This chapter was due a little while ago, but once again personal things kind of got in the way. Not only did someone at my job get fired and left open a whole bunch of shifts that had to be covered, a family member was also got into an accident that laid him out for several days. He's fine now but he's been on recovery and needing to be looked after for the last week. Clearly all of that doesn't leave time for hobbies.

Still, I tried to plug away at this, little by little. This should be the second to last chapter, and I'm excited to see it wrapped up and finished. Not because it hasn't been fun, mind you, more because I'm curious how everyone will like the ending. I'm going to try my best to get the next chapter out shortly after this one.

Chapter 24: Who Says You Can't Go Home?

The moans Jimmy Novak made as he ate his cheeseburger was nearly guttural but not quite there. When Dean had found the man instead of Castiel waiting for him at the address he'd been given in his dreams, it had been pretty easy to tell it wasn't even close to the same guy. Which was really damn weird considering it was the same body and all. Yet the way he carried himself, the way he ate (a lot as opposed to nothing) and even the way he spoke were so totally off it didn't even feel like Dean was looking at the same person. Not even in the angel versus host kind of way either. The differences were so striking it actually somehow looked like a different person.

It was so freaking weird. The voice was easily the biggest thing, how soft and timid Jimmy sounded while Castiel's voice was like gravel mixed with a carton of menthols. It reminded him of first hearing the angel's voice in the gas station, broken glass and ear-splitting noise, now tucked away in some small little human. It made him wonder if the voice was ever at risk of bursting out Jimmy's throat in some bad moment of unrestrained power.

"Something the matter?" Jimmy asked him as he stuffed the last bit of the burger in his mouth and licked the condiments from his fingers.

"You are very different than Castiel," he noted, chin in his hand as he watched him. "Speaking of, I don't suppose you know where he is, do you?"

The warehouse had been a wreck when he'd gotten there, and it had left him feeling pretty nervous. Signs of angels fighting angels was not something he wanted to deal with on a good day, and he hadn't had one of those in a while. He had a feeling today wouldn't shape up to be a good one either.

"I'm sorry. All I remember is a flash of light and I uh... I woke up and I was just, you know, like, me again."

"So what? Cas just ditched out of your meat suit?" he asked. Why would the angel do that, unless it hadn't been willingly?

"I really don't know," he admitted. "Thing is, being possessed by an angel… it's kind of like being chained to a comet. There's not much I could really make out or remember."

"So then what do you remember?" Dean asked curiously.

The other man looked wistful for a moment before sighing softly.

"My name is Jimmy Novak. I'm from Pontiac, Illinois. I have a family."

That wasn't much to go on for what Dean needed to know, but he listened willingly as Jimmy explained about his wife and daughter, and how he'd been a man of faith that had started to hear Castiel. From the sounds of it there had been some slight discomfort at first but he'd been able to listen eventually and prove his faith properly. He'd certainly fared better than Dean, that was for sure, though it made him realize this guy had to have gotten snatched up when Cas had realized the only way the two of them would be able to communicate was through a human vessel.

From the sounds of it, Jimmy would have gotten grabbed one way or the other but it didn't help Dean's guilt any, especially when he heard how the guy had basically been forced to leave because his wife thought he was nuts. Again, Dean was fairly sure if he'd been able to make out what Castiel had been saying it wouldn't really have mattered but something itched in his gut nonetheless. Angels loved jerking people around and messing with their lives, but the idea that Dean might have been partially responsible for it made him feel like he needed to even the scales a bit.

"Alright, this is what I'm going to do for you," he stated calmly. "I take you home, and on the way you try to remember whatever you can about what Castiel needed to tell me. You don't remember by the time we get there, we call it even."

"That's it?" Jimmy asked. "You just take me home?"

"Well… Look, if you're willing I'd like you to talk to someone. Don't know if you remember him, but I know a guy named Bobby. He can come see you, try some hypnosis or something to see if he can shake something out of your head, but he'll be discrete. I'm sure you'll be busy enough trying to explain your absence to your wife and kid without scruffy old hunters coming to your door and waving a watch in front of your face."

Jimmy looked hesitant and chewed his lip.

"If I say no? What, you keep me here?"

Dean didn't want to press it, and rubbed the back of his neck.

"You want to walk away. I get that. Believe me, I wanted to walk away too. I'd let you in a second, but I'm pretty sure the angels might be less willing. I've got no idea what's going on, but this might all be part of their stupid plan for all I know. I'd just like a little help from you but I won't keep you from your family in some kind of cruel bargaining chip."

The man didn't seem happy about it. In fact it looked like he wanted to run for the hills and forget all of this. Still, he eventually nodded in agreement.

"Can we leave now?" he asked.

"Give me four hours of shut eye and then we'll head out. Even with that, we'll still get there faster than any bus," Dean replied with a yawn. "I've been going nonstop myself, but I'll be golden to drive in a bit."

He settled down in bed and gave Bobby a fast call to update him, along with a request to check up on Sam. His plans for getting back by morning had pretty much been blown out of the water.

It wasn't even noon when things started to get irritating. After his nap and climbing into the Impala with Jimmy, it had been a fairly silent trip. Jimmy had requested quiet with a promise to think and see if he could remember anything that might be helpful. He didn't even want the radio on, which was a crime to drive that long without any music, but sometimes sacrifices had to be made. It wasn't the lack of music that signaled the bad day though, instead a very different angel than the one Dean had been wondering about suddenly appearing in the back of his seat and causing him to swerve his baby in shock.

"Smooth," Anna commented.

"You ever try calling ahead?" he grumbled.

"I like the element of surprise," she said simply as she looked over at Jimmy, who was staring at her in pure terror and pressed back against the car door. Dean had a nasty feeling he was about five seconds away from opening it and jumping for freedom, pavement coming on at a high speed or not.

"Pull over," she ordered Dean, not pulling her gaze from Jimmy. Apparently she was thinking the exact same thing.

Normally he would have argued but Anna was an ally and they'd been able to help her get her angelic memories back when she'd been in her own human limbo. While she was being a bit brisk, if they could figure this out now then they could just let Jimmy go home and leave him be. So he found an empty lot in the little residential section he was driving in and put it in park.

As he climbed out, Jimmy was already backing away, the light drizzle of rain making the mud under his shoes squelch as he tried to keep away from the angel. Anna didn't seem to hurry in her approach at him, yet she was on him in mere seconds anyway.

"No, no, no, no," Jimmy pleaded in a way that Dean was not at all comfortable with. "I'm out. I'm done. I don't want to-"

She ignored him and placed a hand to his forehead, gripping him tightly in her fingers to keep him from pulling away.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Dean snapped as Jimmy cried out in pain, would have doubled over if not for her keeping him in place. He rushed up to the pair and grabbed her wrist, trying to get her to stop. "What the hell is this?"

She pulled away after a moment, but it didn't seem to be in any relation to Dean's actions. Jimmy gasped and struggled to breathe as if he'd just run a marathon.

"He doesn't remember anything, even residue memories. His last memory is just Cas leaving his body, but before that nothing earlier than a couple months ago," she sighed. "This isn't good."

"Think you could have been a little gentler on him?" Dean asked her incredulously, but she only gave him a blank look.

"My introduction back into this was hardly gentle either," she reminded him. "I can't afford niceties right now. Bad things are going on as we speak, very bad."

"What do you mean, bad?" he asked as he helped Jimmy straighten up, patting him gently on the back. He couldn't have stopped Anna from trying to fry Jimmy's brain, but maybe he shouldn't have let it happen so easily.

"Cas was brought back to Heaven, more like dragged back," she explained. "He must have seriously pissed someone off, and more than that all the angels have been talking non-stop lately. Anyone who can be spared is going after Lilith, trying to dig up where she might be. It was always supposed to be the plan to stop her, but this effort is in full force to smoke her out."

"Isn't finding Liltih a good thing? Don't we want her dead?" Dean asked but she looked hesitant.

"Dean… the last time I talked to Castiel, he told me he was considering disobedience," she confessed. "Now he's yanked out of Jimmy and pulled back home, which is a painfully horrible thing, trust me. On top of that, Heaven's even more active than when you got pulled out of Hell. Whatever is happening, it's big and it's not good."

"He did say he wanted to tell me something, but he was gone before he could say what it was," the hunter admitted before sighing. "Look, as much as I'd hate to say it, there's nothing I can do about whatever Heaven is planning, okay? Not for the moment anyway. My plate is way past full, and it's not like I can get my butt up there to knock some heads together. I don't suppose you'd be willing to."

"Yeah, badass or not, I'm not good enough to take on all of Heaven alone. Why do you think I've been running so much?" she asked.

"Excuse me," Jimmy rasped, catching their attention. "Look, I thought you were taking me home. Can I just get away from all of this? Please?"

"Uh… yeah, sure. Wait in the car and we'll head out soon," he promised, helping the other man climb in and shut the door for him.

"You can't take him home, Dean," she stated with a frown.

"Why not?"

"If you think I was rough to try to get the information out of him, how in the world do you think the demons are going to treat him?" she replied. "They won't just question him. He'll get dissected just to see how he ticks, and if they find his family then they'll just do the same to them in order to get him to cooperate, or just for kicks. Do you really think he'll be safe with them?"

He wanted to reason that the demons shouldn't even know who Jimmy was or where to find him, but he wasn't that naive or stupid to think it would work out that easily. Hell, half the trouble in his life came from how easily demons had often found him and Sam, and right now the other half was how easy the angels could do it too.

"I promised him I'd take him home, and I've got my hands full looking after Sam right now. Hell, I should be by his side this very minute," he stated. "I don't have the time or energy to drag a guy into this life kicking and screaming, only to have to play prison guard on him to make sure that he doesn't get away."

"So you're just going to risk his family on that?" she asked. "Demons aren't the only ones who might come after them, you know."

He sighed and rubbed at his face. He knew Anna was speaking from personal experience here. Hell, her own family had ended up mince meat from demons, and now they were both in Heaven, the one place she'd never be able to get to them. It probably didn't make her feel better in the slightest to be the one thing she'd tried to get away from, and knowing it had cost her parents their lives. As blunt as she was being about all of this, it's not like she didn't have a good point.

"Look, I'll get them some hex bags, explain all the danger to them," he compromised. "But I'm not going to be the guy who manipulates a man away from his family. I just won't."

The same thing had happened to him just recently, completely forgetting about Sam as his brother. While some admittedly strange but nice things had come from it, there was still this very scummy feelings towards the angels for what they'd done to him. He wasn't going to be in the same league as that, not in a million years.

"You're playing very fast and loose with this," she sighed out. "But I won't argue with you on your decision. I have to keep my ear to the ground, see if I can figure out what they're doing to Cas without tipping them off to me listening."

"Alright. I'll give a prayer or something if anything come up," he assured her. He was a bit surprised when she laid a hand on his cheek and gave him a soft but somewhat sad smile.

"Be careful," she said before she was gone with a flap of her wings.

Jimmy hadn't been very excited at the idea of telling his family the truth of where he'd been but Dean had assured him it was the compromise of being able to go back safely. Sit the wife down, explain what was going on, give them some hex bags and a list of what to do to keep themselves safe from demons and then he'd be on his way. With luck the family man would never have to even hear from another hunter for the rest of his life. He realized that sort of left it for Castiel to probably never come back, but to be honest from the sounds of it he wasn't even sure if Heaven had any intention of letting him return even if he did have a host to go back to.

It hadn't gone well at all. Dean had barely been able to introduce himself to a very skeptical Amelia Novak before they'd heard a scream upstairs. He'd run upstairs and burst into a bedroom to see a demon grabbing a young blonde girl and wrestling her to the ground. It had been a mad scramble to get it off of her, stabbing the middle aged looking man the demon was inside of before it could hurt the girl. Amelia has rushed in, panicking at the sight of her dead neighbor on the floor and taking her daughter in her arms in a tight hug.

"What's going on here?!" she demanded before the sound of a door crashing open from the front of the house alerted Dean to the fact they were far from alone yet. It was a brutal fight to even get out the front door, shoving Jimmy and Claire out with him as he wiped the knife clean of the demon blood on his shirt and fished for his car keys to get them all the hell out of here.

"Wait, where's Amelia?" Jimmy asked, clearly just as panicked as his wife was.

"I'm here!" she called as she ran out of the house. "Jimmy, what's going on? What was all of that?"

"Demons," Dean sighed before shaking his head. "Damn it. I really thought I could make this work."

"What are you talking about?" Jimmy asked.

"Look man, face the facts. Castiel was out of you for a day and the demons had already found your wife and kid. They're gunning for you, and they're not going to stop until they catch you. They'll do whatever it takes to get you too, and if hurting your family is a bonus then they'll love it. You need to get away from them," he explained.

"But you said-" Jimmy started.

"I know what I said, but we don't have a choice," he admitted. "Believe me, I'd give just about anything for you to walk into your house, lock the door and never have to worry about this ever again. It's far from fair, but you've got to do what's best for them."

The former vessel looked sick to his stomach at the idea, but a defeated submission finally came over him and he reluctantly nodded. They found a car to hot-wire and told the two girls to pick a direction and drive as far and fast as they could. Dean was just making plans to get back to Bobby's and see what could be done about keeping Jimmy safe for the time being when the man's phone started to ring with an unknown number on it. Curious, he answered.

"Hel-"

"You listen to me very carefully, Winchester," Amelia's voice hissed on the other line. "I am not in a good mood, so you say even one word to piss me off and the little brat's blood is on your hands. I got her tied up with several of my friends who would just ache for a chance to break her little pretty face. You bring Jimmy to me or so help me you'll have nightmares on how you find her corpse. Jimmy comes in alone or else."

It suddenly cut off without giving him a chance to reply, a text message with an address followed mere moments afterward.

"Damn it!" he yelled as he spun the Impala a full 180 degrees to try and make it in time.

Dean panted hard as he pushed himself up from the warehouse floor, his whole body screaming in pain. Sending Jimmy in alone in the hopes of sneaking in had been dumb, and nearly everyone had paid for it. It had only been the timely intervention of Castiel that anyone had lived. Seeing him move through the body of Jimmy's little girl had been beyond creepy, even if the angel had saved the lot of them. The hunter taking on one demon by himself would have been hard, but going against three of them in one go had been damn near suicidal. The hosts were dead, fried out from the inside by the holy power of the celestial being. Only Amelia had survived, the demon inside of her flushing out and running to save itself.

Groaning as he sat up, he watched Jimmy plead with the angel to take him instead in order to allow the girl to live a normal life. After a bit of debate, the angel gave in and took Jimmy's body for his own again, walking away as the wife ran to her child and scooped her up in her arms, almost sobbing from what the night had been turning into. Dean couldn't help but feel sorry for her. Most people's brushes with the truth to this world didn't take it well, and arguably she had it worst than most.

Her husband wasn't dead, but considering what he had to do, he might as well be.

"Cas, hold up," Dean said as the angel strode past him. "What were you gonna tell me?"

He stopped and turned slowly to the hunter but his eyes were empty, almost vacant. It was actually more creepy than when he'd been wearing the girl like a meat suit.

Dean told himself firmly to give a pray to Anna later on with the request to look after the Novak family when she could. Something about the look in Castiel's eye gave him the impression he didn't really currently care what befell any human right now.

"I learned my lesson while I was away, Dean. I serve Heaven. I don't serve man and I certainly don't serve you," he replied coldly before continuing to walk away.

The hunter could only hang back and wonder on that. It struck him as a very bad sign, but he was too emotionally tapped to get exactly what it could mean for the future. Instead, he just helped the two ladies get back to their car and handed them a couple credit cards with high value and wished them the best of luck. He just hoped it would be enough this time.

It was dawn by the time he got back to Bobby's. Dean felt drained and exhausted, but he only waved off the older hunter when he was greeted at the door by him.

"I'll fill you in later," he promised with a soft groan. "How's Sam?"

"Climbing the walls since this morning," Bobby informed him with a scoff. "It's been damn near impossible to get any work done with the way he's been carrying on. Kept yelling up to me, demanding to know where you'd gone and when you'd be back. Please tell me this ain't gonna happen every time you go off."

"Right. I'll… I'll go check in on him, let him know I'm alright," he promised, just as eager himself to see his brother.

Walking down to the basement, his feet hadn't even hit the last step when something slammed up against the door from the inside.

"Dean?! Dean, is that you?!" Sam called from in the panic room.

He quickly made his way over so his brother could see him through the small window.

"Hey, Sam. Look, I'm sorry. I just… there was this thing with Cas and I just… Sorry," he found himself saying. His brother seemed disheveled and crazed when he looked at him. Had the withdrawals started hitting him so soon?

"Bobby wouldn't say where you'd gone. I woke up and you weren't there," he hissed, his tone a mix between relieved and accusing. Dean didn't suppose he could blame him after the promise he'd made to his younger brother.

"I'm here now," he said as he pushed his fingers through between the bars, Sam's own immediately going through too so as to rest on Dean's. The contact seemed to soothe him, looking less erratic and twitchy, slowly breathing and steadily calming down.

"Until the next hunt?" Sam asked softly.

The older Winchester tilted his head up, looking up at the ceiling. Instead of tending to his own family he'd had to work his ass off to try to keep another together and it hadn't done a damn bit of good. Going after Cas had been a damn goose chase, and the guy probably would have beamed back down before the Novaks had been hurt whether Dean had been there or not.

He couldn't help but think of the family torn apart by Heaven, of Anna losing her own family, of all the angels who had taken vessels and probably hadn't given a damn about friends or relatives left behind. He thought of Zachariah's vessel and wondered if that guy had really worked at Sandover Inc. or he'd just been dragged there against his will to play the role of Dean Smith's supervisor. Did he have kids or grand-kids maybe? All those people abandoned, and Dean had been stupid enough to do the same thing to Sam.

"I'm not leaving again," he promised his brother. "Whatever else goes on out there, someone else can handle it. I'm here for you until you're okay again."

Sam stared hard at Dean before his eyes drifted down to Dean's shirt, still bloody from the demon he'd killed. Oddly enough it hadn't dried off yet, still sticky and wet.

"Oh crap!" he cried as he realized. Poor Sam was detoxing and here he was waving the drug right in his face. "I'm sorry. There were demons that I had to knife and it all got kind of out of control. I didn't even think… You know what, it doesn't matter. You don't want to see this. I should go change."

"Wait!" Sam said before licking his lips. He looked up at his brother's face, chewing on his bottom lip before smiling a bit. "It's fine. I'm okay for a bit. Just… stay for a moment before you leave again. I can handle it."

"You sure? I don't want to make this harder on you," Dean replied.

"No… it's actually… You know, mixed up with you… it's not a bad sight," Sam confessed as he stared at him with hunger in his eyes.

Somehow out of everything that had happened in the last day, that sight kind of freaked Dean out the most.

End of Chapter 24

Oh my god, almost done. I am going to try me best to get the last chapter out soon. Tie up all the loose ends, give it a satisfying conclusion and end with a bang. I'd like to say a few days, but maybe a week tops. I hope it doesn't take that long though.