Chapter 82.

Sarah watched Cas and Jules for a while and then said, "Jules, do you need a few minutes?" Sam was glad that she understood the varied mix of trauma in the whole family.

"No." said Jules, "Let's focus on Cas for now."

"I'm fine." said Cas, a reflex response that meant nothing.

"Pact." said Sam.

"Still fine." said Cas.

"How are we doing on the overload situation?" said Sarah.

"Fine apart from that." said Cas.

"Good. Then let's deal with that, because we know how to do that. Sam, would you get a blanket from the front bedroom?"

"Of course." said Sam. When he returned with it, Sarah covered Cas with it as if he were an ailing child.

"Breathe." she said, "Try to slow down the rush and focus on a few things. Picture a honeycomb. See it clearly. Whenever you feel uneasy or overwhelmed, go back to the perfect shapes in the comb. Smell one smell and ignore all others."

"Jasmine." he said. Jules smiled. It was her favourite scent, when not hunting.

"Is it getting easier?" said Sarah after a long pause.

"It is." he said.

"You were so long alone, but not now." she said, "Now, you have people who love you and we all share your pain. We all miss Dean."

At the name, his whole body seemed to tense. Jules began to stroke his hair again.

"Sorry." said Sarah, "Maybe we should talk about that later."

"I never want to talk about that." he said.

"I know, but we need to. What I'm trying to say is that all of us understand and all of us care and you can talk to us. Could we talk more about the accident?"

"I don't remember the accident."

Jack moved to a chair near Sarah. Sam could see how hard he was trying not to call Cas a liar.

"No, we know you don't." said Sarah, "I'd like to find out why you don't. Hearing what you heard, which seemed to confirm your worst fear, that was the overload. Later, you walked and walking let you suppress some of it, but driving, you didn't have that opportunity. What did you do?"

Cas opened his eyes and sat up. "I don't know."

"Which suggests a disconnection, from your vessel, from your thoughts or from your emotions. Did you leave your vessel before the accident?"

He seemed to think about it. "No. If I had, it would have been damaged in the collision."

Sam could not have explained it, but hearing Cas refer to his vessel as "it" under these circumstances was disturbing to him.

"You felt overwhelmed." said Sarah.

"I felt cut off from everything." he said, sounding surprised by his own words, "I was in my vessel, but nothing around it or inside it seemed real to me. Only one thing was real, that ... that he was gone, destroyed, lost forever."

"You didn't crash the car to try to harm yourself." said Sarah.

"No. It never could have done that."

"Thank God!" said Jules.

"Probably not." said Sam.

"You were dissociating. You couldn't face what you were feeling, so you fled from everything you are and everything you were experiencing." said Sarah.

"It sounds like you're saying I lost my mind." said Cas, plainly troubled by the thought.

"No, Castiel, what you did was intended to save your sanity. It's the equivalent of leaping off a sinking ship. The water isn't safe, but it's better than being dragged down with the vessel."

"I crashed the car." said Cas.

"Yes. Under intense pressure."

"If Jules had been with me ... or Jack ... "

"I don't think you'd have crashed." said Sarah, "Duty first with you, always, especially duty to those you love."

"Bobby was right about me. I can't be trusted on a simple grocery run."

"He never said that." said Sam, "He said you were wasted on such menial tasks. For the record, everything you did today proves we can trust you. Yes, you crashed the car, but immediately afterwards, you left the angel blade in it and headed for home. You left the link open. You contacted me when you were struggling to change direction. You met us on the road. You let us bring you here and now you're talking, even though it's the last thing you feel like doing."

"I still don't get the phone thing." said Jack, "That feels like trying to leave us."

"No." said Cas.

"Then why?" said Jack.

"You were calling and I knew you'd heard and I couldn't make it better. I couldn't find a word of comfort for you or Sam. You needed me and I knew I would fail you. I was a coward. I ran from a need I could not satisfy. I never intended to leave you ... any of you. I just thought that you and Sam would support each other better than I could support either of you. Even the thought in my head of Dean being ... Even just the thought was torture. I was in no state to offer you soothing words."

"If you'd answered the call, I would have told you he was alive. I even texted that he was alive. I prayed it."

"And your denial proved the depths of your pain and I had no strength to argue and no wish to convince you and I know that I have to, but I still don't want to."

"Why do you believe Michael and not me?" said Jack, tears forming in his eyes.

"Because love makes us lie to ourselves. Besides, when is the good news ever the truth?"

"Dean is alive!" said Jack.

"Dean is dead! Michael killed him because I tried to contact him. Maybe Dean even heard."

"Michael lies!" said Jack.

"Yes, but not about this." said Cas.

"Don't make me pray again." said Jules, "You need to listen to Jack. He's right. In your heart, you know it."

"Because my heart won't accept that Dean Winchester is never coming back?" said Cas.

"So it tells you he's alive?" said Jules.

"It tells me a lot of things that aren't true." said Cas.

Sarah spoke. "Castiel, I understand. If you can accept that he is dead, there will be no false hope to torment you. Accepting the worst, even if it isn't true, makes life feel certain and safer."

"Yes." he said.

"And if I believed that Dean could be dead, I'd advise you to accept it."

"Then ... "

"But Dean is no more dead than I am. Of course, my instinctive belief is worthless in your eyes. So, we have a problem. I know Dean is alive and therefore accepting his death would be delusional and unhelpful. You, on the other hand, are convinced he is dead, so consider all of us to be in denial."

"Not Sam. Sam at least considers his death possible." said Cas.

"I believe Jack makes a strong case." said Sam.

"But you're not sure." said Cas, "And I am sure he's dead. So ... "

"We've been friends a long time." said Sarah.

"Yes." said Cas.

"So I'm going to ask a favour. For my sake, can you allow yourself to doubt his death until such time as we have evidence one way or the other?"

"As an intellectual exercise?" said Cas.

"As an act of faith."

"Faith died in me a long time ago."

"An act of faith in Dean, in Jack, in us." said Sarah.

"You don't understand. If I let myself believe and then have to accept his death again, that's it. I will never recover."

"And accepting his death now ... will you ever recover from that? You left the blade behind because you knew you were likely to use it."

"I rejected that option."

"You removed the temptation, because it was a strong one. For the sake of those you love, you stopped yourself. But you're an angel. You've told me more than once that self-destruction is impossible for angels. Your despair made it a realistic threat to your survival."

"If there's a point to this, could we get there, please?" said Cas.

"When you accepted that Dean was dead, you were ready to die."

"Manifestly not, since I left the blade." he said.

"If you hadn't been ready to die, carrying it with you would have been no problem." said Sarah.

"I chose not to die."

"For now. But I know you, my dear. You're trying to live without hope, for our sakes, but you're afraid to hope because the loss of hope would destroy you. But you are already destroyed."

"Maybe, but I am here and I can still be useful."

"Until you fear you're not useful and decide it might as well end now." said Sarah, "And what if you do that and then, the next day, Dean walks into the bunker?"

"And his first words will be, 'Where's Cas?'" said Sam, "And the answer will do to him what Michael's lie did to you."

"If he is dead ... " Cas began, ready to argue.

"Even you are using the word 'if,'" said Jules, "There's a doubt. Doesn't Dean deserve the benefit of it?"

Cas stood up and, without another word, walked out of the room. Moments later, they heard the back door open and close. He was heading for the bees.

"Should I go after him?" said Jules to Sarah.

"No." said Sarah, "He's struggling, but against the despair now, not against us." She turned to Sam, "How are you doing in that fight?"

"I have no evidence Dean is dead." said Sam, "Until I see proof, I think I need to assume he's alive."

Sarah smiled at Jack next. "You have no doubt at all, do you?"

"I know Michael and I know Dean. There's no way Dean is dead."

"He'd be so proud of you, Jack."

Jack's worried expression faded and was replaced by a slight smile.

Sam looked at Jules. She was good, very good, but he had seen that haunted look in the mirror too often to be fooled. "Jules, can we talk?" he said.

"Let's walk by the creek." she said.