She hadn't slept so well in months. The part of her that was a romantic wanted to attribute that to the fact that she'd shared a bed with Sam. The much more prevalent logical part of her noted that she would have had a hard time not sleeping well after driving four hours, walking aimlessly across town, crying her eyes out, and then having enthusiastic sex. The emotional whiplash alone would have been more than exhausting enough.

It didn't really matter, though. What mattered was that she slept better than she had since before she'd landed in this dimension, and when she woke she was warm and Sam was there and for a while she didn't think about how they'd got there, or where they were going to go from here, or what trouble awaited them. She just lay there, savoring the feeling of Sam's arm curled around her, his breath soft against her hair.

As comfortable as it was, she couldn't lie there forever. She stretched and sighed, then rolled over to face Sam. He was awake already, and from the lack of grogginess in the little smile he offered her she guessed he must have been for some time.

"Good morning." His gaze was warm and his hair was tousled from sleep, and Cass thought it was lucky she was still laying down or else she might have physically stumbled under the weight of how much she loved this man. She kissed him, soft, barely there, but lingering. When she spoke, she whispered against his lips.

"Good morning." She pulled back and Sam followed her, chasing her lips and deepening the kiss, slow and languid turning slow but deliberate. Purposeful. Cass hummed and matched him, pressing closer and feeling gratified when he did the same, their hips brushing in a way that had him gasping against her. She pressed a kiss to his jaw and asked, "When's check-out?"

"Not—" He groaned softly as she intertwined their legs and canted her hips, loving the way he came undone, loving the way his words faltered. "N-not for another hour."

"Mm. Plenty of time."

There was a diner down the road from the motel. The Impala was already parked in the lot when Cass and Sam arrived shortly after the 10 a.m. check-out time, and it wasn't hard to spot Dean where he sat in a booth facing the door, a newspaper spread out before him and a heaping plate of bacon to one side. Cass and Sam slid in across from him.

"Good morning." Dean was looking chipper and more than a little smug. "Nice to see you two, uh—" His eyes flicked down to Sam's neck, where a love bite she'd given him was rapidly turning into a purple bruise, and then to Cass. The smug look turned into a full-on smirk. "—worked out your differences."

Cass was feeling rather smug herself, and before Sam could work himself up at his brother's teasing she said lightly, "Next time you're at Bobby's I'm baking you a pie. What flavor do you want?"

Dean grinned. "Apple. No, wait—cherry."

Sam shot her a slightly betrayed look. "Really?"

"What?" she said innocently. "Complain all you want about his and Bobby's methods, but I, for one, appreciate the results."

Sam didn't get to respond to that, as a waitress approached to pour them coffee and take their orders. When she left, Dean asked Cass, "You headed back to Bobby's?"

She sighed and nodded. "Yes, I am. The damn tablet's not going to translate itself."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Any progress on that?"

"Yes and no," she said, lips twisting. "Yes, in that I've managed to translate a bit more of the tablet. No, in that none of it is new or useful. Banishing sigils, holy oil—stuff we already knew."

"Right." He frowned thoughtfully. "Any news from our angel friends? Or Sinclair and, uh, Henry?"

She didn't miss the hesitation when he said Henry's name, but decided to address it later. "Castiel and the angels who don't want to kill us all are still trying to stop as many seals as they can, but they're still outnumbered. As of Wednesday, 42 seals have broken," she reported glumly. "And the last I heard from Henry, he said they'd finally exhausted all the tracking spells in the bunker. Apparently Sinclair's going to try inventing a new spell to track her, but who knows how long that might take."

"So more than half the seals have broken, and we're no closer to finding Lilith," Dean summarized, and Cass nodded with another sigh. "You've still got Ash's searches set up?"

"Yes, but nothing that looks like Lilith has popped up again. Either she's laying low, or she's learned to be smarter about where she picks up her… snacks." Sam grimaced a little behind his mug of coffee, clearly remembering that in this case the word snacks referred to human infants. "And with all the omens popping up all over the place, it's impossible to look into all of them at once."

"We haven't had any luck, either," Sam said, shaking his head. "I think the demons are trying to steer clear of us right now."

Dean swallowed his bite of bacon and frowned. "I don't like the idea of sitting on our asses waiting for Sinclair to maybe come up with a tracking spell that actually works."

Cass took a sip of coffee and asked neutrally, "Do you dislike it enough to consider my other suggestion?"

Dean furrowed his brow, clearly trying to remember what she meant by her 'other suggestion'. She could tell when it clicked because his expression darkened. "You mean Crowley? The demon?" He shook his head and jabbed his fork in her direction to emphasize the words, "I'm not that far gone."

Sam cleared his throat, and both Cass and Dean turned their attention to him. "I think we should try reaching out to Gabriel."

"Are you sure?" Cass asked skeptically. "He didn't seem very keen to be helpful when he was invading my dreams."

"But he came around eventually before, right? I mean, he ran away in the first place to avoid this stuff. And he seems to like his life here. If he can help us stop Lilith, he won't have to give all that up." He sounded simultaneously determined and optimistic, so much so that she was sure there was no way he could talk him out of it. She still felt obligated to try, though.

"It's not me you have to convince," she reminded him. "You do remember what happened last time you two had a disagreement, right?"

Sam's jaw tightened, and she regretted her phrasing immediately. While she stood by the sentiment, she hadn't needed to so bluntly remind him of the time he'd been stuck in a never-ending loop of Tuesdays, watching Dean die over and over again.

The conversation paused as the waitress delivered their food, and when she was out of earshot again Cass said quickly, "I'm sorry. I don't want to tell you not to try, I just…" She trailed off, not sure how to put her thoughts into words.

"Trust a demon more than an angel," Dean finished skeptically. Cass shook her head, fiddling with her fork.

"It's not trust, it's more… comfort." Which didn't sound much better, so she rushed to say, "What I mean is, with Crowley, I know what he wants, what he's capable of. He's more predictable. Gabriel, on the other hand, I have a much harder time understanding. I'm not sure he really knows what he wants, and that kind of uncertainty scares me when we're talking about something as powerful as an archangel." She forced a self-deprecating smile and added, "Control freak, remember?"

"I get where you're coming from," said Sam earnestly, "but we at least have to try."

"Okay." Cass took a bite of her omelette and said lightly, "At this point, I'd really love it if you could prove me wrong."

"So, what are you thinking?" Dean asked Sam. "Try to track down his trail of weird destruction, or see if we can summon him?"

"Track him," Sam said decisively. "He might just ignore us if we try a summoning."

"Great," Dean said, without enthusiasm. "So, what, we just comb the papers for stuff even weirder than our usual level of weird?"

"I can try to adapt Ash's tracking rig," Cass said thoughtfully, half of her mind already thinking about the steps she'd need to take to do it. "Finding Gabriel shouldn't be too different in principle from finding demons. I mean, there's no omens to track, but I think I could make something work. At least give you guys some likely possibilities instead of forcing you to scour every weird article you can find."

"That'd be great." Sam was smiling at her with admiration so open it nearly made her uncomfortable. Cass cleared her throat and turned her attention back to her hash browns.

"I'll get to work on that as soon as I get back, then." Then, to Dean, "Have you decided where you're going next?"

"Wyoming." Dean turned the newspaper on the table around so they could read the article he'd marked. "There's been some weird disappearances near Cheyenne. Looks like our kind of thing."

"Half a dozen locked room mysteries in one town," Sam said after quickly skimming the article. He looked at Dean. "You thinking demons?"

"I'm hoping it's demons." Dean shook his head. "Man, on the list of things I never thought I'd say…"

Cass's grasp of geography and driving time wasn't very good, but she knew she had a four-hour drive to Bobby's and estimated that their drive would be about twice as long. "You should probably hit the road soon, then. You guys have a longer drive ahead of you than I do."

"Yeah, right." It was evident from Sam's tone that he wasn't any more excited about saying goodbye so soon than she was. Dean rolled his eyes.

"Ride with your girlfriend, Sammy. We gotta pass by Sioux Falls to get to Cheyenne anyway." He stood, already fishing his keys out of his pocket. "Enjoy her crappy glockenspiel music—"

"Hey!" Cass protested, and Sam chuckled under his breath as Dean ignored her.

"—and I'll see you at Bobby's."

"How do you feel about driving?" Cass asked when they exited the diner. "Because I hate it, personally."

"I don't mind it." She tossed him the keys to the truck, looking visibly relieved. He couldn't help teasing, "As long as you promise not to fall asleep." She always seemed to be falling asleep in the passenger seat, whether it was Sam driving or Bobby.

She blinked in surprise at the comment, but rather than reacting to the tease she nodded slowly and conceded, "We'll switch places in a few hours when we have to stop for gas. Otherwise the motion of the truck will lull me to sleep."

"Deal."

Cass hopped in the cab and watched with undisguised amusement as Sam slid the driver's seat back far enough to accommodate his long legs. When this was done she nodded to the dashboard, where a cheap cassette-to-auxiliary adapter was loaded into the truck's old tape deck. "Feel free to hook up your iPod, since you seem to take issue with my crappy glockenspiel music."

Her tone was light and teasing, but he still felt compelled to defend himself. "I never said I didn't like it."

"You didn't have to," she said simply. "I can tell. But that's alright—Los Campesinos isn't for everyone. Now, hand over the iPod. I want to snoop on your music library."

Sam wasn't sure how he felt about that, but based on the expectant look on her face he figured there was no getting out of it. He sighed and fished the music player out of his pocket, handing it to her. She smiled triumphantly and connected it while he started the truck, then started rapidly scrolling through the music he had saved. Sam tried not to feel nervous as she hummed and scrolled.

"Of course you like Death Cab," she muttered fondly. When eventually she stopped browsing and hit play, Sam recognized the opening strains of something by The Killers, though he couldn't remember which album it was.

Trying not to convey his nerves, Sam asked, "What's the verdict?"

"Not bad. The alternative stuff is predictable and there's less geek rock than I expected, but I was pleasantly surprised by the Aretha Franklin. And you've got Running With Scissors, which is a bonus."

"Of course you like Weird Al," Sam said, imitating her earlier tone.

"Everyone likes Weird Al!"

"What, like everyone sings along to ABBA?"

"Exactly like that," she said smugly. "Prove me wrong, Stanford."

It really shouldn't turn him on the way she called him that, but it did, so it took a moment for him to manage a weak rebuttal. "You're asking me to prove a negative." He coughed and then continued more confidently, "Pretty sure the burden of proof is on you."

Cass shifted in the passenger seat, and when Sam glanced over he found her giving him a speculative look. "It's kind of hot when you use legal language." Her eyes darted abruptly towards his hands on the steering wheel, and when she smiled the look was both pleased and deeply amused. "And now I'm going to stop teasing you before we crash."

Sam took a deep breath and consciously loosened his grip on the steering wheel, not willing to admit aloud that that was probably a good idea. They drove on. When the Killers album ended Cass started up an old album by Third Eye Blind.

"How do you usually pass the time?" she asked after a few songs. Sam glanced at her curiously, and she clarified, "I mean, you spend half your time on the road. You can't possibly be entertained for hours on end by listening to the same cassettes over and over again. Do you and Dean play 'I Spy'? Are you one of those superhuman people who can read in the car without barfing?"

"You get sick if you read in the car?" Sam had been vaguely aware of this phenomenon, but having never experienced himself he'd always privately thought it was just an excuse Dean had used growing up to get out of doing schoolwork.

Cass groaned dramatically. "Yes. Car trips were always miserable as a kid—I can't believe you don't. So, what, you just read?"

"Sometimes. Not for fun, usually, just whatever I could find on whatever case we're driving to next. Sometimes I'll sleep, sometimes Dean and I talk…"

Sam shrugged. He was so used to being in the car with Dean for hours and hours on end that he no longer thought about it. It was just his version of normal, at this point. When he wasn't reading or dozing or talking to Dean, he was looking out the window and watching the scenery pass by. It never felt like the hours dragged on. Sometimes he'd look out the window and let his mind drift, and by the time he came back to himself hours had passed and they'd driven straight through three whole states.

He hardly even paid attention to the music. It wasn't even a matter of taste, really—Dean's old cassette tapes were just the sound of the Impala, as natural and necessary as the roaring of the engine or the rush of road noise or the rattle of the Legos his brother had shoved into the vent when he was a kid. Dean had had to practically rebuild the car from scratch. He could have taken the Legos out, but he didn't, and Sam had never bothered to ask why because he understood. That was just the way the car sounded, the way it was meant to sound.

Truthfully, Sam hadn't really put an adapter in the Impala because he wanted to listen to his own music. He'd had to put it in because it was just too wrong to drive Dean's car and play Dean's music without having his brother there.

It was only when his voice caught on the words that Sam realized he'd been saying all of this out loud. He glanced to the side, bracing himself for Cass's reaction because he hadn't meant to spill his guts like that. She offered him a small smile, but the expression was sad and her eyes were shining.

She cleared her throat softly and turned to look out the passenger side window. When she spoke her words were barely audible over the rumble of the truck. "I'm glad you have him back."

Sam's fingers tightened on the wheel again. Being with Cass felt so natural that it was easy to forget sometimes that she wasn't from here. That she'd left people behind. She'd changed the subject last night, but what little she'd said had only made Sam more curious about Alex, the tough-as-nails older sister who'd crush people under expensive designer heels. The older sister that Cass would never see again, and who she was clearly thinking of when Sam went on about how the Impala wasn't the same without his brother.

Tentatively, Sam asked, "Would you tell me about her?"

A quick glance allowed him to catch her lips twisting the way they always did when she was thoughtful or indecisive. After a long moment of consideration she sighed and relaxed back into her seat. "You'd like her." Smiling wistfully, she added, "She's a lawyer."

"Really?"

Cass nodded. "She was the reason I went to Georgetown. She was determined to graduate undergrad early and go straight into law school. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do yet, so I just… followed her." She huffed a little and admitted, "I was always following her. No matter where we moved." Sam caught the motion of her shaking her head from the corner of his eye. "I've decided there are two kinds of military brat: the kind who learns to make friends wherever they go, and the kind who never bothers because they know they're only going to move again."

"Alex was the first?" Sam guessed.

"And I was the second," Cass confirmed wryly. "She always made it look so easy, but for me it was hard. Impossibly hard. So I just trailed after her, and she was so kind about it, so patient. And whenever one of her friends complained about her weird, quiet little sister tagging along—" Cass snapped her fingers. "They weren't friends anymore. Just like that. And not because I asked, or anything. I agreed with them—I felt pathetic, trailing after Alex because I was too timid to make friends of my own. But Alex never looked at it that way. She said—"

Cass's breath hitched, and she let out a shaky sigh. Sam waited, his heart clenching when he caught the motion of Cass swiping at the corner of her eyes.

"She said, Friends are temporary. Sisters are forever." Another shaky breath, and then a forced laugh. "And then she told her friends that I had to hang out with them, because I was too smart to hang out with kids my own age."

"How much older is she?"

"Two and a half years. She was a senior when I was a freshman." She barked a short laugh and said, "I proved her right, though. I earned a tidy profit editing—or in some cases, flat-out writing—their college admission essays."

That startled a genuine laugh out of him. Sam teased, "And the FBI still let you in? After that flagrant and egregious fraud?"

"Oh, it came up on the polygraph," Cass assured him ruefully. "Everything comes up on the polygraph."

"Sounds ominous."

"You have no idea." She shook her head and said, "Anyway. Alex… she's a good older sister. Patient. Kind. Supportive. She never made me feel like an obnoxious tagalong, even when I was. Of course, all of this was exclusive to me—she's ruthless with everyone who's not family. She got a job right out of law school with a lobbying group in D.C., and she's amazing at it. She takes no shit."

"Sounds like someone else I know." Cass snorted softly at that, and Sam smiled before admitting, "I'm picturing a taller version of you, but in a suit and designer heels."

"God, no," Cass said immediately. "First of all, she's only 5'2". She tells people she's 5'4", but it's a dirty lie. That's half the reason for the heels. Secondly, she's been bleaching and straightening her hair since she was 12. You have to picture me minus half a foot, in a suit in heels, but looking more blonde and sleek and put together than I ever have or will in my entire life."

Sam hesitated, then admitted, "Now I'm just picturing Reese Witherspoon."

Cass laughed openly at that and said, "You're not that far off. Only, less pink."

They had to stop to fill up on gas not long after that, and although Sam offered to continue driving Cass took the keys from him, assuring him quite seriously that no amount of gas station coffee was going to keep her awake unless she took a turn in the driver's seat. It was Sam's turn to watch in amusement as she grumbled and re-adjusted the seat to reach the pedals with her much shorter legs. Before starting the truck she rummaged in her handbag and tossed her cheap mp3 player towards him.

"Here, pick something. And don't you fall asleep, either, because you'll have to give me directions once we get to Sioux Falls. I'm terrible at directions and these stone-age cell phones don't have GPS navigation on them."

"One of these days I'm gonna make you tell me about all the technological advances we have to look forward to in the next decade." He obediently connected the mp3 player to the auxiliary cord as Cass pulled out of the gas station, selecting the 'Playlists' option and beginning to browse. "'Classic Rock Detox'. That's the playlist you sent me?"

"Yep."

"Dean called it 'aggressively platonic'." Sam watched her closely for any reaction to these words, and was pleasantly surprised to see her cheeks go a light pink.

Cass coughed, then confessed, "I… may have put together a longer playlist and then systematically eliminated every song with even the slightest hint of romance in it."

Sam huffed in disbelief. "Seriously?"

"What?" She said defensively, not glancing at him while she checked the mirrors and merged back onto the highway. "We had our moment in the kitchen, and the next morning I was so sure you were about to have a deep emotional talk with me while I was all hungover and gross, but then all you said was that you wanted me to feel at home!" She shook her head. "I thought you weren't interested, so… yeah. I sent you an aggressively platonic playlist."

When she put it like that Sam could admit that it kind of made sense. And now, looking back, he wondered what might have happened if he had tried to talk about it with her that morning.

"I was going to," he said. Cass glanced curiously at him and he clarified, "Talk to you, I mean, the morning after the Witnesses. I started to, but then I backed out." He shook his head. "You were drunk. I didn't want to make assumptions."

"That's fair." Cass paused, then admitted, "And probably for the best, because if you'd tried to have that conversation with me while I reeked of whiskey I think I would have tried to run away. Or barfed on you. Maybe both."

Sam chuckled and looked back to the mp3 player hopefully. "Is there an uncensored version of that playlist on here somewhere?" He was deeply curious about what she'd wanted to send him before she'd cut out all the love songs.

"No, sorry. I'll recreate it for you sometime."

"I'd like that." Sam scrolled through the playlists. After 'Classic Rock Detox' there was 'Country Drive', 'Dr. Demento', and then— "This one's just called 'French'." Opening it revealed a rather short playlist which appeared to be nothing but French songs.

"Yep," Cass agreed, popping the 'p' sound and then warning him quite seriously, "Don't put it on if you're not prepared for a sing-along."

Sam raised his eyebrows and pressed play. Cass laughed, but true to her promise she did sing along. She had a pleasant singing voice—not skilled or professional by any means, but better than Sam had expected considering the only other time he'd heard her sing, the drunken, tuneless crooning along to ABBA. She sang with a smooth confidence that made Sam think that she'd sung along to these songs dozens of times before. He could picture it, could envision her baking or doing dishes or folding laundry around her old apartment, dancing across the room and singing while she took care of chores. He wondered if she ever did that at Bobby's place while he and Dean were on the road.

"Your accent's good," Sam said when the second song had ended. He was hardly an expert, since he'd studied Spanish and not French, but the words sounded natural coming from her mouth and didn't seem to be impeded by a lingering American accent.

"Merci," Cass said smoothly, accentuating the 'r' sound. Then, with wry humor, "That talent only applies to French, though. I never mastered the German or Russian 'r' sounds, so I sound French in every language but English."

"Do you have playlists for those, too?"

Cass shook her head. "I don't know enough German songs to warrant a playlist, and the only Russian song I know is a stunningly depressing tune about how bad things can't take away what you love if you never have anything in the first place."

"Sounds very Russian."

When the French songs came to an end Sam looked for another playlist. Some were clearly exercise-oriented, with names like 'Fun Run' or 'Sprint', while others were self-explanatory, things like 'Irish Folk Music' or 'Nerd Rock'. Sam hesitated over this last one, his eyes finding the playlist that came directly after it. This one's title was not self-explanatory, and Sam asked about it curiously.

"'Parker'?"

Cass stiffened immediately. "Don't play that one."

Sam looked at her, concerned by that reaction. "What is it?" Cass glanced at him quickly before turning her eyes back to the road. She looked… uncomfortable wasn't the right word, but it was close. Uneasy, maybe. She bit her lip, focusing on the road, and Sam began to wonder if she was going to answer him at all.

"Who," she said at last, quietly. "Who is it. It's… not really a driving conversation."

Sam frowned, trying to remember if the name Parker had ever come up in any of their conversations and drawing a blank. The reminder had clearly upset Cass—but it must be someone important, or else she wouldn't have a playlist with this person's name on her mp3 player. He thought he could guess the context, too, if the fact that Cass had made him a playlist was anything to go by. But based on the tension in her shoulders and the grip she had on the steering wheel, Sam could tell that it really wasn't something it'd be wise to push while driving.

"Alright," he said easily. Cass sighed, her grip on the steering wheel loosening as he said, "Any requests?"

She hummed thoughtfully. "You ever heard of The Fratellis?"

"I don't think so."

"Put 'em on, then. I think you'll like them."