Cass woke the next morning to pain and regret. The sunlight coming in through the window was stabbing past her eyelids like knives, and for a long time she simply laid flat on her back in bed, taking deep breaths until she was certain she wouldn't spew half-digested nachos and whiskey bile all over the floor.

She laid there, and breathed, and mentally replayed the night before.

The terror of facing the Witnesses already felt like it had happened a week ago. The whiskey and her long sleep had dulled the experience, which Cass counted as a silver lining.

The whiskey hadn't even been a bad idea, really—or it wouldn't have been, if she had consumed a reasonable amount of it. But she had far exceeded a reasonable amount of whiskey, made worse by the fact that for a good 24 hours beforehand she had been running on little more than coffee and adrenaline. She'd let the elation of surviving against her first encounter with ghosts cloud her judgment, and then she'd agreed to a drinking game that had gone on for far too long, and then…

Then, she'd almost kissed Sam. It had been a very near thing. If the oven timer hadn't gone off, it probably would have happened.

Sam had squeezed her hands and said her name, and she would have looked back at him to see what he would have to say. Sam would have hesitated, trying to find the right words and put them in the right order, and Cass would have gotten tired of waiting for him to spit it out. She would have risen up onto her toes and pulled Sam down to her level with a gentle tug on the neck, and then—

Cass forced herself to stop picturing the scenario. It wasn't helping.

The problem was that, now that Cass had thought of Sam as someone kissable, she couldn't unthink it. Last night, it had felt perfectly natural to tease him and pull him into dancing, knowing that Sam would be patient enough to humor her. She'd enjoyed hearing him laugh, and then they'd had their little moment and she'd realized all at once that the man she was dancing with was incredibly caring, and brave, and stubborn, and that she found those qualities in him to be incredibly attractive.

The problem was that that realization hadn't gone away now that she was sober. She was uncomfortably aware of it now, and on top of that she knew what it felt like to have Sam's steady hands on her and that up close he smelled like soap and clean laundry and something else spicy and masculine that just made her want to lean in and make bad decisions.

Because kissing Sam would be a bad decision, and not just because most of the women who got involved with him had a tendency to die. The reasons not to get involved were almost too numerous to count.

First and foremost were the dozens and dozens of secrets about the future that Cass was still keeping from him. Either the secrets would come between them, or Cass's emotional involvement would cloud her judgment and she'd say something she shouldn't. Then there was the fact that they were already living together, which had the potential to become incredibly awkward incredibly quickly. And then, of course, there was the fact that Cass shouldn't be thinking about kissing anybody when she should be focusing on stopping the impending Apocalypse.

They were working together on that, and that was it. Sam was a colleague. Cass did not kiss her colleagues.

She repeated this to herself over and over, and by the time she extricated herself from her tangled sheets, she'd mostly managed to convince herself.

Cass finally descended the stairs in the late morning, once she was sure her stomach had settled enough that she could manage to drink a cup of coffee. She resolutely ignored both Winchesters as she passed through the library. Bobby, who was sitting at the kitchen table reading a newspaper, looked up when she shuffled in and raised his eyebrows at her, amused.

"Mornin', sunshine. How's your hangover?"

"I'm not hung over," Cass lied, though there really wasn't much point in denying it. She was sure she looked terrible, and the scratchiness of her voice didn't help, either.

"Really?" Bobby said lightly, finding his paper. "That's good. I'm off to run some errands, but I thought I might bring back some fixings for a big, greasy breakfast. Bacon, hash browns, lotsa eggs with runny yolks—"

Cass closed her eyes against the bile that rose in her throat at the mere description of food. "Okay, okay, I'm hung over! Please. Have mercy."

Dean poked his head into the kitchen with a wicked grin. "Did someone say eggs and bacon? Count me in."

"Ugh." Cass poured herself a cup of coffee and leveled a dark glare at Dean. "Should've left you in Hell."

Dean laughed outright at that, and Bobby chuckled as Cass rubbed her forehead and muttered uncomplimentary things about hunters and whiskey and sadistic senses of humor. Dean returned to the library and Bobby left, presumably to run the errands he'd mentioned but hopefully not actually intending to fill the house with the smell of eggs and bacon. With the kitchen empty, she chose to sink into a chair at the kitchen table with her coffee rather than facing the Winchesters in the library or mounting the stairs for the long walk back to her room.

Of course, her plan to drink her coffee in solitude was ruined when Sam entered the kitchen a minute later. Cass pointedly did not look up from her coffee or acknowledge his presence in any way, trying to block out the noise of him moving around behind her. Ignoring him might have been a childish response, but Cass was too hungover to be mature.

Sam forced her hand when he slid a plate across the table to her. Cass glanced at it warily, then up at Sam. She managed a slightly pained, self-deprecating smile.

"Dry toast. My hero." Cass pulled the plate closer and took a tiny, hesitant nibble off the corner of the toast. When her stomach did not immediately revolt, she sighed. "Thanks, Sam."

Sam seemed to take that as permission to join her. He pulled out the chair next to her and sat, leaning forward and looking at her cautiously.

"Listen," he began softly. "About last night…"

Cass dropped her toast, her hungover stomach twisting with nerves. Of course he wanted to talk about it. This was Sam fucking Winchester, he always had to talk about it. It was a sign of just how muddled Cass's mind was that she hadn't predicted it, but she hadn't, and she wasn't ready for this conversation. She hadn't showered, her mouth was still sour with the taste of last night's whiskey, and the morning sunlight was catching Sam's eyes in a way that was frankly unfair.

But it didn't look like there'd be any getting out of it, so she braced herself and tried to sound normal as she said, "Yeah?"

"I—uh." Sam sat back a little, hands clenching into fists on the kitchen table. He glanced away from her and cleared his throat, then looked back at her. "I just… I hope you can start to feel more at home here. I know it's not really where you wanna be, but this is your home now, too. You can be yourself."

That… was not what Cass had expected him to say. She should be feeling relieved, and she was, a little bit. But the relief was almost completely overwhelmed by a wave of irrational disappointment.

He wasn't going to talk about The Moment. Sam wanted to talk about everything, especially when it was emotional, or uncomfortable, or both. And that made Cass doubt.

Maybe Sam didn't think there was anything to talk about. Maybe Cass had been drunk and sentimental and reading too much into a little human contact and sappy songs on the radio. Maybe Sam had softly said her name because he was going to urge her to drink some more water so she wouldn't be so goddamn hungover in the morning. Maybe the almost-kiss Cass had been picturing was all in her head, and now she was stuck with a killer headache and an incredibly inconvenient and unrequited crush.

She had been quiet for too long. Sam shifted uncertainly in his chair, and Cass tried to arrange her face into something resembling a smile, or at least some expression that was appropriate for the words he'd just spoken.

"Thanks." Cass swallowed and looked back at the toast on the table, not wanting to make eye contact any longer and risk Sam reading something in her face and asking her what was wrong. "I, uh… I think I'm just gonna take this up to my room. So I can shut the blinds, I mean. Light sensitivity's still a bitch right now."

"Right. Yeah. Feel better."

Cass fled back upstairs, trying to convince herself that what had just happened—or not happened, as it were—was for the best.

Dean watched Cass high-tail it up the stairs with a nauseous look on her face after the stilted conversation in the kitchen and shook his head in disgust. He found Sam still sitting at the kitchen table, looking morosely at the chair Cass had just vacated

"Dude." Dean folded his arms and frowned disapprovingly at his little brother. "What the hell was that?"

Sam's face closed down a little—never a good sign. "What was what?"

Dean rolled his eyes, not buying Sam's denial for a minute. He jerked his head to indicate the direction Cass had just fled. "You're obviously into her."

"We're just friends, Dean." Sam scowled at him, a clear warning sign for Dean to drop it. Dean ignored it.

"Uh-huh." Dean's tone oozed skepticism. "You didn't see your face last night when she talked about calling Pamela. You looked like you were gonna throw up." And then, ruthlessly, he added, "And just 'cause I didn't interrupt your little dance party in the kitchen last night doesn't mean I didn't see it."

Sam stood abruptly, casting an anxious glance over Dean's shoulder to reassure himself that Cass had already gone upstairs. Despite the fact that she was upstairs and well out of earshot, Sam lowered his voice before he said fiercely, "Don't, Dean. Just… don't."

"Why not?" Dean asked at a normal volume, not ready to back down. "The world is ending. If there's ever been a time to seize the day, this is it."

"This isn't just some hook-up," Sam said, frustrated. "I mean, we live together!"

"So?"

"So, what if she's not interested?" Sam deflated a little, the fight leaving him only to be replaced with self-consciousness. "I just… I don't want to make it weird. More than it already is, anyway."

"She was lookin' pretty cozy in your arms last night," Dean reasoned. And she looked pretty upset just now when she'd run back to her room, but he doubted Sam was able to see that with his head so far up his own ass.

Sam was not impressed with his logic. "She was drunk, Dean."

"In whiskey veritas, Sammy. Besides, that girl literally went to Hell and back for you. You really think she doesn't care?"

"That's different." Sam shook his head. "Just, look—don't push it, okay? We've got more important things to worry about. Like finding Lilith."

"Okay, fine," Dean agreed easily. Sam eyed him warily, rightly suspicious of Dean's quick acquiescence. As he should be. "I won't push it. But I think there's just one little thing you've forgotten."

"And what's that?"

"You," Dean poked his brother in the chest for emphasis, "are utterly hopeless around girls you like."

Sam let out a disbelieving laugh. "What?"

"You heard me. You get all awkward and stiff." Without mercy, Dean began to list off examples. "Remember Sarah, with the evil painting? And Madison? Hell, you even got tongue-tied around Bela."

"I'm not hopeless," Sam insisted stubbornly, though Dean was pleased to note that he was beginning to look a little nervous.

"You keep tellin' yourself that." Dean patted his brother on the arm, smiling a smug, patronizing smile. "See how it works out for you."

When the dry toast was long gone and the worst of the hangover had passed, Cass thought about calling Pamela. She really should have called her before now, but with everything that had happened lately it had just slipped her mind. But a call to update the psychic who'd helped them was long overdue and, more selfishly, Cass just wanted someone to talk to, someone who wasn't a hunter.

But before she could call Pamela, she had another call to make—one that couldn't be made with a phone, or from inside Bobby's house. Cass stepped out Bobby's back door and into the salvage yard, feeling a little ridiculous as she began to talk out loud.

"Hey, Castiel. I'm not so good at praying, but—" There was a quiet displacement of air, and Cass turned to see Castiel, looking windswept as always but slightly better than when she'd last seen him. "Uh, hi. That was fast."

Castiel tilted his head and assessed her with narrowed eyes. "You look unwell."

The characteristic bluntness startled a laugh out of her. "Thanks," she said dryly, then added, "I'm okay, I'm just a little hungover."

"I can fix that." Castiel stepped forward immediately, raising a hand toward her. Cass dodged it.

"Should you?" Castiel gave her a puzzled frown at the question and she clarified, "I mean, are you okay? You were held prisoner for a while and then immediately laid siege to Hell. Are you alright?"

"I am recovered," Castiel assured her, then added seriously, "And I need your full, uninebriated attention."

That sounded ominous. Reluctantly, Cass stepped forward into arm's reach of the angel, who pressed his palm to her forehead in a way that reminded Cass of having ashes smeared on her forehead on Ash Wednesday, back when she was small and still had faith. Her lingering headache and dehydration vanished, and Cass stepped back from Castiel feeling marginally more ready to hear whatever he had to say.

"Okay, go ahead."

"After the first seal broke I was able to regroup with the few angels I have found who are sympathetic to this cause," Castiel reported in the tone of a soldier reporting to a commander. Then the strength of his tone faltered. "We are… hopelessly outnumbered."

Cass shifted nervously on her feet. "How hopelessly?"

"There are five of us."

Cass grimaced. "And... just how many other angels are there, exactly?"

"A little more than three thousand are still in Heaven. Over six hundred have openly allied with Lucifer." Castiel stared at her expectantly. "I need guidance. What am I meant to do against these odds?"

"I know something that could help." Cass had been thinking about this, and she'd come up with an idea. "But, first—look, Cas, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. You shouldn't just do what I tell you because you think it's God's will. I don't know what God wants. And quite frankly, I don't care."

Castiel flinched a little, then went very still. Cass pressed on.

"He's not here. He hasn't been in thousands of years. But I am here, and I'm going to do everything I can to keep the world spinning and prevent the Apocalypse from destroying humanity. Not because God told me to, but because it's the right thing to do. Because we're worth saving, and because I'm not about to let the world burn just so Michael and Lucifer can settle an old score."

Cass heaved a breath and bit her lip as she let that sink in. "So. Are you still with me?"

Castiel's face, which had gone hard as stone during her little tirade, softened a little. "You are not the first Prophet to doubt." The angel shot her a sharp look when Cass opened her mouth, and she swallowed her protest. Castiel went on. "The Lord has chosen you. I won't pretend to know His reasoning. But I have faith that He has a reason for choosing you, now."

She couldn't really say anything to that. She couldn't tell Castiel that she'd spoken to God, that he wasn't doing much more than sitting back and watching the show. Cass still couldn't decide if making her a Prophet was intended to be some kind of gift of protection, or a joke, or just a means of ensuring that Cass would never be able to direct anyone towards his identity as Chuck Shirley. All she knew for sure was that, whatever had been going on in the entity's mind, it was not the welfare of humankind that had motivated the decision. But she couldn't say any of that, even though she dearly wanted to. Not with God's curse hanging over her head.

So instead she asked, "And if I don't have faith?"

"You'll find it," Castiel assured her. "For now, my own will suffice. I am still with you." Castiel straightened, becoming more businesslike. "Now. You said you know something that might help."

Cass nodded. "Follow me." She led Castiel to Bobby's workshop, where she rummaged around for a few minutes. She came across a flashlight in her search and tucked it into her back pocket, just in case, then resumed her search until she found what she'd been initially been looking for.

Castiel frowned at the crowbar when Cass presented it. "I… don't see how that will help."

"You will," Cass said confidently. "Can you take us to Lincoln Springs, Missouri? There should be an abandoned warehouse there, where Downey meets Bond street. We need to go there."

Castiel stepped forward into her personal space and took a firm hold of her arms. Angel flight was different when she was not being possessed, but it was still highly disorienting, and Cass would have stumbled upon landing if Castiel had not been there to steady her.

"Is this the place?"

Cass stepped back to look critically at the building. "I think so." She glanced around, but didn't see anyone out on the street. She gestured for Castiel to follow as she approached the door. "Come on. We're looking for a secret room in the basement."

They entered the warehouse and descended the stairs, Castiel preceding her. In the dark of the basement, Cass flicked on her flashlight and began trailing her fingers over the walls, informing Castiel that they were looking for a draft. Cass found it first and called the angel's attention.

"Here." Cass indicated the space in the wall where she'd felt the draft. "Think you can knock in this wall?"

Castiel did not bother to respond verbally. He pressed his palm against the wall and then stood utterly unaffected as the barrier imploded with a shower of dust. When the wall was gone, Castiel frowned at the ancient-looking stone room that was revealed.

"What is this place?" asked Castiel as Cass stepped carefully over the rubble. "Why are we here?"

"This is one of Lucifer's crypts." Cass shone the beam of her flashlight on the heavy carved stone receptacle in the middle of the room. "That's what we're here for."

Castiel stepped forward to examine the carvings in the stone. "It's warded against angels."

"Now you get to see how the crowbar will help," Cass said. She held the flashlight out to him. "Hold this, please?"

Castiel took the flashlight and held its beam steady so Cass could see what she was doing as she forced the crowbar into the gap between the stone receptacle and its lid, then slowly pried the thing open. The lid slid back with a loud grinding of stone, and Cass stepped forward to withdraw their prize.

"A tablet?" Cass couldn't tell if Castiel was disappointed or not. Perhaps he'd been expecting a more obvious sort of weapon.

"Not just any tablet." Cass angled the thing so it caught the light from the flashlight, illuminating the carvings. "The Angel Tablet. Dictated by God himself."

Castiel stared at it, then moved his gaze to Cass. "I can't read it."

"I probably can." Cass's lips twisted at the idea, and she shook her head. "But that's not why it's important. Possessing the Angel Tablet can make regular angels much more powerful—nearly archangel powerful. And, it disrupts mind control."

"Mind control," Castiel repeated, a line appearing between his brows. Cass smiled bitterly and extended the tablet out towards him.

"Touch it."

Slowly, Castiel reached out and laid a hand on the tablet. The moment his skin brushed the stone he stiffened, going rigid as his eyes went wide. A deeply pained expression crossed his face, and then his eyes cleared and the angel schooled his face. He looked at the tablet with a strange mix of emotions flickering on his face. Cass thought she caught amazement, anger, and, most promisingly, hope.

"Our numbers are not so few after all, then."

Cass pressed the tablet into Castiel's arms, taking the flashlight back from him. "Take it. Use it. But do not let it fall into Michael or Raphael's hands."

"I swear," Castiel promised. As they began to pick their way out of the warehouse, Castiel peered down at the carvings curiously. "Do you know what this tablet contains?"

"Not in detail." Cass shook her head. "There'll be information about angels, and Heaven. Strengths, weaknesses… spells and rituals, too. There are only two things I know are in there for sure: a spell to shut all the angels away in Heaven, and a spell to cast all the angels down from Heaven."

"Dangerous knowledge," Castiel said gravely, but the look he shot her was appraising. "It could be useful."

"I don't want to read that thing," Cass said fiercely. "Not if I don't have to. Not unless there's no other choice."

Castiel tilted his head to the side curiously, squinting at her. He realized aloud, "You're afraid."

Cass shook her head again, not to deny Castiel's words but to express just how much she really did fear what might happen if she tried to read that tablet, or even just if one of the archangels got hold of it. "The only thing I can imagine that would be worse than Michael and Raphael getting their hands on that tablet, is them forcing me to read it."

"If the knowledge itself is truly that powerful, why not read it now?" Castiel pushed the tablet toward her. "Let us use it against them."

Cass stepped back from him, shaking her head yet again. "It's not as simple as reading a book. It might take me weeks or months to decipher it, and that's time we don't have."

Castiel pulled the tablet back towards himself, looking down at it with his jaw clenched in mute frustration. Very reluctantly, Cass offered a suggestion.

"I suppose I could try to make a copy," she said. "Take a rubbing of the surface, and try to read that. I don't know that it would work—I don't know how much of my ability to read it would be tied to the object itself…"

"But you'll try." Castiel's eyes were very bright, and very trusting.

Feeling a little queasy, Cass promised, "I'll try."

Sam frowned in confusion when Cass re-entered Bobby's house through the front door. "Did you—" He glanced at the back door she'd left through, then back again. "I thought—" He stopped himself, catching sight of the roll of papers in Cass's arms. "What's all that?"

"I went on a little field trip with Cas. Castiel, I mean." Cass held up the papers and said unenthusiastically, "This... is the word of God."

It had been a very awkward trip to the art store. Cass had directed Castiel to take her there so she could get some paper and charcoal, or whatever supplies she would need to do a rubbing of the surface of the tablet. The angel had followed her around, looming over her shoulder with the tablet tucked inside his coat while Cass described to a helpful but very curious middle-aged employee what she was attempting to do. She'd ended up purchasing a few different types of paper, as well as an assortment of charcoal and pencils and other things to get the most detailed copy of the writing on the tablet.

"What," Dean asked with a raised eyebrow, "a burning bush handed that to you?"

"No. I took a tablet from one of Lucifer's crypts. This is just a copy—Cas has the original."

"Lucifer has crypts?" Sam sat up straight, eyes wide. "And you stole from one?"

"Yeah, well." Cass shrugged. "If we're lucky, he won't be around to be mad about it."

"What—" Bobby interrupted Sam before he could articulate another question.

"Sam, hush." Bobby jabbed a finger toward Cass. "You. Just explain already, would you? It's exhausting asking you questions."

Cass sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "This was all in my notes. I suppose I'll have to try to print them again now that we're not being attacked by ghosts… but anyway. This is a copy of the Angel tablet. It's one of three tablets that contain the word of God. And I don't mean 'word of God as passed through a human prophet'—this is the word of God, as dictated by the entity himself to an angel scribe. The other tablets talk about demons and leviathans, but I don't know where either of those are and I'm frankly not inclined to look for them."

"Leviathan?" Bobby repeated. "Like the Biblical sea monster?"

"Leviathans," Cass said, stressing the plural. "They're primordial entities with a basically endless hunger. They're all trapped in Purgatory right now, and unless things go very sideways they should stay that way this time. What's important for you to know now is that the Angel tablet will give Castiel an extra boost of power as he works against the angels who want to start the Apocalypse, and help him disrupt any brainwashing the other angels in Heaven may have undergone." Cass sighed and added, "And, I've taken a rubbing of it, to see if I can translate it and learn anything useful."

"I can take a crack at it, too," Bobby said, standing and gesturing for Cass to unroll the papers. "You know what language it's written in?"

"Uh, Enochian, I think." Cass unrolled the papers on the coffee table, and all three men leaned forward to peer and the symbols rubbed onto the paper. "Angel language. But it wouldn't do any good for you to take a crack at it. The tablets can only be read by a prophet."

"That's convenient," said Dean, glancing up at her. Cass rolled her eyes at his persistent suspicious attitude.

"Look, you're welcome to try to read it," she said. "I won't stop you. But I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that can, besides the big man himself and the angel who wrote it down. And I'm not even sure that I'll be able to read it without the object itself. But I promised Castiel I'd try."

Bobby sighed and beckoned for Cass to follow him to the basement. "Come on. Your computer's still downstairs. We'll get your notes printed and finish interrogating you later."

"Run today?"

Sam held his breath as Cass considered him. They hadn't been on a run together since the morning of the day that Uriel had dragged him to Hell. After that had been preparing for the Witnesses, and then yesterday Cass had been too hungover for any sort of physical activity. But now they were both healthy and awake, and Sam found himself wanting to return to their routine. Sure, it would be… distracting, to be alone with her again, but he'd just have to get used to it. He valued his budding friendship with Cass too much to distance himself just because he was attracted to her, and he wanted to extend an olive branch after the tense question-and-answer session from the night before.

After Cass had finally managed to print off her notes, Sam, Dean, and Bobby had all pored over them, reading through the neatly-organized information that Cass had prepared. A lot of it made little sense to them when they read it—names and motivations of angels who wouldn't appear for years yet, or information about artifacts that no one currently knew the location of. Once they'd finished reading, Cass had patiently answered what she could of their questions, often admitting openly that there were a lot of things she simply didn't know. There were still things she wouldn't tell them, things she was holding back on purpose. That frustrated Dean a lot, and Sam couldn't say that it didn't still bother him, either, but he thought he understood where Cass was coming from a little better now.

After all, he'd broken the first seal. Cass had warned them, and done everything she could to prevent the seal from breaking, but Sam had still broken it. If he'd been thinking clearly, he might have tackled Uriel, or aimed for a non-fatal blow—anything but killing him. There was no way to go back and undo that fateful action, but if Cass's silence on certain things was meant to prevent them from making the same kinds of mistakes again…

What it came down to was that Sam trusted her. Cass always seemed to do what she thought was right, even if she knew she'd be yelled at, and even if she was scared out of her wits. She'd helped save Dean, she'd pulled Sam out of Hell herself, and now she was even willing to try to translate the Angel tablet, even though she looked at the rubbings like they were a poisonous viper that was liable to spring up and bite her at any moment.

And now Sam stood, waiting for Cass to accept or deny the invitation. He didn't think he was imagining that it took her a while to respond, but then again, that might have just been his own nerves. Finally she smiled, and nodded.

"Yeah, sure. That'd be nice."

They met outside the front door a few minutes later, and Sam immediately began to doubt the wisdom of the outing when Cass emerged from the house in running shorts, so short they exposed the anti-possession tattoo inked on her inner thigh. Sam swallowed hard and looked determinedly away from Cass as they started running, pretending to admire the scenery.

This was ridiculous. He'd seen Cass in those same shorts before. He'd already seen the tattoo on her thigh. It wasn't like he was unaware that Cass was attractive. She'd turned up in Sam's botched summoning circle in tiny pajama shorts, and her lean, muscular build and tousled curls had been just as apparent then as they were now.

Before, he could ignore it. He was perfectly capable of being just friends with attractive women. He'd done it all the time in college. But now…

It was a lot harder to ignore the physical attraction now that he knew Cass personally. Sam had always had a thing for smart girls, and Cass was smart. She was also brave in her own way, and handling being thrown into all this supernatural stuff far better than Sam would have anticipated.

He'd never been in a real relationship with a woman who knew what he did. There had been flings, women he connected with on a hunt and never saw again when he left town, and there had been Jessica. Sam could never picture himself getting involved with another hunter—he worked with his brother and he wouldn't want to change it—but he couldn't imagine dragging a regular person into his life, either. It was why he had never told Jessica anything about it, and when she died Sam had figured he'd never have a chance at love like that again.

But Sam had already dragged Cass into this life, and there was no way to undo it, no way to send her back to her normal life. Even if she'd wanted to build a normal life in this universe, as she'd pointed out to him, she didn't officially exist here. She had no birth certificate, no social security number, no school or medical records—none of the things she'd need if she wanted to live a normal life. And even if she did have those things, Sam doubted that the angels would let a prophet just disappear on them.

Despite all that, Cass hadn't shown the slightest interest in hunting. She was knowledgeable, sure, but cautious. She knew how to fight monsters, but she also had no desire to go out and do it herself. Sam hadn't met a lot of people like that in his years of hunting. Most people who found out about the supernatural either found out the hard way and became hunters, or went back to their normal lives and did their best to ignore the fact that monsters really do exist. Ellen Harvelle had managed to find a kind of balance for a while, running the Roadhouse and helping hunters out while staying out of the hunting business personally.

For a moment, Sam allowed himself to think about what it would be like to come home to the same place, the same person after every hunt, to be able to talk about it openly but never have to worry about putting his loved one in harm's way. And then Sam remembered that Ellen's husband had died on a hunt, and that the Roadhouse had been burned down by demons, and it was only luck that Ellen managed not to burn up with it.

No. That sort of dream was just as unrealistic as the apple-pie life he'd pictured with Jess. It didn't matter if Cass knew about the supernatural. It would only be a matter of time before some monster, some hunt caught up with him.

But it didn't matter, anyway. Just because Cass had forgiven Sam for yanking her into this dimension and was starting to warm up to him didn't mean that she was actually interested. She'd certainly seemed that way the other night after the Witnesses, but she'd been drunk, and wired on the thrill of surviving her first hunt, and maybe even just lonely. Sam couldn't blame her for any of that. But he wasn't going to let himself get involved for reasons like that, either. Because, as much as Sam hated to admit it, Dean was right about one thing. Even if Sam wasn't outright hopeless, he had a bad habit of falling too hard, too quickly.

He couldn't let that happen with Cass. He'd keep it professional, for both their sakes. After all, it wasn't like they didn't have other things to focus on.

Sam glanced at Cass, trying to guess if she'd become annoyed with him for ignoring her for so long. With surprise, Sam realized that she hadn't even noticed. Her gaze was distant, skimming over the landscape without really seeing it. Sam waited a few minutes to see if she would snap out of it, but she didn't.

"Cass?" Sam spoke her name quietly, tentatively. Cass blinked rapidly, shaking her head as if to clear it, then looked at him questioningly. "You okay? You looked like you were a million miles away."

"I was," she admitted with a self-deprecating smile. "Sorry. I didn't mean to ignore you."

"No, it's fine," Sam assured her. He hesitated. "You… want to talk about it?"

"No," Cass said firmly. Then, tone lighter, added, "Not now, anyway. Ask me again when we're done?"

"Sure."

They passed the rest of the run mostly in silence, but a companionable one this time. Sam wondered in the back of his mind just what Cass was thinking of that had left her so thoroughly distracted on the run, and once they were back at Bobby's house, sitting on the front porch drinking cold bottles of water, he asked about it.

"So… you still want to talk?"

Cass sighed and started pulling the label off her water bottle. "Yeah, might as well." She looked at Sam and said dryly, "I already know that I'm being ridiculous, but I'll feel better if you confirm it for me."

"You're not ridiculous," Sam said automatically, wondering why Cass thought otherwise.

"You say that now." Cass shook her head. "Before… I just needed to space out this morning. A good run always gets me in this meditative state—my mind is clear and I can just focus on my breath and my body and the next step. And I needed that today, because ever since I came back from fetching the Angel Tablet with Cas, I've been mentally catastrophizing."

Cass smiled bitterly. "Not that that's new, really. I'm an overthinker by nature. Dean accused me of being a control freak, and he's right. I like to be in control. I like to know what's happening. But now everything's spiraling in such a totally different direction from what I've seen that I have no idea what's going to happen next, and the uncertainty is driving me crazy."

"So basically," Sam said slowly, "you're in the same boat as the rest of us."

Cass barked a soft laugh. "Yeah, basically. Now can you admit that I'm being ridiculous?"

"Maybe just a little," Sam said, easing the comment with a smile. "I mean, I get it. This isn't exactly the kind of thing you just get used to. And everything lately… it's a lot, even for us."

"The thing is, I wouldn't be driving myself crazy if I didn't know anything," Cass said tiredly. "If I didn't know anything about the future, then I'd just accept that everything is fucking crazy and try to do my best. But because I know how things played out in one version of events, even though it's a version of events I've thoroughly destroyed, I have this irrational feeling that I should know what's going to happen. I just feel… I don't know. Responsible?"

"You're right," Sam said seriously. "You are being ridiculous." He leaned forward to catch Cass's eyes. She was biting her lip, which was very distracting, but Sam did his best to ignore it. "You're not responsible for whatever happens next. That's just…"

"Ridiculous," Cass finished for him.

"Yeah," he agreed. Cass sighed and looked away from him, still worrying her bottom lip. "Look, even if you were responsible… would it really change anything?"

Cass considered the question, then shrugged. "Just my feelings of guilt if something terrible happens that would never have happened if I hadn't interfered."

"And how would you be feeling if you hadn't interfered?" Sam asked knowingly. Cass took a swig of water and remained stubbornly silent. "Look, you shouldn't drive yourself crazy with all this thinking about what you should have done, or what might happen." Sam huffed a humorless laugh. "Believe me. It doesn't help."

"I suppose you'd know, wouldn't you?" Cass mused aloud. "Well, then, since you're the expert. What should I do?"

"The same thing the rest of us have to do," Sam said with a shrug. "Accept that everything is crazy, and try to do your best."

Cass laughed. "I'll try." She opened her mouth to say something else, then seemed to think better of it. Instead she shot Sam a crooked smile, brushed a swift kiss to Sam's cheek, then patted him on the arm as she announced, "I'm stealing the first shower."

Sam sat frozen on the porch while Cass darted inside, still feeling the warmth of her lips on his cheek and trying very hard not to think about her in the shower.

Author's Note: Yes, I did recycle a scene/plot point from my Metatron/OC fic Rewrite, and no, I'm not sorry. Also, for those of you who haven't read my other stuff, yes, I have a completed 46K Metatron/OC fic, because he's fluffy and cute and I love him.