Chapter 93.

Dean had relaxed into the comfortable trivialities of what Sarah called family time and listened contentedly to Sam telling stories of his friends at the bunker and about their mother. Sam and Dean rarely had time or reason to talk about her and listening to Sam's fond tales of hunting with her, late night chats, shared jokes and shared traits gave him an idea of just how close Sam and his mother had become.

It felt right. It felt good to know that, after so many years without that connection, Sam now had a genuine, warm, loving relationship with their mother. Even better, the guarded look was gone from Sam's eyes and there was no feeling that his words were being weighed, considered and edited. He felt safe, here in the parlour of their other mother, with only Sarah and his brother listening. He was talking easily about his relationship with the mother he had never expected to know.

When Sam laughed, Dean found himself laughing too. Their mother was funny. She often made him smile. That same mischievous grin that had once accompanied the words, "Let's sneak a slice of pie!" still crept onto her face and made them a conspiracy of three. Above all, she had brought some joy back into Sam's life and Sam both needed and deserved all the joy in the world.

Sam ended another hunting anecdote and Sarah chuckled as the boys laughed. The brothers' eyes met and Dean knew that Sam was as glad to see him happy as he had been to see Sam smile. For a moment, for once, their honest feelings showed and each knew how much the other needed their happiness.

Dean looked away from his brother and saw Sarah's equally honest expression. She believed that joy healed and she knew they both needed healing. She was encouraging Sam to talk, her body language always offering unspoken support. She was also encouraging Dean to listen, to engage, to enjoy seeing his brother shaking off the darkness that surrounded him these days.

He no longer pretended that he trusted or sought joy. She was right. He hid from any prospect of it, as afraid of the way it would change him as he was distrustful of its permanence. Anything he loved could be taken from him. Anything he enjoyed was just something more to lose. Despair felt safe. Numbed feelings would never hurt as much as the bright, sharp, vivid emotions she wanted him to feel. Since he had met her, Sarah had been trying to persuade him to leap from the security of damnation and self-condemnation into the temporary, uncertain, demanding instability of hope.

It still amazed him that she had convinced him. Even his own family, his own blood, could not. It was something in her own woundedness, her indomitable frailty. She was not shouting at him from some safe ledge above the chaos. She had been battered by hope, broken by grief. She had run and she had failed. She had looked into the eyes of her reflection in a mirror and seen nothing worth saving. She had made the same choice she asked him to make and she had done it alone, without a kindly old lady to lean on when things got difficult. Sarah stood before him, bloody from a thousand fights he could not imagine and she told him it was worth fighting. That made a difference.

They all heard the back door and Cas and Jules quickly joined them in the parlour. They looked happy.

"Everything okay?" said Dean.

"Everything is perfect." said Cas.

"Good. Sam and I have decided that it makes sense, for all kinds of reasons, for us to loan you to Jules for a while. You can help her get things organised, train her new recruits ... you know the kind of thing."

"Of course." said Cas, "We can have regular meetings at the bunker. I enjoy working with Jules."

"No, we thought you should stay here for now." said Dean.

"Well, clearly that can't happen." said Cas.

"Why not?"

"Michael?" said Cas.

"You'll be like thirty minutes away." said Dean.

"Forty, the way I drive." said Cas, "I remember someone pointing that out. Besides, half an hour may as well be half a world away. If Michael attacks, you won't last thirty minutes without me."

"We'll have Jack." said Dean. He felt the hurt and anger from Cas before the angel's expression changed and he instantly regretted not finding a more diplomatic way of putting it.

"You think I'm too weak to fight Michael." said Cas, in a voice that seemed carved from cold slabs of marble, "I'm stronger than you. I could squash you like a bug."

"Please don't." said Sam, "Could we all just calm down?"

"You're stronger than me, yeah, but that doesn't make you stronger than Michael. Gabriel, a frickin' archangel, fought Michael and lost." said Dean.

Quietly, Sam said, "I guess we can't."

"You think I should be scared?" said Cas.

"Hell, yeah, you should be scared." said Dean, "I know you're not, but that's because you don't care if you die."

"You think I'm weaker than some dissolute, debased ... "

"Castiel, dear," said Sarah, "Neither your courage nor your strength is being called into question. Michael has killed you before."

"Different Michael." said Cas.

"Nevertheless ... " said Sarah.

"So you also think I should hide here?"

"I'm keeping out of that discussion." said Sarah, "My own wish to have you here with me makes me incapable of making an unbiased contribution to that debate."

"Isn't hiding here exactly what you want me to do?" said Jules.

"Michael is our fight, not yours." said Cas.

"Oh, really? It was my world he spit-roasted."

"And nobody from your world could stop him." said Cas.

Dean saw the look in her eyes and knew she had taken that in a way Cas had never intended. "Cas, shut up." he said.

"You shut up." said Cas.

Trying to get past the anger and the hasty words, Dean spoke directly to Cas's mind. "You hurt Jules. Back up or back off!"

Cas stared at him, then turned to Jules. "I'm sorry." he said, "That came out wrong. I didn't mean your people were weak. I certainly didn't mean that you were."

There was a long silence as Jules and Cas held a tense and difficult conversation with eye contact alone. Finally, she said, "It's okay. you weren't thinking."

"No, I wasn't." said Cas. He looked at Dean. "I'm glad someone was."

Dean smiled at Jules. "You have my number, Jules. If you need anything or you just wanna bitch about flyboy here, believe me, I can relate."

"The flyboy and I are fine." she said, "I have a thick skin." He knew that, just for a moment, that thick skin had been bypassed.

Cas was unaccountably looking up as if trying to see something upstairs. He seemed distracted.

"Cas?" said Dean.

"Sorry." said Cas, "I just worked out a reference to ceilings." His smile was odd and his eyes flew for a moment to Jules.

She smiled back. "Takes you a while, but you get there."

"I don't think I wanna know." said Dean.

"I'm not staying here." said Cas, "After Michael is defeated, maybe, but not before."

"You're staying here tonight." said Dean, "What's the difference? In fact, we're all here tonight."

"I will not ride the pine." said Cas, "When he comes, I will be there."

"Not if he comes tonight." said Dean.

"It's likely that he will not." said Cas.

"Can't you just cut the risk a little?" said Dean, realising a moment later that he should have covered that with some excuse, so it didn't sound like he wanted Cas out of the battle.

"Will you? Will Sam? Will Jack?"

"I'm trying to persuade Sam that he should be here too." said Dean. Lies and excuses were of no use now.

"So you and Jack face Michael alone?"

"The most effective and the most expendable." said Dean.

"You're saying I'm not effective?" Cas was getting angry again.

So was Dean. "I'm saying you're not expendable, you frickin' idiot!"

"Dean, maybe not the best ... " Sam began.

"Keep out of this!" said Dean, knowing it was completely unfair.

"Boys, this is not ... " said Sarah.

"I know." said Dean, "Cas, I don't mean you're an idiot, but I meant the non-expendable part."

"You still think I'm a baby in a trenchcoat." said Cas bitterly.

"I think you're the best fighter Heaven has."

"The best you have too."

"That goes without saying." said Dean.

"Apparently." said Cas.

"That's not what I mean!" said Dean. He knew things were getting out of hand. He knew he should back down. He also knew he couldn't. "Just listen, for once in your stupid life!" he said.

"Try shutting up for a moment of yours!" said Cas.

"Stop this!" said Jules.

They both froze. Neither had expected her to intervene.

"You're both being irrational." she said.

Neither spoke. Neither dared.

"You're best friends. You can do better than this." she said.

"He wants me out of the bunker." said Cas.

"You want me out of the bunker." said Jules.

"It's different." said Cas, but he sounded uncertain.

"I want you happy. I want you alive." said Dean. He felt his mind trying to say it, so he said it aloud, "I don't want you out of the bunker. I don't want you out of my sight. But I'm sending you away because it's best for you."

"How is that your decision?" said Cas.

Dean's mouth moved a few times, but his lungs clearly didn't feel that the argument he was trying to make deserved the oxygen. "It's not." he finally admitted.

"No, it's not." said Cas.

"Good." said Jules, "We're agreeing on something. Can we be rational now?"