flopped onto the bed. He had two hours until he needed to go downstairs to eat and he'd already set his phone alarm. He was asleep before the mattress stopped bouncing under his weight.

Jody looked up from the spread of papers and maps and statements. She stared at Henrikson with something bordering on admiration. "How long did it take you to pull this together?"

"I've been working on it since… since Winner." He looked away for a moment.

"That's only a few days, Lance. This case was… it's had teams… poring over it, for months...this is…to make this kind of progress... it's exceptional..."

"I need your help to finish it, to piece the final bits, you know this case backwards, Mills… Fresh eyes took me this far, I need intimate knowledge to finish the job…"

"I get that. And, of course, you know I'd do anything for those boys, but you... it's not like you don't even know them…"

"You're wondering why." He confirmed her unspoken question. "I can't touch the Angel case. I go near it… well… my career as an agent is already probably over, but I might even screw up the case… the last thing we need is his defence portraying me as some crazed vengeful agent. I need something to do, I quietly sit out my suspension, do nothing for weeks on end, I'm gonna go crazy. This I can do. If I can't take that bastard down, I can at least do something to get some good out of this." He took a slug of coffee and Jody silently re-filled his mug letting him talk. "Lomax was a good agent, Jody, more than that... hell, he was a good man. He didn't deserve… Joe and I, we talked quite a bit. The agency was more than just a job for him, it was something he had wanted to do before he knew what an agent was and he was prepared to lose it all, his lifelong dream, just because it was the right thing to do. It cost him his life."

Jody nodded and pulled a quick sympathetic smile. She set the coffee jug down and patted his shoulder. He looked at her, the hint of moisture in his eyes, matching the slight hitch in his voice. He cleared his throat and drank some more coffee. "That kind of integrity… it needs a legacy."

The insistent trill of his phone came too early, but Sam Winchester had spent years surviving on snatched sleep when he was younger and the past few weeks living on the brutal regime of a baby's clock. In short he was used to power napping. With a sigh he sat up and scrolled through his texts. The message from Gabe was short and to the point. The orders for Dean's release were signed. Effective immediate, all charges were dropped and his brother was free man. His mobile phone was down as first contact point, he would be getting a call in the morning to confirm what time he should collect him. Feeling lighter than he had in weeks he shoved his feet back into his shoes and headed down the stairs.

He was just turning the corner towards the dining room when he spotted a pair of crutches leaning up the wall, the metal grips peaking out from behind the glossy dark green leaves of some kind of tropical plant. He froze, his body reflecting his mind's indecision. He had specifically avoided Becky's questions about the reasons for his stay and wasn't sure what this man's connection with the prison was. He was no ordinary visitor, going in there with files and a briefcase, but he might just be some con's lawyer. Sam had learnt to be thorough, life could be cruel if you didn't pay attention to details. Could he be something to do with Raphael? Cas had been adamant that his brother was trying to get to Dean... Maybe he could strike up a conversation over dinner, but he had signed in here under his own name... there was no way he would be able to hide who he was in such a small place... The ledger... if he could sneak a look at the ledger, get the name, he could call the team, they would be able to trace this guy and find out if he was anyone to worry about. He backtracked softly and looked down at the book. He used the ribbon to flick it to the current page. He scanned the entries… Winchester… Anderson...and then two spaces below his own name… dammit… Roman. Dr Richard Roman. He flicked the book shut. Shit.

He turned sharply intent on getting back upstairs so he could call Gabe and bumped square into Becky, who was carrying a plate of food from the kitchen in the direction of the dining room. With an elegant twist of her wrist she salvaged the platter, waving his apologies aside with her other hand. "No harm done, Sam, half my own fault anyway. Are you coming into dinner?" Her enthusiasm seemed a little odd.

"Actually I was, but I think I'm...er… well I think the journey is catching up with me."

She smiled broadly and nodded sympathetically.

"Maybe I should just... er... get an early night," Sam murmured, slightly puzzled at the wild look in her over bright eyes.

She dropped her voice to a hushed whisper and lent towards him. "I don't normally like guests to eat in their room, but how about I make you something light. Soup, or sandwiches." Her body language became even more conspiratorial. "I'll bring it up to you." She gave him a heavy wink and made off in the direction of the dining room before he could protest.