There's so much sorrow/It's way too late to say/
I'll cry tomorrow/Each of us must find our truth.
-Thankful (Josh Groban)

Mary heard the crash, followed by a yell she was sure came from Dean, which was then followed by another crash. Abandoning her approach to what she presumed was a study connecting to the living room, Mary retraced her steps to where she'd last seen Dean.

It took her only a few moments to find the door under the stairs, which had been closed earlier but now stood open, telling her that Dean must have gone that way. She headed into the narrow hall beyond, and it wasn't long before she could hear the sound of an unfamiliar voice. Soon she could understand what it was saying, or the words themselves anyway. What it meant by them was another matter.

"Dean Winchester, as I don't live and breathe," the voice was saying, "What a surprise. I was just explaining to our mutual acquaintance what I've learned about him. I said he wasn't an Angel, but that was maybe a bit of a lie. No, the truth is just that he's not an Angel of The Lord. Hasn't been since he dragged your filthy human soul out of the Pit," the voice changed pitch, seemed to be talking to someone else now, "It was right when you killed your first Angel, wasn't it? When you rebelled. That's when it happened. When I found that tidbit, it finally hit me, the real reason for everything you've ever done. It wasn't for the Greater Good at all, even if there is such a thing."

Mary was around the corner, approaching a room with a partially open door cautiously, knowing that what lay beyond had senses greater than those of a human, and that she must approach very, very carefully if she didn't want to be noticed. And she really didn't want to be noticed.

"You damn bastard," she heard Dean hiss angrily.

But the owner of the voice ignored him, "See, you're not an Angel of the Lord. Not anymore. Not for years now. No, you're an Angel of Dean Winchester. Have been ever since you took Dean away from us. You come when he calls. You obey his orders. You have killed thousands of your own in his name, burned and bled and were cursed and died for him."

She could see a little through the door now, enough to observe that Dean was on the floor, struggling to get to his feet after being hurled against the wall, looking around for the gun he'd dropped in the process. But she couldn't see the person -Demon- he was addressing because it was deeper in the room, and the wall and angle of the open door combined to block her view.

"And just how has he repaid you for your sacrifice?" Mary could almost hear The Demon's merry smirk, imagine its eyes shining with deranged glee as it went on, "Did he help you when your Grace was stolen, when you became human and every Angel on Earth was hunting you down like the filthy, broken, disgusting creature you are? No! He left you out in the cold, because you were too inconvenient to bother with. And that wasn't even the first time, was it? Oh no, it's a regular pattern with him!"

Mary got around the door, then drew back out of view as The Demon threw up its hands, turned and stalked a few paces away, then whirled back around, its voice loud and almost hysterical with barely suppressed laughter, "They call, and you drop everything. They say 'jump' and you leap straight over the moon, no question asked," it paused, struggling with a fit of giggles, "And in return? You spit up blood in the street and they leave you there. You starve, and they leave you to die. You commit the worst sin imaginable for an Angel, rebellion -your kind's Murder One!- give up everything you've ever known, ever loved, break yourself all to bits just for their benefit. And they thank you by trampling all over the shattered pieces in their rush to save each other."

She winced as she heard the thud of what sounded like a shoe connecting with something much softer, a thud which repeated until Dean abruptly cried out.

"For God's sake, stop it!" The Demon flinched -just that little bit- at the name of the Lord; just as Dean had known it would. And then it turned slowly towards him.

It caught Dean telekinetically and slammed him against the wall, stepping again into Mary's view, but this time with its back to the door, "Why? Don't tell me you didn't enjoy it when you were a Demon."

Mary's felt a shock of horror that froze her where she stood. She didn't want to believe what The Demon had just said. Demons lied. Maybe this one was lying. She found herself praying fervently that it was lying. To her deepening shock, Dean didn't deny what The Demon had said, and Mary knew by the tightening knot in her gut that it was the truth. Dean hadn't merely been to the Pit of Hell, he'd actually been turned into a damned thing, a Demon. She couldn't understand how that was possible, and her incomprehension and horror was enough to paralyze her for a moment.

"You remember that, don't you, Seraph?" The Demon's smile broadened as it looked over its shoulder briefly; when it looked back at Dean, its eyes glittered as it savored the next words that spilled in a tone sweet as honey from its lips, "Oh yes, you talked about it didn't you? I've heard the second-hand stories about the way you said you laid into your Angel. According to you, it didn't even try to fight back. Not against you. Would barely even defend itself, but you tore into the Angel anyhow, tossed it out of your path and then kept right on going because it was just so damn satisfying to break its face," The Demon looked over its shoulder again - Mary presumed at Castiel, though she could not see him from her position, "But he didn't kill you. And you know why?"

"You damn bastard," Dean, now reduced to repeating himself, managed to choke out, but The Demon had only eyes for Castiel now, though it still held Dean pinned to the wall.

The Demon decided Castiel wasn't going to answer the question, and so answered the question itself, "He said it was because you were like a fly somebody had pulled the wings off of; it was simply too much fun to watch your pathetic struggling, and he didn't want that show to end," the Demon paused, grinning wickedly, "Looking at you now, I can see what he meant."

Mary recovered her nerve, and stepped into the room. But The Demon had apparently sensed her. Even as she entered, she felt the gun rip out of her hands and watched helplessly as it flew across the room and clattered to the floor at Dean's feet. Dean watched the gun, noted where it fell, and looked at his mother. They still had a chance, if he could just get his hands on that gun.

After a beat, she realized that they were not the only ones still in the fight.

Castiel, pale, trembling and bloody, had pushed himself to a sitting position, bracing against the wall. The look in his eyes was one of profound anguish, but above that was the sort of fury Mary had seen when she'd first met him in the Bunker, a look she had felt afraid of even before she knew that the gun she'd been holding at the time would do little more than piss the Angel off... because some part of her had sensed the power, even though she seemed to have been looking at another human being, and hadn't known yet that Angels existed.

Even if she hadn't already known Castiel as well as she did, she knew from that look in his eyes that he was the one who would draw The Demon's attention. He was the one The Demon most hated, and he was the one most prepared to do what it took. Besides which, he was clearly in the worst shape, meaning that as a group they had the best chance of winning if The Demon paid attention to him, and loosened its hold on Dean and Mary.

Painfully, using the wall for support, the Angel struggled to a standing position. There was more than just pain in his eyes, Mary realized. There was also a deep, almost crippling fear. But Castiel knew that he didn't have to win. He just had to push The Demon hard enough to get what he wanted. It could talk all it liked, say anything it wanted about him, just so long as it did what he needed it to do. That was all that mattered. He could push it that far. He could do that much at least.

When he spoke, his voice was steady and low, if uncharacteristically mocking, "A real Demon, with the forces of Hell behind it… it wouldn't need to pawn Angel feathers to get by. And it certainly wouldn't need a weak-willed, unskilled, and extremely foolish child of a witch to do its dirty work for it."

The Demon drew itself to its full height, and Mary watched the hellfire blaze forth, darkening its eyes, flooding them with black fury. The Demon's words might have rung true, but Castiel's -though few- were apparently truer still, and painted a hideous and almost sadly pathetic picture of a creature who had little left save ego and spite.

"You said you came to kill an Angel," Castiel continued to taunt in a low growl, "So do it then. Unless -even armed with a Blade- you're afraid to face this 'pathetic specimen of Angel-kind,'" despite his clear weakness, Castiel still managed to find the strength make his eyes flash with Angelic light, though his wings did not show their intimidating shadow.

That did it!

Its frothing rage getting the better of it, The Demon spun to finish off the Angel, at the same time losing its hold on Mary and Dean, who both fell to the floor. Dean scrambled for Mary's gun, rolling so he could aim at The Demon without bothering to get up even as it closed with the Angel.

A single shot rang out with a deafening roar which echoed throughout the farmhouse.

"Cass!" Dean was able to see from where he was that he hadn't been fast enough to prevent The Demon from reaching Cass, but both Angel and Demon had dropped at the shot, and he couldn't see to determine the condition of either from where he lay on the floor.

Anger and fear flooded through him, most of the former directed at The Demon, though he had some in reserve for the Angel too. Cass had known exactly what he was doing in provoking that Demon. Knew it would have a shot at killing him before Dean could stop it. But he'd taken that chance, and Dean knew why. As usual, Cass had thrown his welfare aside in favor of protecting the Winchesters, and Dean in particular. He'd done it not to save himself, but to try and save them. The dumb little idiot.

As he got to his feet, Dean's chest ached in that unique Recently Pinned By a Demon way, and he absently rubbed it as he scrambled across the room, staggering slightly as his brain renewed its acquaintance with the oxygen the Demon's power had been withholding from him.

Dean kicked The Demon aside, disappointed but not surprised that it was alive. After all, he'd only hit it with a Devil's Trap bullet. That had the power to stop it, not actually kill it. The Demon could wait. Or Mom could kill it. Right now, Dean didn't really give a damn.

He dropped to his knees beside the collapsed Angel, strangling back the unexpected urge to cry and instead quietly berating the Angel without really meaning or even being particularly aware of what he said, "Dammit, Cass... we came here to save you, you stupid son-of-a-bitch."

Frantically, he felt for the ridiculous excuse for breath Cass produced, then checked for the unnaturally steady heartbeat. A healthy human heartbeat was regarded as being steady, but Dean had discovered long ago that the pulse of a vessel inhabited by an Angel made it seem like even the healthiest humans on the planet had a severe case of arrhythmia.

Dean let out a sigh of relief when he felt the pulse at Castiel's neck, and he sat back to take what seemed like his first deep breath in days, ignoring the bruised feeling in his chest as he did so. Cass wasn't responsive, and that was real bad, but at least he wasn't dead yet, and Dean realized that was more than he'd been expecting, all things considered.

Hearing a noise behind him, Dean turned where he crouched, brought up his gun, and then immediately put it down again as he realized Sam had heard the commotion and come on the run to join the action, if there was any left to be had. Sam stood sort of dumbly in the doorway, taking in the scene. Dean left his brother to put the pieces together for himself, instead focusing on Cass.

Cass's eyes were closed, and Dean wondered if the unnatural paleness of his skin was an affliction of vessel or Angel. He'd been hoping the buckets of spilled blood in his dreams had been an exaggeration, but he saw now that they were not. If anything, there seemed to be more blood than he'd dreamed, splattered across every surface in the room, including some that had somehow -Dean didn't want to know how- gotten onto the ceiling.

Unsure what else to do, Dean ran his hands over the Angel, looking for injuries by touch and feel as if he were inspecting a human. He was almost surprised to find some besides the one The Demon had just inflicted. Cass usually healed his physical injuries in fairly short order. Even struggling under Rowena's spell, and wearing Enochian handcuffs, Cass had found the wherewithal to heal the slashes inflicted by his fellow Angels. But the bullet wounds he'd mentioned to Dean still remained, the one in his shoulder was even oozing a little blood.

But worse by far was the wound The Demon had just put into him. The Blade had dug deep into Cass's shoulder, and slid down along his chest as The Demon fell, burying itself in the space between two ribs. Dean knew that the Blade had to go in deep, and in the right spot, to kill an Angel outright, but it looked to him like this Blade had come pretty damned close to that distance.

"Ouch," Sam remarked, looking over Dean to survey the damage.

It was an idiot remark, but Dean knew that sometimes sounds and words came out without any sense attached. And he wasn't very interested in what Sam had to say just now. Suddenly remembering the warding Cass had mentioned, Dean looked around. If there was warding, it had been hidden behind the gray, which Dean realized was wallpaper and not paint, and that seemed to support the idea that at least some of the warding was in the walls.

"Okay," Dean said quietly, collecting his thoughts and putting a leash on his runaway emotions, "Well first things first. This has got to come out of you."

As gently as he could, Dean took hold of the Angel Blade, and slowly pulled it out, wincing at the Angelic light that flowered around the edges of the wound, suggesting he was doing more harm despite how careful he was trying to be. But at least Cass didn't seem to feel it. That was something. If Cass had been human, Dean would've worried about taking out the Blade, because that would increase the bleeding. But with Angels, blood loss was actually pretty trivial most of the time. Just by being stuck in him, the Angel Blade would continue to do untold damage to Cass. Removing it immediately was the only thing that seemed to make any sense.

"And then it goes into that demonic son-of-a-bitch before he can start talking a lot of crap again," Dean handed the Blade to Sam without actually looking up, gesturing vaguely in the direction of The Demon somewhere behind him.

Sam obediently took the Blade without a word. Dean sighed, relieved that removing the Blade hadn't killed the Angel outright, relieved that the heart continued its supernaturally stable beating. Only after did it occur to him that The Demon had stabbed Cass with his own Blade, which somehow just seemed like adding insult to very possibly fatal injury.

"Dean," Mom's quiet voice made Dean look up, but she wasn't looking at him.

On the floor between them, slick and shimmering, looking almost black in the odd lighting of the room, lay three blood-covered feathers.

Dean closed his eyes, and heard himself involuntarily whisper, "Dammit, Cass."

Cass, if you never do anything else, just stay alive now. That's the only Christmas gift I need from you. Just don't die on me. Not now. We still need you. A helluva lot more than you realize, Dean thought, but had enough self-control not to actually say it aloud, though he wasn't entirely sure if maybe he wasn't actually praying a little bit, hoping Cass might hear him even through unconsciousness.

He didn't know if Cass could hear him, but it felt better to talk to the Angel, even if only in his head. It always had felt better, even in the early days. Sometimes it had felt like Dean had been talking to the empty air, which had made it easier to say the things he needed to say.

Finding out Cass had always heard him even when Dean hadn't realized it in turn made it easier to knowingly talk to the Angel about... well just about anything when Castiel was right in front of him. In some ways, Cass was even easier to talk to than Sam.

It felt right to tell Cass his troubles. It always had, even at those times when Dean was so mad he wanted to wring the Angel's neck... and even though Cass didn't understand most of Dean's problems because they were the sorts of troubles humans had and Angels simply weren't built to understand. It had felt right in part because Cass had always listened, even when he hadn't answered Dean's prayers. Cass's willingness to listen to Dean was what had eventually won them the Apocalypse, and that had been no small thing, though it seemed long ago and far away now.

Aloud, all Dean said was, "Okay, Cass, time for you to not be in here anymore."